Care when collecting fuel for your wood burning stove
As one with a fair amount of experience with rural and suburban life, as well as basic medical care, I am here to caution those who collect their own wood for a household wood burning stove. I love stoves. I love the heat they provide and the huge slice they take out of your monthly heating bill. And I’m a big fan of the exercise they provide as well and the benefit that exercise can have on typically sedentary Americans.
But that’s the problem. Those people who rouse themselves to get out into the woods every fall to chop down wood for next winter are sedentary. And while the benefits and advantages of the wood stove call, the dangers of heart attack, accident, and cuts and scrapes only whisper. These can be mild, such as sprains, painful, involving pulled backs and broken bones, or life threatening in the case of heart attach and stroke. Those who go need to follow these guidelines.
Always bring a buddy. Whether an unwilling child, wife, or friend, never go wooding alone—and for goodness sake never use a chainsaw by yourself. Always have a phone to call for help, and make sure the person who comes with you knows where you are and can explain it to an emergency operator. Stretching, while perhaps sounding adolescent, can make the difference between a month of agony afterwards, or a pleasant day out. Also, have a first aid kit with you—one stocked with aspirin (especially for the 50+ year olders out there), splints, wound sanitizer, and bandages. Think ahead, plan ahead, and have help available.
Should You Lease Telecom Hardware Or Own?
Although America is very much an owner society, sometimes it is not always the wisest idea to own your telecom hardware when you can borrow it instead. Newly formed companies, temporary organizations, nonprofits, and even businesses with less of an IT focus and much more of a sales or services focus could benefit a great deal by opting to lease out an entire telecom system rather than purchasing a new one. To put it one way, sometimes it is simply cheaper and easier to use somebody else’s toys.
There are ways to dramatically reduce the cost of buying your telecom hardware outright, such as through tax breaks (IRS section 179, for example) or by purchasing refurbished hardware. However it is worth considering that not only will you pay a higher price up front for the equipment, with ownership comes the responsibility to maintain the systems. You will need trained professionals to maintain your telecommunications and information technology. Yet with leasing it is often possible to negotiate an arrangement where the leaser handles that responsibility for you.
Leasing your equipment is probably not one of the soundest strategies over a long period of time, but it is a useful tool to save capital to purchase your own system or for a temporary organization such as a call center. The low initial costs will allow you to reinvest the saved capital back into your company, creating more jobs and higher profit margins to make buying a new system much easier.