Judith Mountain Vineyard

Did you know that nearly 30% of all energy conservation house upgrade costs [heat, cool, water, spring/well development, insulation, windows, doors, biomass (wood) stoves], and nearly 30% of all home power costs and installations [solar panels, wind, and related equipment like batteries, wires, breakers, etc.], actualize as credits
toward your federal income tax?  Click here for details.

In Montana, as credits against our state income tax, we have forms ENRG-B [Alternative Energy] and ENRG-C [Energy Conservation] dedicated to exactly this purpose. There is a maximum credit for at least one of these items [between $5 and $6k, I think?] you can use in a given year; however, any extra carries forward!

So, when conducting a feasibility study or simple budget of whether or not items like wind, solar, solar hot water, on-demand water heat, and spray-in insulation will pay off over time vs. reductions in heating bills, remember these two important points:

1) Up to 30% the cost of the ‘green’ upgrades, and up to 30% off the cost of alternative power installations count ADDITIONALLY in your favor [in the form of tax credits]

2) Heating and utilities bills operate on an average national increase rate of 4%

Do the math. Lower your 2010 state and federal income taxes, future
utilities bills, and spend your cash on self-sustainability! -s

An incredible storm rolled through recently. Though, unlike
Shackleton [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/8499931.stm],
we didn’t leave anything behind while plowing through 200/so feet of
four-five foot drifts.

Update- finally! on the Judith Mountain Vineyard. We finally have a
real toilet, hot water, and a shower after THREE YEARS of living in a
14×14 foot cabin!

It’s amazing, in this time we’ve put in power,
water, a road, and a new home. We moved in on December 23rd, and love
living with the horses and goats and chickens. Our rooster ‘Re-peep’
[Peep's son] reminds me at nearly 5:24 am every morning to wake up and
stoke the fire. Getting used to it, at first we were thinking of stew
but now kind of enjoy it. This barnhouse is a cool system, with
animals –> humans –> waste back to animals, it’s pretty efficiently
cyclical, and entirely off the grid except for a propane on-demand
Bosch Aquastar hot water heater [awesome and inexpensive, by the way].

For the vines, the season finished off well is moderate temps,
dropping to freezing at night started in late September. On other
notes, looking into adding a distilling circuit on the future winery,
and growing bison, and adding on our long-awaited sauna or sweat
lodge. We’ll see how that turns out……

We are so blessed this holiday season, and many millions of thanks to
everyone who helped along the way. All of our friends and neighbors
dedicated time and effort for us to be here, advice and books and
texts, and we couldn’t be more grateful for everyone’s support. Come
visit! Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year -Scott

for the first time today we drove across a cattle guard and new
entrance along a graded road down to an insulated barn that has water
and power.  as steady as the country and homesteading are tough so are
the rewards.  when they finally come.

We recently discovered that on May 11th, at 1:39am in the morning,
Judith Mountain Vineyard witnessed a wind speed of 108 mph. This
shatters the previous record of 83.4 mph from November 8th, 2008.

for many laughs goto:

…and it looks like quite a few buds survived the horrid hammer sunday night.

Though the titled pun extends to our dirt works (filled since last),
referring to 5 inches of snow! I’m not going anywhere. So bring on
the rum, a little Hulu, and… well… all those things people do when
snowed in. Uh, like think of our pruning in two weeks… ;)

700 foot water slide another 700 for electric’s current

tap and outlets at the barn- priceless

…at the moment, until reality bills us

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