Muddy farmdog ruining the new house? Solution:
Dan from Madison
Skunk Help With Social Networking
Last night I reaped the benefits of social networking, facebook in particular.
We finally finished our house on the farm and moved there on Friday. Around 8pm on Sunday our dog started going nuts inside the house, running from window to window, fully on point. Yep, this guy – Jameson. You may remember him from previous posts – 1/2 Airedale, 1/4 Bouvier, and 1/4 everything else. He has become quite the farm dog.
My wife headed to the door to unleash the beast and as the words “DON’T” were exiting my mouth he was off to the races. And I mean off to the races. We have clocked him at over 25 miles per hour in our pickup truck.
I hadn’t seen the real reason he was so wound up but wanted to see before we let him loose, where my wife was simply concerned about her horses and wanted him to turn a coyote or whatever inside out. Sadly for us, I was right. It was a skunk that our dog promptly cornered. The results were predictable. He ran to my wife to alert her and rubbed on her, as well as our cars.
I had to laugh as my luck hasn’t been too great lately and posted the following on my facebook page:
My wife’s dog just got skunked. Fan f*cking tastic.
I always refer to Jameson as my wife’s dog – long running joke.
Anyways, I was reminded instantly that we are friends with horse and rural property owners, as within minutes of my little joke facebook post, cures for our woes started to pile in. Here is the one that we used, and the one that worked pretty well:
1 Quart of Hydrogen Peroxide.. 1/4 cup of Baking Soda// 1 teaspoon of liquid Soap.. Sponge the solutin on the dogl let it sit for 5 minutes.. Rinse off with warm water.. It must be made Fresh for each INCIDENT..(Mixing these ingredients and storing them in a closed bottle will result in an explosion).. So get a couple bottles.. do one bath tonight and another in the morning.. That should help.. Good Luck
It worked as well as we could hope for. It eliminated about 95% of the stench from the dog, and we also used the solution on the surrounding area where the skunk let go.
This was an unexpected surprise and reminded me that a lot of people know a lot of things. In this particular case it was a very useful thing.
Cross posted at LITGM.
Heading to Indiana
I just loaded up my car with four long guns, five hand guns and a big assed box of ammunition. Bitter Clinger, indeed.
After a bit of work this morning I am heading to Indiana to meet friends old and new. For the last half decade we have gathered on a farm property once every autumn to enjoy the company of each other, and to celebrate the Second Amendment. We will enjoy some target shooting, grill some flesh, and have a beer or two (after shooting, of course). Rumor mill has it that we will have some ladies joining us this year, and I think that is fantastic.
I look forward to this weekend each fall very much and feel sort of “cleansed” and refreshed when I return home. There is a lot wrong with America, but there are still a lot of very good people here, and many that understand that these rights that our forefathers gave us are to be cherished and celebrated.
Energy Policy (or lack thereof) Killing the Consumer
Around a decade or so ago a lot of things began to change in the world of residential HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning). What I am going to discuss here is HVAC centric, but can apply across any industry where the government can (and does) make rules that on the surface mean “well” but in reality, just end up costing the consumer bucks$$$.
About five years or so, the manufacture of central air conditioners was mandated to be no less than thirteen SEER (Seasonal Energy Efficiency Rating). The previous minimum was ten SEER.
On the surface, this doesn’t appear to cause too many problems, besides cost the consumers more money on their initial installation, since the 13 SEER product cost more money (more raw materials to get that energy savings). Sadly, the engineering and physics (which can’t be mandated) told us different.
From an article by Michael Prokup (sorry can’t find the link):
Older evaporator coils operate at lower temperatures and pressures than modern evaporator coils.
Without getting into too heavy of an engineering discussion, this means that basically, the new 13 SEER units won’t work well with the old evaporator coils that sit on top of the furnace. The air conditioning cycle uses condensation and evaporation of a chemical (at this time, it was R-22) to move the heat from inside the house to the outside. Moving from 10 SEER to 13 SEER changed the whole game. No longer could a contractor come to your house and simply replace the outside condensing unit – now the evaporator had to be replaced, adding a lot of cost to the job – especially if the inside unit was sheetrocked into a closet, or was in some other type of area that was difficult to access. Apartment building owners were also affected by this.