First run of the season

The weather is great, but not for long.

Just got a call back from the nut plant, and we are a GO for shells this morning.

I got the outfit all saddled up and ready to head out yesterday (While it was reasonably warm 38 F)
Will be heading down the mt here in a bit to Gitterdone.

Looking forward to having things up to near capacity for the early winter.

 

How do you move the shells once you get them home??

 

Our first winter here 12 years ago it was 17 below for the 1st week of December. It's suppose to be 45- 49 this next week and essentially has been this whole season so far. Last week it actually got down to 23 a few nights. Weird!

I had looked for shells and pits here before buying our pellet stove, I wanted a multi fuel approach, however there weren't many alternatives but corn. Being an organic farmer bringing GMO corn on the property wasn't an option.

 

Yesterday was likely the nastiest day that we have done a shell run since we have been doing it.

Was cold with a bit of ice pellets falling. Arrrrrrgh

The worst part was finding out that the crop this year was smaller than usual, plus the largest part of the crop is being shipped over seas in the shell.

We have about 3-4 weeks left to get all that we will need for the season stored up.

This will make things a tad sketchy.

We unloaded the first haul yesterday with minimal bother, but we really need two more to get through and have plenty to start next fall with.

I contacted the dumpster builder to see about getting another dumpster, and they thought they had one more miss-made one that was available.

Something about a test style that did not work well with the trucks.

As long as it has a lid and wheels, I'm good.

Guy is supposed to contact me today about $$$$

The Mods I made on the unit we have worked well.
Still need to make a little chute to guide the shells down into the bucket, but overall a great addition to the package.

I did a "Mickey Mouse" with some plate and some scrap clamped together to get an idea and to get through this load.

Was pretty good.

Once the level got down quite a bit I crawled inside the can and used the old "Boot trick" to keep the stuff shoved up to the hole.

I can think of far better ways to do this, butttttttttttttttt, the $$$$$$$$$ starts clouding the picture a lot.

Big $$$$$ costs can make things real easy, but then the savings go in the toilet.

The old ways were good, but with the truck gone it's all about just gittenerdone.

Right now storage capacity is the game plan.

Here are a few pix I took yesterday.

 

Snowy: Just had to say, that is a great plan for heat, and I hope the Price is right, Newberg Oregon has to be cold
by our temps here over on the east coast, By Ocean city Md 250 miles south of New York.
Good Luck this year

 

45 F right now

Yesterday it was barely above freezing.

 

eatonpcat

We load the shells in barrels and store some in the basement and others in an out building.

From there we sift them through a screen bottom bucket to remove any sticks (Auger jammers) into 5 gallon pails and pack them upstairs to the stoves.

Sort of gets ya warm many times over, ahHHH, but we were not breaking any sweat yesterday AT ALL

 

No luck on another dumpster at a decent price, but got hold of eleven 55 gallon food grade drums with removable clamp on tops.

Got to pick them up tomorrow.

With those filled and another dumpster filled, we will be good to go.

11 drums is equivalent to the 3 yard dumpster.
Nice part is I can stack the 55's when they empty out.

$10 each is a great price too.

Had no planned on any more drums, but at least we will have a full load on board.

Be sweet to have an indoor storage tank that could hold 10 yards, but $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

This works fine.
Empty one and then grab another from the barn and bring it to the house with the Bob cat and roll it into the basement on the cool little barrel tote.

Under most weather conditions a 55 lasts about 5 days with one stove burning.
A bit more fooling than some folks care for, but it's still cheap heat.

Plus it does not stink the house up like oil does.


Snowy

 

BINGO
Called around and score eleven 55 gallon storage barrels for our second dumpster full.

Local dude jacked me around for 2 days so we drove 50 miles and got some nice food grade steel barrels with removable lids and lock rings.

All home and snug now.

Tomorrow we will get them indoors and ready to fill on Friday.

Then make our last go round next week some time.

Place we bought these drums caters to PREPPERS.

They have a butt load of various sizes and types of clean containers for storage of solids and liquids.

The 55's were $17 each.
Originally we were looking at $10 each, but the no go no stock excuse don't fly this time.

Ahhh well, all happy now anyway

 

Been looking for the 55 gallon plastic removable lid barrels for awhile now for my corn. I found some for $18.33 ea, why the strange #'s. (6 x $20 -$10 discount). They are a little ways from home but it's giving me a chance to meet up with BAN83 who also has a Fahrenheit furnace.

 

Cool

The dude we dealt with has the 55 plastics with a band clamp type lids, but $40

I can live well with the steel 55's with the lid that has the bolt type band for $17 each

I don't want to spend more $$$$ on this than necessary.

 

Other places we're $30 and up, up. I don't want to spend more than necessary, as long I have enough for a ton or two of corn.

 

Wow, this thread spawned an idea. I had gotten my hands on a bunch of 55's for my new greenhouse project. I ended up changing the design and buried the hot air pipes into rocks beneath the raised bed planting areas to store the days heat in, so I didn't need the barrels. Sitting resident next to the farm equipment all this time destined for an unknown future. Instead the food grade banded barrels will be the new hoppers for the bags of pellets, I can store them right next to the back door all season, and remove them with the tractor in the Spring. The fines/dust will settle, helping to cut down the dust and we can scoop out the pellets as needed.

Thanks Snowy for waking me up!

 

Hey, it works.

With the shells, the only source is BULK, and we have to haul them from the plant.
Big issue is the storage capacity.

The handling is also an issue as well.

Over the many many years of doing this we have never had an issue with getting the stuff when we wanted it, but of late the sale of the nuts in the shell overseas has become quite prevalent, so there is not quite as much being processed and hence the lower amount of shells.

We have had about 20 of the 55 gallon barrels plus several smaller fiber barrels that we keep, but now we needed to up the capacity so we can hold a full 6 cubic yards of material PLUS.

If we get a nasty cold snap and need to run both Whits 24/7 we can plow through a bunch quickly.

I would rather have way more than needed.

Shell pig ya know.

Now who knows, next year may be a bumper crop and little going over seas and available from October to March.

I am not willing to chance it.

The other suppliers in the are are all selling their waste shells as half shells, and these will not feed.

The stuff we get are all run through a huge trash fan to break them up.


Ah well, just another day at the office.

 

You can fabricate a two roller crusher to crush them. Been handy with tools, I'm sure you will be able to tinker something out of nothing

 

Considering just that.

A small hopper with a pair of rollers

Not hard at all, just more fooling that I would rather avoid if possible.

This summer I may make a crusher

 

There you go, food for the mind Still be cheaper on the long run

 

Big issue here is that storing the stuff as "half shells" takes up huge amounts of extra space as compared to the stuff we now get.

Being run through a trash fan the stuff gets broken up real well and fills a barrel up to about 400 lbs.

The half shells will hardly make 200 per barrel.

Buttttt, if this is all that's available, it would be workable for a small amount, like a get through the season thing.

With the addition of the 11 extra storage barrels I think we are fine now.

Spent yesterday afternoon mucking out the outbuilding and getting things ready.

Here are some pix of the barrel hoard.
The ones that are clean are the new ones we picked up the other day.

The cost of the extra barrels is still far cheaper than the price of another dumpster.
The new dumpsters are selling for $500 plus now.

 

Got a weee break in the weather today and busted butt.
Went out and got the second load this afternoon before the next big rain maker comes ashore.

All snug in the barn tonight, and will unload the trailer tomorrow or Sunday.

Just real happy to have this second load in our possession.

Looks like we will get the final load some time this coming week, depending on the weather.

Gotta love it when a plan comes together.

Snowy