Monday, January 4, 2021


Today's post has no unifying theme. It is a random grab-bag.

Gasoline and diesel

Availability of fuel is a major issue if/when things become kinetic. There are currently 230 million barrels of refined gasoline* in the "pipeline" which is thirty-day's supply or roughly forty gallons per vehicle. (Note: there are about 270 million registered vehicles in the US but not all of them are gasoline powered)

If every drop between the cracking-tower and the hose feeding it into vehicles can be stripped dry...that is.

I don't know how much is at the typical gas station but suspect it is about four-days worth. There is one gas pump for every 1000 households in America. It would not go far.

If the tank of the typical vehicle is 1/3 full, than that adds another six gallons or an additional 15% and becomes a much larger percentage if the distribution network has glitches.

There are approximately forty-days worth of distillate in the pipeline. Distillate includes diesel, jet fuel, kerosene, heating oil.

I pulled something in my foot

I was just walking across the yard and got a cramp just as my left foot was coming down on a clump of grass.

I clearly strained one of the "stability" muscles in the bottom of my foot near the outside of the arch. I could go to the doctor and he would tell me to rest and elevate.

I think lack of stretching contributed to my issue. I know better.

Mrs ERJ refuses to give me a bell to call for her when I need more medicine sloshed into my glass. Sometimes that woman is stubborn.

Package of grape cuttings to Kansas

I got some cuttings taken to send to a lady in eastern Kansas. I threw in Steuben a bonus variety. Steuben is a late variety with good disease resistance. It seems to be one of those varieties that thrive even when under minimal care. One of my "big" finds is that grapes do better for leaf diseases when on 6' tall trellises compared to when they are on 4' tall trellises. I think it relates the better air circulation and earlier sun. The fruit ripens better, too.

*Tip-of-the-hat to John Wilder for the links


  1. Our local Costco has a 24 pump gas station and it gets 5-7 deliveries a DAY according to one of the attendants. It isn't a 24 hour station but their price is a good 20 cents/gallon less than the nearest Shell station.

  2. I there was a panic the same thing would happen with gas and diesel that happened with toilet paper. Stock up now. --ken

  3. The problem with storing fuel is that is doesn't reliably last more than 3 to 6 months. Sure is nice having a 500 gallon tank though.

  4. This fall I used some premium gas with Stabil that was in a tightly shut 55 gallon drum 4 years ago and it worked fine. Tried it first in my wood splitter then in my wife's Toyota and in my Dodge truck. No problem. But it has to be premium and it has to be sealed tight. ,---ken

    1. You are also blessed with cooler summer temps than most of us. Less heat to boil off the aromatics and more volatile parts of the mix.

  5. If you are serious about laying up some fuel, call Avery Oil and Propane in Rives Junction if you want to fill up large tanks (anything from 275 gallon used fuel oil tanks on stilts to 4,000 gallon tanks in containment with electric pumps). They are quite used to servicing farmers in this area.

    Their winter blend of off road diesel can readily be used up to 12 months old, and I use their ethanol free high octane gasoline with Stabil added for a similar duration.

    You can often find used tanks available on Craigslist regionally.

  6. Regarding Off Road Diesel. We had some city relatives visiting and I was putting diesel in my tractor. Great niece's husband was watching me and asked "what are you putting in there". Diesel fuel I replied "I've never seen diesel that color" he said. That's off road diesel I said. "What's off road diesel" he asked. I replied without thinking where this thought came from , Off road diesel is fuel specially formulated to give you better traction when you are off road. Like out in the field on your tractor or driving out in the woods in your truck. He believed me. I never told him I was BSing him.---ken

    1. Running off road diesel in your truck or car can get you a $10,000 fine. You probably should have told him that.

      Knew a guy who had a construction company. He ran out of fuel out in the boonies. Used some off road diesel to get to the next fuel stop. He ran two tanks through, but there was still enough residual dye in his tank to show that he had used off road diesel in his truck, when the DOT did a spot check.

  7. RE: storing gasoline - IIRC, it's recommended to buy gas to store AFTER the winter-to-spring switchover, if possible, if one is planning to store it long term. "Winter" gas has more volatiles in it (butane, for example) to improve cold weather starting which evaporate more quickly. "Summer" gas doesn't. There are also issues with long term storage on gas with ethanol in it, so buy only non-ethanol gas for long term storage and test it to make sure there's no ethanol (amazon sells testers, about $8, or use a clear glass bottle - 3 oz water and mark the level on the bottle, add a measured 8 oz gasoline, shake well and let stand for 20 minutes, ethanol is hydroscopic so it will mix with the water; after 20 minutes if the water level is above the water-only mark you made there's ethanol in the gas. The testers from Amazon have gradations to display what percentage ethanol is in the gas).

    I've stored non-ethanol summer gas in NATO cans for 3 years with PRI-G (10ml PRI-G per 20L non-ethanol gasoline) and not had a problem.