Before heading down for Thanksgiving, I managed to get a little bit of stuff done. I went and started the winterizing of my equipment, beginning with the push mower (since it is the only thing I have that runs right). On my way back, I realized that I never finished cleaning up the stuff from the trench. Oops.
The push mower really didn't want to start, but it did, and it ran like crap the first minute or so after starting because it was kind of chilly out. To my surprise since I don't normally leave lots of gas in my equipment, it was completely full. Since I run everything empty every winter (I have had too many issues with fuel stabilizer over the years), I finally went out and mowed for the first time since July. I only did spot mowing; so I did the tall stuff on the hillside that hadn't been mowed since the first mowing of the season, the strip of thick stuff on the drain field.
I also did the side over by the tiny home, which hadn't been mowed since June-ish. It really needed it.
I also took a pass off the stuff encroaching on the driveway.
From there I just let it finish running out of gas, there wasn't much left.
After that, my help for the carport bailed for the weekend, so I took off to KY. I remembered to turn on my gas furnace, just in case. I am not sure I trust the mini-splits yet.
The sunrise in Maryland was quite nice. The actual sunrise picture I took was completely blown out though, not sure what my phone was doing.
A couple of things happened while I was down there. I fixed the back door on the girl's place. Realized that I didn't have enough stuff for the dishwasher cart, though I put the finishing touches on the design.
I also got the ball rolling on their Christmas present, a new heat pump. It was a bit more than I wanted to spend, but it will pay off in the long run for them, even despite not being a terribly efficient unit. The furnace and AC in the place were original from 1985.
The other big thing was the camper. I helped Dad fix the awning clips and took it for a ride. This was to gather the last data point I needed before making the decision on the box truck versus building a custom trailer; fuel economy estimates. I have a pretty good idea of what I can expect from a box truck (~15mpg, maybe a little less if I don't do aerodynamic improvements). I knew what hit naturally aspirated engines took when towing, but my truck is the new twin turbo smaller engines that are seemingly all the rage nowadays.
I did a two part trip. The first was to drive most of the way to West Virginia on the interstate. I then took country roads (route 60) back to my parents. Annoyingly on the trip all my drinks and everything were frozen since I had left them in the truck all week.
The results were a bit disappointing. The truck towed really really nice, other than Ford's defaults for trailer brakes was to not use them which is stupid. I set the cruise at 60mph, which is roughly where I used to run in the Tundra while towing. I almost couldn't feel the trailer behind me, and had plenty of power, even enough to pass people. That said, the gas mileage was significantly less than I had hoped for. On perfect flat ground the highest instantaneous was 12. The average with the hills and whatnot thrown in was 9.4mpg. I expected interstate to be bad, but not that bad.
The way back I averaged around 11.5-11.6mpg (I could math it out, but have been too lazy too), and the whole test averaged 10.3mpg (the computer claimed 10.6mpg, but the actual was a tiny bit lower). The way back is country roads, where speed limits range from 45-55mph but you go through all the little towns. 11.6mpg is actually better than both my Tundra and my Dad's truck, but I was still expecting better. My truck's baseline is 24mpg empty. The Tundra's baseline was 18-19mpg, and my dad's truck is 17-18mpg. So the drop for my truck while towing is quite a bit steeper. I had intended to run a second test in tow/haul mode, but these results were poor enough that it wasn't worth the time or fuel.
My truck only has a 3.5L V6 with twin turbos on it, and on paper it puts out a lot more HP and tons more torque than the V8 it replaced, but when those turbos spin up the gas mileage drops like a rock, and with a trailer they were spun up nearly the entire time. Just goes to show that there really isn't a substitution for a larger engine when towing. But this data point more or less made the decision to go box truck really easy. For a recap, see this spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1joS0cnFslyhG_VrULZ0k2euPrD8esFoRLtT72rFiR0Y/edit?usp=sharing but in short, I concluded that the trailer was better as a long term house, mostly because the size limitations were not an issue, but had distinct disadvantages when traveling; the box truck was more travel friendly, but because of the parking situation, had significant trade offs with regards to living space.
The drive home was quite pleasant, albeit a bit windy.
I got home before the first big snowstorm of the season. Because it was dark when I got out of work on Monday, I pulled the tractor down (it was up by the shed still). I still don't have the snowblower on it, but figured I could use the bucket, at least for the bit down by the road. Turns out when I pulled it down I knocked the tire completely off the rim, and it would no longer take air this morning. That is annoying. Fortunately we only got around 8", so I just put the truck in 4WD and drove over it. It will make an icy mess, but oh well, I don't have much of an option at this point. The tractor started right up though, which was a relief since it hadn't started in months.
While I have the truck out, I intend to go shopping and stuff tonight. Before Thanksgiving, I was running a test of alternatives to the Kraft Deli Deluxe cheese. It recently went up to $7.19 per pound, and I typically get two pounds a week. It is the single largest line item on my shopping list. Here were the results (scores were out of 10):
- Cabot singles: 6 - Not enough cheaper to warrant a change
- Hannaford Deli cheese - 3 - This is still the buttery cheese that pushed me to Kraft in the first place
- Hannaford Deluxe - 6 - The cheese Aunt gets, it is rather weak flavored, but not bad.
- Land o' Lakes pre-sliced - 6 - A decent cheese, but also not cheap, albeit cheaper than Kraft. Slices were too thin though, so I consume a lot more of it.
- Walmart Deluxe - 8 - Probably the best cheese outside of Kraft. A touch salty, but strongly flavored and about half the cost.
- Market Basket deluxe - 1 - Disgusting, worse than eating straight butter.
- Market Basket singles - 7 - It surprises me how different this was from the deluxe. This was a weaker flavored version that tasted like the Walmart Deluxe.
Walmart is not part of my weekly rotation of stores mostly because I don't like going in there, and I already have three stores that I visit weekly. That said, I do still get non-grocery stuff there, so I am there once a month or so. So I think I will just buy Walmart cheese in bulk when I do go there, and if I run out, the Market Basket singles can bridge a gap if I don't want to run to Walmart that week. I do have a few others to try, there are a couple of bulk options to try at Market Basket (Great Eastern Lakes cheese for example), but at least for now I will be moving ahead with Walmart cheese and Market Basket singles.
The rest of this week will be spent dealing with snow, since it is too cold for the next week to melt off. I definitely need to do something this weekend about the carport. My walk behind snowblower did not start, but I kind of expected that.
It is still up the hill, so I tried to pull start it (no electric) and it wouldn't go. It doesn't start easy with the electric start though, so I am not surprised. If I can't get it to start though, it might be time to buy an electric power shovel or something though.
