Beautiful sim. Looks like red oak. As someone who has split a lot of wood, wish it could incorporate more of the struggles of splitting logs.
- missing your spot by 6” or more and creating a tiny shard that goes flying
- the log you’re aiming at falling as you are in your backswing
- getting your maul stuck halfway down the split
I think this is blissfully ignorant. Walmart's model is built on creating prices and selection that are so attractive that it is very difficult to compete. Part of the way they do that is by extracting profits out and leaving only low paid employees locally.
Way more. First, a small business is not just a "family". Their employees are other members in the community. And there's the cascading effect because those folks are using their pay to go to local restaurants, the bowling alley, the hairdressers. When business like WM push prices down and make it so other businesses aren't able to compete, all you get locally is the ~minimum wage salary and the tax revenue. This might be "more efficient", but it comes at a cost to community.
I converted my small (~1400 sqft) MA log cabin house at 1500' elevation to a heat pump as main heat source in 2017. We also added a 8kW PV system at the same time.
It was a great choice, and we've been net negative since installation.
We also get a lot of passive solar via low angle sun through large windows. I think passive solar in winter is a completely under-appreciated benefit. On sunny days in winter we do not need heat for ~10 hours of the day.
We supplement our heat with a wood stove in very cold weather (< 20ºF). It's not necessary, but brings a cozy warmth.
No, not at all punishing for future crimes - just acknowledging issues and making sure they get attention to prevent them from getting worse. Local government has very little power to actually undo things that go wrong - it can often takes years, if it can happen at all. The time spent dealing with stupid shit that goes wrong is incredibly wasteful and means time and money is spent on that instead of actually moving the municipality forward. Therefore, the best medicine is equal and rigorous enforcement.
HOA is a whole different ballgame, not the same as zoning.
No, it's actually not at all about forcing people to live the way I (or the townsfolk) want to live, it's actually about making it so that the way you live your life is in harmony with the rules the municipality set. In Massaschusetts towns, zoning laws require a 2/3 vote at town meeting to be enacted - but I'm not sure how it works in MI.
It seems like you folks have never read zoning bylaws which a municipalities use to say what can and can't be done in certain areas. Believe it or not, city planning is incredibly important to ensure that a town can efficiently tax its inhabitants to fund the services that have become an expectation of normal life.
If you don't like your zoning laws, you should get involved in local politics and try to change the things you don't like.
In fact Long Lake Township has a 238 page document that lays this out.
Having been a selectboard member in a small town in MA, I can put forth that rigorous enforcement of contracts, bylaws and laws is the best way to avoid issues spiraling out of control to becoming bigger costlier time-sucks affecting more and more people and wasting more of everybody's time.
With many people who push the boundaries, one thing often leads to another, which leads to more costly measures of getting violators back into compliance.
Yes, often the first violation doesn't seem too big, but those violations are often indications of more to come.
But the issue has been that municipal taxes are a zero-sum game. People expect taxes to stay at a constant level unless they are getting additional services. So allocating more taxes in one place pulls taxes from another.
By not funding retirement immediately, you can keep taxes constant and not diminish current services.
But most importantly, the single-most-explanative reason why we services have gotten more expensive is because of this ignored tsunami of additional costs caused by the proliferation of the automobile.
Massachusetts has a nice page about the Eastern Pearlshell.
https://www.mass.gov/info-details/eastern-pearlshell
In the town of Sandisfield MA, I've found live mussels in the Clam River - which was named due mistakenly identity.