Week 7 Entry

[Brandon Martin]

This was the start of an interesting week. I have been having to do some different things that are more entailed with energy conservation. On one of the properties that had a land conservation easement created last year, I am looking into getting quotes for a solar powered water well pump. This is teaching me a lot about solar panels and how they are more efficient at saving energy. The hold up with solar powered is that it cost a lot of money. The solar powered system will be replacing a windmill system that utilized a pump jack to produce 2-3/min that feeds a 150 gallon stock watering tank for 30-40 yearlings (calves). In order to gather the correct information, my mentor guided me where to the proper resources and I had to use evaluate what it would take to replace the windmill. I first had to call the rancher and find out the depth of the well, static water level, volume of water needed, and other types of negligible information. Once I had all of that, I was able to contact various water well retailers and ask them about pricing. I learned that one solar panel will produce 175 watts. This amount of energy is enough to supply the tank with amounts of water that will keep it full. One down side to a solar panel is its vulnerability to hail damage. If this event happened regularly, it would prove to be too costly, however that is the risk involved. Additionally, I have just finished editing two of the reports and they look really good. Going through each report completely gives me the skills to get through the rest of the Baseline Inventory Reports more quickly and efficiently. We are on the verge of getting an 8th property in Morgan County, and I will update the blogs as soon as I have some more information.

I cannot believe how well this internship is going, at my 150 hour review Dr. Kross requested that I make an attempt to become more independent. I feel that I have met that request beyond expectations and will continue to get better at it. I rarely have to ask questions about what I am doing and have learned to trust my gut instinct a lot better. This has allowed me to make decisions that I would not have had that much confidence on in the past. I will be approaching my 300 hours here soon and I believe I will work past that until all of these reports are finished.