Farm Girl Studio

The Wind Mill has shown it's worth. We received our first electric bill for a full month of wind mill use. It was windy about half of the month, but I really won't be able to judge the savings until I have a couple of months to go by. The bill show that for the same month last year we used 77 kw of electric and it was and ave temp of 28 degree and this year we used 42 kw of electric and it was and ave temp of 24 degree. We don't have electric heat in the house, we try to use the wood burning stove as much as possible, but my studio is heated with electric baseboard heaters. I turn them on in the morning when I go feed and water the animals. I let it heat up for two hours and then Willow and I head out there. I turn the heat off when we leave for the day. I tried leaving them on low all the time, I don't believe the heater where turning off when they reached the desired temp. My bill was very high and it was too hot in there. It has not been as windy this month. I will u...

I went and joined Face book, not like I have alot of free time :). I went to two high schools, one out of state so it is really nice to catch up with old and new friends. Let me know if you want to be my "friend" and I will add you. On the home front today. It is frightingly cold today. Yesterday was in the high 40's now it below zero. Thankfully it is windy so the windmill is going full force. I just got our first fill bill for the propane tank. It was a crazy 907 dollars. Propane is about 70 cents a gallon more than it was last year! It was very cold last year and is suppose to be even colder this year. I am so glad we bought the wood stove, even though it is somewhat of a pain to keep going. It is totally worth it. Even if we lose power, and we do alot, you can cook on it also. Off to the studio with Willow. Have a great day.

It has turned cold here already and we still have alot to do to get ready for winter. The outside of the barn is done but we=Brian are still trying to get the inside ready for the goats. Brian came home early today from work not feeling well , he hardly ever gets sick. This will push the barn back some. We got our first fill on the propane tank yesterday. I hope we only need two this year. The wood stove help out so much last year. We are going to try to use it as much as possible this year also, we need to split more wood add this the list of things we need to get done soon. It has been very windy the last week and the wind mill has been turning most of the time. I can't wait to see how it effects our electric bill this year. I have been busy making beads and cooking alot. When I was in NC we had this wonderful pumpkin muffins. I made some yesterday. Here is the recipe they turned out very yummy :) Pumpkin Muffins 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon baking powder 1 1...

I had a couple of goals for going green that I started at the beginning of Summer. 1, to only use reuseable bags when shopping. 2, to not use the dryer and wash in cold water. 3, to recycle as much as possible. 4, to install the wind turbine. This is how it went, I did use the reuseable bags most of the time. A couple of times I forgot them in the car and had to use the plastic bags. I did recycle them though :P I found when I first started using my own bags the cashiers where taken a bit back. I usually pack them myself since they packed them too light. It also seems like more people are using reuseable bags so they are getting use to them. I have washed in only cold water and see no difference in my the cleaness of my clothes. I tryed to only dry the clothes outside but the weather was not on my side. I did limit the washing to days that were suppose to be clear but more than a couple of times it rained :( For the winter I am going to set up a line in the basement. I set u...