Biggreentruck made a major breakthrough with the improvised filtering system last week. The sturdy jugs have wire handles added to hang them outside the truck to filter into clean cubies or even inside the truck to filter straight into the tank. Now that the hand pump doesn't leak anymore, I can just pump the filters full of dirty fuel. Rather like reinventing the wheel, the process is slowly becoming more refined and less messy.The blue filter on the left in the photo is made of blue jeans rescued from a thrift store. They're supposed to filter to about 15 microns (the white one on the right is supposedly a 5 micron filter). It's a cheap alternative but is somehow slower than the finer filter.
As of today, I am back into the Naturalists at Large world. Biggreentruck and its full tank of Mariposa pizza and Chinese food oil bade farewell to Midpines yesterday. After camping on the beach and waking up to a cloudy morning-something that hasn't been scene in months in the mountains- we landed back at the NAL office. This fall promises to be exciting and busy with trips in Pinnacles, the southern Sierra, Joshua Tree, the Colorado River and (stay out of) Malibu (Lebowski).
Here's a link to a great commentary from the BBC about ethanol: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5369284.stm
