Some of the mechanical imprecisions of the machine come out on such a plastering of strokes, it’s got a good presence in a room nonetheless.
The Stove Fairy
Every year, one rainy Summer day the flues and the stoves undergo a deep cleaning. A rainy day is perfect because I can’t do much else and the soot is kept down when I work on the pipes outside. This year Esther was interested, and even though it’s VERY messy work I involved her. She did great and we had a discussion about how she’d be able to maintain her stove in her cabin. Music to my ears. I like that this is a default for her, she might not even have the concept of a house without a stove.
I remove the stove pipe, to clean up the inside all the way out the roof. It’s messy even with great efforts to catch it all.
The pipes hooked to the stove are taken outside to be cleaned. Ben’s pro tip: mark the pipes with chalk where you’re separating them, it makes it easier to line them back up.
We go through all the insides of the stove and clean up accumulated ash. The first firing of the year is usually very hot because no ash is there to provide insulation.
We move very slowly to keep flying ash particles to a minimum.
Everything gets scrubbed six ways to Sunday, first with soap, then with baking soda, followed by much rinsing. We cook on the stove for most of the year, it needs it. When it’s all clean we protect the iron with stove paste, I’m not sure what it does to protect it but you can definitely feel some patches soak up more paste than other. I’d do it just because it makes the stove beautiful.
Esther has lots of very good practical question these days, she understands how a stove works now. Apparently I’ll still be the one sweeping her cabin’s chimney.
We still love burning wood with no end in sight. This stove is the most important thing in the house and I take pleasure in giving it its ritualistic pampering.
Bracing for the Berrypocalypse
It’s about to hit
The hazelnuts too are getting ready
Oopsie
The oak went exactly where I wanted, but I misestimated its height. I should be able to patch the shed back up.
Slow Boiled Again
Solar battery degradation always happens slowly enough that I don’t realize how bad things have become. And as soon as I talk about replacing batteries, they know and completely give up on me.
For my first battery bank, I got AGM batteries which were nice but didn’t last as long as I thought they would. I liked that they were sealed and didn’t require maintenance, it was a good beginner choice.
When they died, I replaced them with more standard Flooded Lead Acid. They seem to be much most common around off griders in the area. In talking with them, they related many years of service for theirs. I figured I knew enough then, and I’d maintain them to prolong their lifetime. So I got Flooded Lead Acid for my next generation.
Well, I kept them only about 2.5 years and now they are very much toast. A friend of mine just got Lithium batteries, and since I was due for a replacement, I delved into it to see if it would be a good idea. Last I checked they were way more expensive per Ah (Amp hour), and I was a little suspicious of lithium having experienced its instability in small electronics batteries.
Turns out, while the price per Ah is indeed much more for Lithium, the price per Ah per cycle is about 5 times less. And in our case, we very much cycle our batteries. We don’t have a turbine to keep them charged 24/7. They have so many advantages I feel stupid I didn’t switch earlier. It’s always difficult to question established wisdom, especially from a place of ignorance. As far as I can tell Lithium batteries have the following advantages:
- 5 time cheaper when accounting for cycles
- 200 to 500 cycles for lead acid batteries, 4000 to 15000 for cycles which makes them cheaper and require less maintenance swapping and rewiring
- they are much, much lighter to carry
- no need to keep filling them with water (another point for less maintenance)
- no splashing acid
- no need to play reviving games with epsom salt (maintenance again…)
- no hydrogen gas release which a spark can blow up if allowed to accumulate
- more stable voltage provided
- actually provide their rated Ah (lead acid ratings are followed by recommendations to stay within a fraction of rating)
Some of these I can attest to already, the longevity ones remain to be seen.
So I replaced 5 lead acid batteries with 3 lithium ones, and the difference is night and day. But given how far gone they were, it would be true with anything.
I am definitely a bit more worried about the result of a failure. However, years ago I put all the electrical stuff in a shed detached from the house. I had no idea what I was doing with anything electrical and figured if I must set something on fire, it might as well not be the house. Today I’m still happy with the decision. Last Summer a house burnt down and people died in a neighboring village from a power tool battery charger which kept charging a Lithium battery. These are usually around 4Ah, you can imagine 3*100Ah would definitely set stuff on fire. I’ve been worried about all the small electronics we have in the house with their own Lithium batteries and probably a single sensor deciding if they should keep getting charged or not. Sensors fail. In any case, I’m happy to have these new batteries which promise to make my life easier, and to have them away from the house :).
My charge controller was rated for Lithium batteries, but it turns out that wasn’t true out of the box. Lithium technology is still new enough that not everything comes ready for it. Switching it over was, like too many things in life these days, a computer nightmare. Serial communication, bad software, bad translation, and no documentation. Even though I understand things better these days, I’m still baffled by how disparate information is about anything solar.
On the money front, these guys set me back $784. It’s pricey but nothing compared to years of electric bills. Our solar system has paid for itself a couple of time over, and only the batteries come with a recurring cost every few years.
Lastly I’m happy and eager to keep learning about all this, I’ve come a long way since the beginning. This understanding ties into electronics projects. Nicole got an electric lawnmower recently, and the ultimate goal is of course an electric car. I’m still working on scaling up, and improving processes and automation to get there. I can’t wait for the day where this solar array is my gas station.
Super Trailer
I really like the new ATV trailer. I can fit a whole canopy in it.
And when it’s dry, it’s useful to fill up at the stream and move lots of water.
Egg Thief
We couldn’t figure out how we kept losing eggs we temporary placed on the grain cans. The answer is that the chickens became acquainted with this raven. They usually make a ruckus when they’re around, but this guy gets a free pass even as he jumps around trying to make the egg fall.
Flying away, egg in beak
We thought a raven might be it, and so we kept bringing an egg every day around the same time until we could catch whatever it was in the act. We learned that it doesn’t like white eggs, only brown ones. No peanuts either. It really just wants 1 brown egg. For a bit I was dreaming of having a pet raven that would bring me shiny stuff in exchange for eggs, but it seems unreceptive to the idea, so we stopped the expensive daily tribute. I’m still hoping :).
Edit: Raven! it’s a raven not a crow :).
56,748 Circles
That one took several attempts and finally completed after ~40 hours. I wrote a way to have the plotter resume after power off to enable very long plots. The enormous deployment I’m working on will require it.
I’ve done a few other portraits over the Winter. Of my kids of course 🙂 They’re great subjects and I like to see them try to guess who’s on a nascent drawing.
Attempt #3
Getting a little better at least 🙂
In the Woods after a Rain
These guys are everywhere.
RC Adventures
While Esther is now old enough to pilot the cars
I’ve gotten sucked into the world of foam planes. The first 2 attempts did not go well…
Transparent Plotting
Alas, the Sun is nowhere to be seen these days so I didn’t yet see it projected on the blinds.
Edit: finally got some Sun
Diurnal Porcupine
It’s rare to run into these guys during the day. Robin found it, kept it company, and brought us to it. The porcupine wasn’t too happy about the commotion and hid under a covered tractor implement.
