Gas is supposed to go up tommorrow by .30 cents

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A good friend called us this evening, and told us that a lady who works at a local gas station told him that at opening tommorrow morning, gas was going up 30 cents a gallon, from $1.79 to $2.09. We went to the grocery after church last Sunday, and milk was $3.19 a gallon, up from $2.89. We are doing without. It is getting scary out there.

Hubby is talking about getting a couple of goats, and the uproar was deafening. We used to have them, and the kids still get teased at school about us having them. They don't want the extra work (Mom can't do it all; some, but not all), and are still mad at me about the chickens (they have to do the chores involved with them, so I guess they have a point---but it sure is nice to sail past the egg display at the store....).

Don't really have much of a point, but that I am afraid that stuff is getting ready to get incredibly expensive. We have been so spoiled. I hope we have what it takes to handle this!

-- Leann Banta (thelionandlamb@hotmail.com), June 12, 2000

Answers

what state are you from?

-- Pat (pmikul@pcpros.net), June 12, 2000.

Leann, YUCK!!!! Figures I'm planning to make a nearly 200 mile round trip tomorrow. I've been noticing that since the first of the year a lot of things either haven't been going on sale at the grocery or aren't as cheap when on sale. Hard to say what will happen, but I'd say that those of us who come to this board have a really good chance of making it through just about anything. Even the city-bound wannabes and those with crushing debt load that come here have at least started working on their personal resourcefulness and seperating basic needs from wants. Maybe this will be our y2k. Much slower, and harder to recognize, but still with the potential for devastation. There is news tonight that President Clinton wants the gas companies to explain the high gas prices in the Midwest. Don't know what will come of it, but it might slow the hikes around here.

As for the children and the chickens, I'd give the kids the option of not caring for the chickens. Then dang Mom and Dad's cholosterol counts and start cooking with eggs-which the kiddies opted out of eating when they opted out of caring for the chickens. Mmmm, fried chicken, Challah, cakes, cookies, omeletes and toast for brekkie (the kids just get toast). Has been known to work. As for the teasing at school, it won't do much good, but tell them that if they weren't getting teased about the goats, they'd be getting teased about something else. Is there some way to trade with the kids? You do the chickens and they do the garden or housework or cooking? Chickens might start looking pretty good to them rather quickly. Gerbil

-- Gerbil (ima_gerbil@hotmail.com), June 12, 2000.

In the east central zone gas is still around $1.59. Usually changes cost on a Friday. I filled up today, and will keep watch.

-- Anne (HT@HM.com), June 12, 2000.

--- Hello Leann, if you have the feed for them, and you or your hubby enjoy working with them, get the goats, the kids will adjust. Infact the day will come when being just a little different, will make them the coolest kids in school. In the mean time your family becomes a little more self-sufficient. Make the children do the work, definite responsibilities. They will piss-and-whine now, but like my son did when he was about 21, they'll look at they'er peers and thank you. We had all better get ready now. The prices we see at the pump will soon be multiplied throughout the rest of the economy, 1970's here we come.God bless you and yours. P.S. I have one son that's 21 and one daughter that's 6.

-- Mark Windbiel (mwindbiel@hotmail.com), June 13, 2000.

Leann , my children also whine .How about letting the kids help choose the goats .Hatch some chicks out , the kids will have fun and it won't seem to bad for a while .We are in upstate N.Y. gas is $1.60 and going up .Soon I won't be able to drive much , its getting to high .Get the kids more involved in the planning and picking of animals and if you can get at least 1 baby , most kids can't resist a baby anything !

-- Patty Gamble (fodfarms@slic.com), June 13, 2000.

Our gas is still $1.60 has been for 2 months but 25 miles away I can get it for $1.51 but it cost me 5 gallons to make the trip so the 9c difference is cheaper.

-- Hendo (redgate@echoweb.net), June 14, 2000.

Hendo--are you saying you only get 5 miles to the gallon!!!

-- Anne (HT@HM.com), June 14, 2000.

Hendo--are you saying you only get 5 miles to the gallon!!!?

-- Anne (HT@HM.com), June 14, 2000.

Anne, Hendo might be figuring on coming home again. Even at 10 mpg, that would still need to be a heavy truck, though.

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), June 14, 2000.

Wow, Hendo, I HOPE you are getting more than 5 miles per gallon! That is about what our old bus gets, when we have it loaded with our camp stuff!!! We live in Indiana. I am glad to have my little car: our daughter was in a bad truck wreck May 15, and broke her right femor. She is getting better (on a walker, no cast, thank God!), but there are a LOT of doctor appointments and lots of driving to get her there, so gas is a problem.

Goat babies are some of the sweetest babies in the world, and getting them might help winning the teenagers over, but we need the milk now, and a friend of ours offered us some nice papered Alpines from her pasturized herd (she needs to cut back). And you are right about the kids ar school; if they weren't teasing you about one thing, it would be something else!!!! Life is just that way, huh?

-- Leann Banta (thelionandlamb@hotmail.com), June 14, 2000.

Leann, you might try explaining to the kids that the milk costs too much to buy, so if you have it, you're going to have to raise it. I have been and am almost through raising three boys alone for 12+ years, and trust me, a democratic household can only be carried so far. You can be democratic about what kind of ice cream to make, or whether to have hot dogs or hamburgers when you cook out, but the long term things have to be decided by the parents, and whining will not be tolerated. Those who whine, get still more chores added to the workload. Whining begins to lessen rapidly. I found that life seemed to get better for all of us once I quit trying to run a democracy and began to run the roost. LOL I'm sure you already know this, but the society we live in now makes parents feel they are somehow cheating their children by leaving them out of the major decisions. I even knew one couple that let their two children decide if they should have another baby!!!! As though the kids would be responsible for feeding, providing for and raising the third child!!

By the way, I guess my boys don't think I'm too much of a wicked old witch. The 20 year old and the 18 year old are still living here.

-- Green (ratdogs10@yahoo.com), June 14, 2000.

Leann, I'm from Indiana as well, and you're right, the price of fuel is skyrocketing. I have been waiting to fill the fuel oil tank thinking the prices would go down this summer. I'm not sure that's going to happen. Now I'm wondering whether I should call an order in right away before the prices get too high. We have a wood furnace, so only use the fuel oil for a couple of months. Our electric company also sent a notice in the last bill that they would be instituting rolling blackouts this summer when necessary to conserve electricity during summer heat waves. Just this week, our power has gone out two days in a row for 45 minutes to an hour. Coincidentally, the temperature was upper 80's (pushing 90 degrees) and really humid. I wonder if they haven't already started implementing their strategy. I heard on the news that Detroit is having major power outtages today due to the electric lines being overworked. I for one am more than glad I invested in a generator. Getting ready for the Y2k computer glitch has proven to be a blessing, even though predicted disruptions did not immediately occur. I feel much more secure knowing my freezer isn't going to defrost suddenly this summer because the power company pulls the switch.

-- Sandy (tripletreefarm@hotmail.com), June 14, 2000.

You think you have problems there! Petrol here is roughly equivilent over $5 a gallon!!!!

-- Sue Cuthbert (fareacre@btinternet.com), June 14, 2000.

Since the NBA finals is a good place to meet privately in public and "shake' a tail. I just got home from Indy. I paid 2.01 in Indy for a tank of fuel. I also attended the game and never saw one basket scored. Oh Well. Prices in Virginia are still 1.29 a gallon for 87 octane, Thank God for small favors !

-- Joel Rosen (Joel681@webtv.net), June 15, 2000.

Sue, we do appreciate that prices in England and Europe are higher than here, and have been for a long time, but you also have smaller countries and better public transportation. Most of us have little or no access to public transportation, so when the gas prices go up it really hurts.

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), June 15, 2000.

Joel, I know I'm going to regret asking this, but why would you feel the need to shake a tail at a basketball game? Especially one apparently so far from home? And then talk about it afterwards? Just curious.

-- Cash (cash@andcarry.com), June 16, 2000.

Well, Cash, I'll tell you and I don't think you'll regret it. My telephone and internet messages are monitered. By who ?-- whould be strick speculation on my part, I have long since quit let it bother me. I do have a device that let me know when they are tapping in. When I need to speak off the record about important issues with a select few--- I do it in public events that offer them no chance to prepare. The reason to talk about it was strickly ego. A certain part of my soul that allows to me to let them know that I am more intelligent than them. I can lose them in any wooded forest but the fact I can beat them on their own turf (city streets) is especially entertaining to me ! The law allows them to tap the phone for 90 seconds to see if the information fits the warrant ---in this cae they stayed on, so I mixed my ego with my message about gas prices. I hope you forgive me one of my pleasures in life.

-- Joel Rosen (Joel681@webtv.net), June 16, 2000.

Friday June 16, 5:30 pm Eastern Time US releases more emergency oil to La. refiners (UPDATE: Recasts throughout, adds background, DOE comment)

By Richard Valdmanis

NEW YORK, June 16 (Reuters) - The U.S. government on Friday released a second load of emergency crude oil from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) in a rare effort to rescue Louisiana refiners from a supply choke and protect consumers from surging gasoline prices.

The Department of Energy (DOE) said it will loan 500,000 barrels of oil to Conoco Inc. (NYSE:COCa - news) to keep the refiner's Lake Charles, Louisiana, plant operating -- one day after granting the same deal to Citgo Petroleum Corp. for its refinery in the same area.

Production at the two refineries of over 550,000 barrels per day (bpd), or nearly 3 percent of U.S. daily oil consumption, was threatened after a dry dock sank in the centre of the Calcasieu Shipping Channel, blocking the oil supply necessary to make gasoline, diesel and other refined products.

DOE officials said the emergency measure of releasing crude oil from the SPR was necessary to protect already tight U.S. gasoline supplies which have lead to some of the highest pump prices ever recorded.

``As with our decision yesterday, we are taking this action to avert a possible shortfall in gasoline and diesel fuel to American consumers at a time when supplies of these fuels are already tight,'' said Energy Secretary Bill Richardson.

National gasoline prices averaged a record $1.64 a gallon on Friday due to a supply crunch caused by high driving demand and low refiner output of a new anti-smog gasoline required at a third of the nation's pumps.

The DOE said that the 1.0 million barrels of loaned SPR oil will be shipped to the two refineries beginning on Sunday, with payback due in July.

Conoco and Citgo will have to replace the loaned oil with the same dollar amount of oil, so if the market price of oil falls during the loan period, they would have to put more back into the reserve, a DOE official said.

The refiners said they expect the loans will allow them to continue normal operations, although Conoco has already reduced its output by 50,000 bpd to 190,000 bpd since the channel was blocked, and has not decided when or if it will raise the level.

Citgo, a subsidiary of Venezuelan state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela, said Friday it has not had to reduce its output at its 310,000 bpd refinery, and will likely be able to keep running at full capacity throughout the channel's blockage.

The U.S. Coast Guard, overseeing the cleanup of the sunken dry dock said the ship channel is likely to remain closed at least through the weekend.

According to the DOE, there are nine oil tankers stranded in the channel as a result which can not be diverted until the dry dock is removed or a path is dredged.

-- Eric in TN (ems@nac.net), June 16, 2000.

-- (noneofyour@biz.com), July 13, 2001