Mownie's been right on this one all along. There is always confusion between how temperature effects matter and how temperature effects humans. Temperature on matter effects the kinetic energy in the matter. Temperature on humans is felt as the "rate of heat loss". Humans want to be at 98.6F. No more, no less. When the ambient temperature is around 70F and you add the heat generated by the pumping of the heart and average movement, the human body reaches the 98.6 and pure happiness ensues. When we lower the temperature the rate of heat loss increases. Most people will say they are cold, but it is actually "the rate of heat loss" they are feeling. If you add a wind to this, the rate of heat loss will increase and humans will say they are colder. They should really be saying that their rate of heat loss is higher but they don't. Anyway, wind chill has no effect on matter except to get it to the actual temperature quicker, but on living beings this increase in heat loss becomes the same as lower temperature. By the way to test this. Go into your cold shed and touch a piece of metal and then touch a piece of cloth. You have to agree that if both materials have been in there all night they are both the same temperature. So why is the metal feeling so much colder then the cloth. Only because the metal is sucking away your heat quicker then the cloth. As humans we would say the metal is colder, but it is not. So in a nutshell, human's do not feel temperature, they only feel heat loss. Hope that makes sense.

Rickey, I think it was Billy J. because the cougar travels from our property onto his, through his woodland that separates us, and then gets his cats. The other Billy lives a half-mile north of me and his house is set back about 1/2 mile from the road---he is fairly new here and you likely wouldn't notice his place unless you noticed the green mailbox by the gate. He lives between the big new house west of J. road and the houses that face Old Burkhart. He stopped by the garden a few weeks ago and told me something was killing some of his chickens, and he'd seen a pit bull around and wanted me to watch out for the pit. I told him to watch out for the cougars, as I'd recently had the June cougar encounter. By the way, it is his property that they were seen crossing the other day, and that surprises me because he has several dogs. Unfortunately, none of his dogs are very large. I hope they're all OK. Keep an eye on your chihuahuas! The cougar I ran into along my garden fence the other day was walking along very slowly and stealthily, looking from side to side, and clearly hunting. It blended in really well with the dry grass so your little dogs might not notice it....and it absolutely did not make a sound walking through the tall grass. (We've since cut the grass back to stubble. I mean absolute stubble so a cougar cannot sneak up on us. First we mowed the grass as short as we could, and then I cut what was left with the weedeater.) I am about to go out to the garden to pick some more peppers to add to what I harvested this morning so I can finish the jalapeno bread and butter pickles. When I was out at this time yesterday, the rooster in the trap was having a crowing contest with my roosters. Of course, I didn't know it was a rooster in a trap, and was wondering why they suddenly had a rooster when they've never had chickens at all since we moved here. : ) So, if all is quiet when I go out in a few minutes, then maybe that is a good sign for us and a bad sign for the cougar. You probably did see a cougar's tail crossing into Fred's pasture. His neighbor that lives on the property kind of behind him has lost 12 or 13 chickens this year, and all but one disappeared without a trace. Fred has seen cougars in the past, although usually when he told me about them, he'd seen them at the old home place on the river west of Allen Rd. Back later after I finish all the pepper processing. Dawn

I suggest looking at "Batteries Plus". Their products are not the lowest cost, but I have had good service from their products both for automotive batteries and rechargeables for cameras. I live in a cold climate but my vehicles may also see very hot weather. I have 2 vehicles: one a 4 wheel drive for winter service and a sedan for the remainder of the year. The sedan gets stored in my garage when hte first road salt hits the streets and does not come out again until salting quits. Its typcial storeage time is from Dec. 10 until April 30. During storage time, the engine may be started and run 3 to 4 times for about 45 minutes. This not often enough for best practice. It should be run at laeat once a month. The battery can be a little low on charge. It must be kept charged enough to prevent freezing. During the summer months, my winter driver does not get driven much. It, too, gets started and run if it has sat for more than one month. It is stored in a closed garage that gets hot inside. Depending on the purpose, either vehicle may be taken on a trip of 1000 to 3000 miles. My summer driver is preferred since highway mileage for these vehicles are 30 miles/gal for the summer car and 20 max for the 4 wheel drive. My batteries last on the average of 5 years. Some would go longer, but gets changed if I detect reduced cranking ability or the battery is 4 yrs old and I am preparing for trip where increased reliability is a must. (Believe me, you do not want to be 200 miles from the nearest service with a dead battery with no available phone, no available cell phone, CB, or other communication.) For your case, your batteries are failing early. Even for the cheap models, I'd expect much better service. You say that your charging system is ok and the vehicle gets driven every 2 to 3 weeks. Your battery should last several years. I suspect that the battery is not getting enough charge and/or something is draining the battery. Some of those 6 mo. old batteries that were thrown away may have been serviceable and only needed a good charging. In modern cars, there are systems that place a small drain on the battery. One is the "keep alive" current supplied to various memories, the second is the security system, and a third is the remote key fob system. However, a charged battery should be able to supply these systems for several months. Look for excessive loads such as a glove box lamp, trunk lamp, or underhood lamp that remains lighted all the time. In some cars, the interior "dome" lamp is controlled by a solid state switch. A leak may occur here if the switch does not fully turn off. If your battery is not getting fully charged, a trickle charger could help. A simplier solution might be to drive the vehicle enough to charge the battery. For a number of modern cars, the ignition system will not work if the cranking voltage falls to 9 volts.

I think it is. My car has a 25mA current draw when sitting idle (that might be high, I don't know..it's got a bit of add-on equipment). So even before we even consider self-discharge, that means the battery has lost 4.2 amp-hours of it's capacity sitting for a week. Self-discharge estimates vary, but it goes up with the temperature. I figured that with self-discharge, I might be losing 8 amp-hours of capacity by letting it sit for a week. I guesstimate that the battery is about a 52 amp-hour capacity battery. (Group size 58 if I recall correctly--whatever fits in a 1988 Mustang 5.0--the original factory battery is specified as a 52-amp hour battery--I would expect that the Diehard replacement is about the same capacity) Allowing a car battery to discharge below about 10% reduces it's lifespan. In this case, that would be 5.2 amp-hours. The solar charger I used is a 3.2 watt charger from VW. VW ships every car they make with one of these chargers to keep the battery from going dead. I got two of them off Ebay for $40 shipped. (Do a search for VW solar charger on Ebay to find them). They plug in the cigarette lighter. They're probably the best charger out there for this type of thing. I hooked one up and tested it--even without being in direct sunlight, it was putting about 50mA into the battery. I didn't test it in direct sunlight (mainly because the clouds weren't cooperating, along with the angle of the space I was parked in), but the label says it puts out 170mA.