Scrounging Firewood (and other stuff)

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Saw something I haven’t seen in a long time today . A new gas powered school bus not a short bus mind you but a full sized bus .
My neighbor said the district bought the new ones this time around because they were cheaper and since they don’t keep them for more than 5 years the maintenance was less also ,and gas is much cheaper than diesel . And no more school closures because a few buses won’t start in February
One of my friends works in a shop that does mostly mostly light/medium duty trucks and vans, municipal, police, fire, ems, and refuse. He's said over the past few years there has been a big swing away from the diesels back to gas engines. Cheaper to work on, usually pretty reliable for the length of time they are kept. Said the 8.1L chevy engine and the Ford 7.3L has basically become a mainstay for the truck and van based chassis they work on. Said one of the municipal refuse companies has nearly completely switched to natural gas engine to get away from the emission/ after treatment problems they have with the diesels. It's not so far to believe school busses wouldn't follow suite, makes perfect sense these days.
 
One of my friends works in a shop that does mostly mostly light/medium duty trucks and vans, municipal, police, fire, ems, and refuse. He's said over the past few years there has been a big swing away from the diesels back to gas engines. Cheaper to work on, usually pretty reliable for the length of time they are kept. Said the 8.1L chevy engine and the Ford 7.3L has basically become a mainstay for the truck and van based chassis they work on. Said one of the municipal refuse companies has nearly completely switched to natural gas engine to get away from the emission/ after treatment problems they have with the diesels. It's not so far to believe school busses wouldn't follow suite, makes perfect sense these days.
I have been screaming for over a decade that school buses should run on Natural Gas.

Nothing like jogging down the road and have a diesel bus start moving in front of you ... not pleasant!!!

The technology to run on Natural Gas or Propane has been around for a long time. Heck when I worked in a warehouse in the 70s all the forklifts ran on propane. They were considered "safe" to run inside!
 
One of my friends works in a shop that does mostly mostly light/medium duty trucks and vans, municipal, police, fire, ems, and refuse. He's said over the past few years there has been a big swing away from the diesels back to gas engines. Cheaper to work on, usually pretty reliable for the length of time they are kept. Said the 8.1L chevy engine and the Ford 7.3L has basically become a mainstay for the truck and van based chassis they work on. Said one of the municipal refuse companies has nearly completely switched to natural gas engine to get away from the emission/ after treatment problems they have with the diesels. It's not so far to believe school busses wouldn't follow suite, makes perfect sense these days.
It’s idle time, I have a corrections truck in my shop right now, 8,000 miles. Cam bearing failure

Has enough hours on it that the 33-1 calculation shows it to have over 140,000 miles

Guess how man oil changes it’s had???
 
It’s idle time, I have a corrections truck in my shop right now, 8,000 miles. Cam bearing failure

Has enough hours on it that the 33-1 calculation shows it to have over 140,000 miles

Guess how man oil changes it’s had???
Zero would be my guess. People don't understand how bad prolonged idling is on an engine, especially a diesel.
 
I have been screaming for over a decade that school buses should run on Natural Gas.

Nothing like jogging down the road and have a diesel bus start moving in front of you ... not pleasant!!!

The technology to run on Natural Gas or Propane has been around for a long time. Heck when I worked in a warehouse in the 70s all the forklifts ran on propane. They were considered "safe" to run inside!
It would be good but is dependent upon there being natural gas… Much of NY has no service and the state’s efforts to eliminate fossil fuels and related pipelines eliminates the possibility…. The NYSDOT facility near me installed a NG fueling station maybe 10 years ago and removed it maybe 3 years ago….
 
We got natural gas here about 20 years ago, and I jumped on it as soon as it was available.

There were "good deals" if you signed up when they first brought it in.

It is so much cheaper, cleaner and less maintenance than oil it is ridiculous.

Plus, no waiting for "deliveries" it just always flows!

The current policies are asinine!
 
Hope you appreciate what you have. Parts of upstate NY are still beautiful, but downstate NY farms and open space (not gov owned) have all but disappeared, and the public hiking trails remind you of folks getting online to get on the subway. Trains bring them up from NYC on the weekends.

I'm fortunate to have my 50 acres in the Catskills (I paid only $300/acre in 1985). It was cheap because it is off the grid. You are not allowed to live there year-round. Land in NY is very expensive, and there are no spreads like yours. Unless it is cleared fields, we don't have endless prairie land like you do, it is pretty much all heavily wooded.

Hundred-acre horse farms down here go for millions of dollars, and the taxes are more than most ordinary folks earn in a year. It seems the more folks want to move out of NYC (often with very deep pockets) the more expensive everything gets. I remember driving through the Bronx with my father and he would say "This used to be all farms". Now you can go several counties above NYC and say the same thing. The largest remaining farms have either been purchased by the government or by not-for-profit entities.

Another problem, even though it is illegal, baiting is widespread and diminishes your hunting opportunities. I often see nice deer in Sept on the trial cams, and they all but disappear after bow season opens in Oct.

And don't get me started on all the illegals ... they don't even try to enforce the hunting and fishing regulations on them. It is a sad state of affairs!

Friend where I get a lot of firewood owns the Gardnertown horse farm in Newburg . Think it’s about 80 acres I cringe at the thought what his taxes are
 
Mine are 1.66 per acre...

Doesn't seem like a lot, but at scale, it adds up.
Ours would be 12.50 per acre for forested land. We have it in Managed Forest Law which almost halves it. $40 an acre if you included the improvements.
 
I have been screaming for over a decade that school buses should run on Natural Gas.

Nothing like jogging down the road and have a diesel bus start moving in front of you ... not pleasant!!!

The technology to run on Natural Gas or Propane has been around for a long time. Heck when I worked in a warehouse in the 70s all the forklifts ran on propane. They were considered "safe" to run inside!
When I was a kid all our busses were propane.
 
My good friend lives in Steamboat CO and was sponsered by a snowboard company called Libtech. They make snowboards, so he painted his "log truck" with their name.

I **** you not, he would go out to where they were logging and would have them put a log on top of his car, as you can see in the picture. We would then cut it up for his firewood in the winter. In the rear seat is an old Stihl 041. He was a bit crazy.
Almost went there for our honeymoon, but decided on Whistler Blackcomb, mainly because of the elevation. It was awesome!
I know of that company, although I ski. I did snowboard once, but that's a long story.

Your friend would fit right in here :yes: .

I managed to get some vinyl on the walls in my new shop, unfortunately I'm not sponsered by them lol.
Got the carpet tiles down too, they even have oak leaves on them :).
Screenshot_20241123_072827_Photos.jpg
 
I live in new yorks hudsonvalley . My taxes are 6,000 for 1 acre , i work for a lady that has to sell her house in town . Because Her property and school taxes add up to over 25,000 a year . Her yards smaller than mine . But she has a small window store front . Her taxes was 12,500 last year . Doubled in one year . Cause all the city people bought everything up, and i mean its really weird , its all men who like men . Its sad
 

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