Z-Car » Green

Bugzooka – The answer to your stink bug woes

gsmith — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 18:17:29 +0000

Like most folks in the Mid-Atlantic states, our house has been infested with Stink Bugs. They first invade the home in early Fall, looking to find a warm place to hibernate through the Winter. Whenever a warm day appears, some will awaken, and crawl through your house looking to get back outdoors. These pests first arrived from Asia several years ago, and have quickly become a major nuisance. Our home is surrounded by Soybean fields, which is where the Stink Bugs love to spend their Summers.

Because there are so many of them. catching them is a very tedious process. To make matters worse, if they are scared, or you crush them when removing, you will get stunk! You can try to use a vacuum cleaner, however this quickly causes an unpleasant odor throughout your house. We resorted to catching in tissue and releasing outside still alive. This reduced the smell, but was time consuming and still resulted in stinky fingers.

I finally found the solution, the Bugzooka! I had tried several battery powered bug catchers, however they did not have a strong enough suction to reliably catch the tenacious stink bug. The Bugzooka is manually powered by large set of bellows at the end of the unit. You simply press them in until cocked. With a push of a button, the bellows expands and creates a strong vacuum that will catch almost an bug almost 100% of the time. The great thing about the Bugzooka is that it requires NO batteries, with a simply cocking of the device, you are ready to catch more bugs. The telescoping tube will allow you to reach stink bugs on the ceiling, top of walls, etc. No more mess, and also works on all other types of crawling insects as well.

In the first three minutes of using the Bugzooka, I caught over a dozen stink bugs. After turning it over to my kids, the rest of the house was de-stink-bugged within another 20 minutes. There was little odor, probably because th bugs are not actually killed. Simply unscrew the top, and dump the stink bugs outdoors.

If you are faced with a Stink Bug infestation, don’t wait, buy a Bugzooka today. You can click on the handy link below, and Amazon will have it to your door in just a few days.

BugZooka Bug Catcher: Get Stink bugs fast without all the mess!

Pretty Cherry Tree Blossoms in Maryland

gsmith — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 18:53:15 +0000

A great picture of a blooming Cherry Tree in our front yard. Spring has Sprung!

Sakura is the Japanese name for cherry trees and their blossoms. In English, the word “sakura” is equivalent to the Japanese flowering cherry and their blossoms are commonly called cherry blossoms. Cherry fruit (known in Japanese as sakuranbo) comes from another species of tree. In China the cherry blossom symbolizes feminine beauty, the feminine principle, or love in the language of herbs. In some countries, such as Japan and China, observing Cherry trees in bloom is almost a national pastime.

A Small Hawk and Lots of Small Birds in Backyard

gsmith — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 21:15:08 +0000

We buy hundreds of pounds of bird seed each year, all to keep our little friends happy, with tummies full, on a cold, snowy winter day. We usually have many, many birds visit us on any given day. Lots of cardinals, finches (they love Niger seed), wood peckers, and occasionally a hawk likes to come by to scare everyone. Usually we only see the hawk up in a tree, or flashing by quickly as he grabs a finch for a meal. Today, he rested casually at the edge of the deck. Pretty cool, huh?

Solar Pool Heater Keeps Kids Toasty

gsmith — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 04:00:57 +0000

Solar Water Heater for Pool

Right now I am sitting next to my pool while my kids are playing in the warm water. Last year I installed a solar hot water heater for my pool. In the pictures, you can see it in the back on the other side of the fence.

The water in the pool is a balmy 86 degrees, which is great considering that the outside temperature fell into the 50′s the past few days, and has only gotten up into the low 80′s during the day. Our neighbor was complaining that his pool was freezing, his kids would not jump into their 72 degree water! The computer controller allows us to set the thermostat for whatever our desired preference is. The kids like mid 80′s, I prefer high 80′s or even low 90′s.

Last year, one of my other neighbors said he kept his propane pool heater set at 86 degrees, and spent over $3,000 heating it just during the months of June-August. With the increase in fuel price, my guess is he spent even more this year.

I purchased my heater from a company called Hot Sun Industries Inc, run by a very knowledgeable fellow named Ken Wright. For just a little over a $1,000, I was able to buy everything I needed to setup our system. In two weekends, I was able to build the frame, install the collectors, and plumb the whole system together.

Not only do we have a warm pool, we are saving a huge amount of money each year, generating our own renewable source of heat, and allowing us to use the pool from the end of April all the way into October. Leave me a comment if you have any questions, if you have a pool, I highly recommend looking into a solar heater.

Texans Tilt at Windmills – Take Care Cries Sancho!

gsmith — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 15:08:56 +0000

Don Quixote beware, West Texans are erecting giant wind farms as quickly as they can. In order to move the electricity that is being generated, more than $4.9 billion is being spent on an ambitious plan to set up transmission lines to carry the wind power generated to surrounding urban areas.

The newly installed lines will be able to handle 18,000 MW, currently more than three time the amount of power currently being generated through existing wind farms. The new capacity will provide the infrastructure to greatly increase the number of windmills, and get that energy to customers who are located far from the actual power production. The Public Utility Commission will pay for the expansion with a $3-$4 surcharge on customer’s existing electric bill.

Texas estimates that they could produce over 500,000 MW solely on wind power. That type of capacity would equal almost 5 times Texas’s current electrical usage. If all goes as planned, the excess capacity could be sold off to other neighboring states, or even into Mexico. New windmills are being installed at a rapid rate, and has more than tripled in the last three years.

Boone Pickens is driving the charge in Texas, as the former oil man is investing over $10 Billion in the Mother of all Wind Farms. He recently claimed, “”I have the same feelings about wind, as I had about the best oil field I ever found.” This new wind farm would consist of over 2,00 turbines spread across 200,000 acres, and would have a capacity of between 2-4,000 MegaWatts.

The quaint windmills of Don Quixote’s time are now being replaced by giant turbines that stand as high as 20-story buildings. Although Sancho’s cry of warning would now be best heeded by the local birds and bats. However, the National Research Council, the research arm of the Academy of Sciences, recently has reported that wind turbines barely have any effect on bird populations. They claim very small numbers of deaths, but have warned that bats may be more at risk. Apparently these animals seem to be attracted to the windmills, although the reason why is unknown.

Once this project is completed, Texas will become the largest generator of clean, renewable, wind power. Not only will this project create thousands of new jobs here in the US, it will also be used as an example of what can be accomplished in a short time frame. It may take Texans a little time to get used to wind mills out in the field instead of oil wells, but this is great for Texas and for the US.

BMW – Mini to Produce Electric Cars in California

gsmith — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 15:24:06 +0000

It looks like consumers in California will soon be seeing electric Mini’s on the street. The Mini’s are made in Oxford, England. These examples will be partially assembled alongside the normal cars, minus the engine, gearbox and fuel tank. Then they’ll go over to parent company BMW’s facility in Munich, Germany, to be fitted with all the necessary electric drivetrain components and batteries before heading west.

BMW sources told Automotive News Europe that 490 of the Minis will be leased to selected customers in California and 10 will be used as show cars.

The electric cars will have yellow roofs, and will allow BMW to meet California’s requirement that carmakers start selling zero-emission vehicles.

Too bad that they are not bring the bad-ass PML Mini QED. Those blokes created a Monster electric Mini that features four 160HP electric motors, one on each wheel. The car has been designed to run for four hours of combined urban/extra urban driving, powered only by a battery and bank of ultra capacitors. A claimed top speed of 150 mph, a 0-60 mph time of 4.5 seconds, and a reported range of 932 miles when the ICE hybrid gas motor provides additional charge for the on-board batteries. In this hybrid mode, fuel economies of up to 80mpg can be achieved.

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