Yule Stock Show Moon
Category Archives: Great Work
Quite an Array
Yule New (Stock Show) Moon
Called up our solar array on Alternative Energy Systems. Each of our microinverters, one per panel, sends out a message about its panels performance. 27 panels, 27 graphics with the amount of energy in watts being produced at any one moment. Very cool. Except for the fact that we have snow on the panels and only a few are producing at near optimum. Plus, even with tree cutting we’re still getting some shading. This will take some time, maybe a full year, to assess. The good news is that electricity now comes from the sun through the photovoltaic panels and into our home. (chart from today)
Crossing the Shadow Line
Yule Christmas Moon
A Christmas cold came to me three days ago. Nice present. On its way to other hosts now, still causing a bit of havoc here. My first one since April of 2014. I will get that nice post-illness bump in energy and joy just as we cross the shadow line into New Years.
Of course, this book metaphor is true every day, but somehow it feels truer right now. I’m looking forward to 2016, lots of plans, important events.
We’ve had single digit, below zero temps and look to have them for a while. We’re also snow covered, including much of our solar panels. They’re not switched on yet, but today around noon they should be. Golden Solar is redoing some electrical and hooking up our monitoring device. We’ll be able to read the output of each panel on our own solar internet page.
Ancientrails turns 11 in 2016. And turns out to have been the great writing project of my life. See you on the trail next year.
Smart
Samhain New (Winter) Moon
The wind was calmer today so I got more tree trunks cut into logs. Used my smart holder for the first time. It works pretty well, but I’ve got to get more facile with placing logs on it. A learning curve. Lots of fireplace size logs stacked between two trees, three stacks in all. This is the last step in the fire mitigation process for this season. Now the wood will dry for a year, be ready to split next fall. As soon as I get all the front tree trunks cut into fireplace size, I’ll move to the back and begin felling and limbing.
Getting my regular hour of Latin, but boy it’s coming hard right now. Not sure why. Struggling. Back to regular exercise, too, though most of my resistance time is still spent with arthritis alleviating exercises from Dana. I backed off a bit on them, tried to work in some other resistance, but the tingling returned, the left shoulder began to ping. Struggling a bit here, too. Not anywhere near my pre surgery levels.
Tomorrow we’re going to Sushi Harbor with Jon and Jen to celebrate Jon’s 47th birthday. I met Jon when he was 21. 47. Realized another milestone birthday must be when your first child turns 50.
Our neighbor Jude came over to wish us a Happy Hanukkah. Sweet of him.
2015 Home Project Year
Samhain Thanksgiving Moon
A father and son team came over Monday morning to do a site survey. Their task is to create a reliable internet connection between the modem and the garage. Might be wi-fi. Might be hardwired. Hardwired is the preference and that’s what they’ll work on first. Hopefully they can make all the ethernet jacks live at the same time. That would make positioning things in the future much more flexible. They’ll be back next Monday to work.
The kitchen remodel is on hiatus right now, waiting on the countertop’s creation and the arrival of various doors and a large cabinet injured in the first shipment. Kate’s got great ideas for color once the remodel is done. Slowly, slowly.
The December 29th date for switching on the solar panels has me a bit twitchy. The new rule promulgated by IREA (Intermountain Rural Electric Association) goes into effect on January 1st. It makes demand charges for peak load times, evenings here, so high that the result is solar panel investments will not pay out. IREA needs to install our net meter before January 1st for us to be grandfathered in under the old rules, rules that allow our solar investment to go positive in about 12 years. Having the same people in charge of installing our net meter who benefit if it’s done late doesn’t seem like the best thing, but it’s the way it is. And the 29th. So close.
Back to the fire mitigation today. I have some free time and warm weather has melted snow cover from downed trees I need to limb. This is an all winter project, taking advantage of various windows of acceptable weather conditions.
We’ve had a long string of projects this year. Makes sense since we’ve moved into a new house. After 20 years in Andover we’d adapted 153rd Avenue to our peculiar needs and values. Now in some sense we’re starting over. Each step, the bookshelves in the loft, the generator install, the new gas lines, the new boiler, the new stickley table, sealcoating the driveway, fire mitigation work, solar panels, the new bed and tempurpedic mattress, the kitchen remodel and now the loft internet connection have met some priority or another.
A few, the generator, gas lines and boiler, were driven by necessity. The seal coating was timely. The bookshelves, the kitchen remodel and the solar panels on the other hand are projects designed to make our home more responsive to our values. The new bed and mattress made sense given aging bones and joints. The fire mitigation is necessary, but also enjoyable, something I can do.
We are in these ways becoming native to this place, learning its contours and possibilities and just as important, it’s limitations. Home. Black Mountain Drive. On Shadow Mountain.
Sad
Samhain Thanksgiving Moon
Routine disrupted. My loft computer is now downstairs where I can hook it up to the internet. On Monday I have a serious computer service company coming out to create a wi-fi or hardwire setup. Calmed down after I made a decision to get it done once, then forget about it. My problem is that I obsess about these things until they get taken care of. If I’m trying and failing to fix things, then I keep obsessing. Tiring.
Sad about guns, about the killing, about terrorism, about the obtuse beliefs of NRA fanatics, about climate change deniers, about the too slow pace of change toward a sustainable future. Angry, too. Yes, angry. In the past sadness and anger have pushed me into political work. Got started when I was a freshman in high school and found the school itself a barrier to learning.
Today, though, I find myself on the sidelines watching a circus where the acrobats miss the trapeze, where the fire eater gets consumed by his element, where the animals smash the cages and trample the crowd. The world has once again sunk into madness.
Yes, the world is always mad. War began thousands of years ago. Slavery, too. People without power did terrible, unthinkable things to break free. So, in a way, the diagnosis of madness, of chaos and insanity, is a tautology. The world is. The world is mad.
It’s also true that any one action, any one person, even any political movement has little chance of creating change systemic enough to bring sanity. Yet, as Margaret Mead said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” It might be this action, this person, maybe you. It might be this political movement, this one you choose to support.
Where am I going here? What I want to say is that the only way to avoid despair is to choose to act in some way. I won’t be on the sidelines much longer, the projects of our making this home ours will finish and I’ll find somebody to team up with. Somebody to shake a fist with. To make what strangled sort of cry we can. Fatalism just doesn’t work for me. Might be about the third phase and our lives in it.
Samhain (Thanksgiving) Thanksgiving Moon
“The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature.”
Joseph Campbell
Lights, Power, Holidays!
Samhain Thanksgiving Moon
So many things moving together at this time of year and at this time of our settling in on Shadow Mountain.
The solar panels are now all in place. This was midday today. A final inspection from Jefferson County on Wednesday, then IREA (electrical company) has to come out and install the net meter, maybe three weeks. At that point we can switch on the power.
Hanukkah comes fast after Thanksgiving, so we have two festivals colliding in the rich way of Holiseason, commenting on each other, sharing light.
We’ve also got a few holiday/Holiseason decorations, non-sectarian, ready to go for the Thanksgiving visitors. These two plus the pine cone wreaths and a couple of large red ribbons for the garage will satisfy my longing for direct participation in the season.
The fox, the deer and the pinecone wreaths decorated in Hanukkah colors will go outside tomorrow or Wednesday.
The kitchen remodel, held up by Thanksgiving, gets started next Monday, the 30th. Even the generator seems to have regained its traction and may be actually functional soon. Then, finishing the loft, the downstairs bathroom and an external sprinkler system will be all we have left of the first round of make it our own projects. The boiler is in and working well.
We’re still under a year in the house, December 20th is our anniversary here.
Friday Matters
Samhain Thanksgiving Moon
Installation mid-point inspection today for solar panels. A steady snow came down when the Jefferson County inspector climbed on our roof with Nathan. What he said I don’t know since I was asleep at the time, but I’m sure we passed. Fortunately the remainder of the installation will take place on Monday, forecast as clear.
Kate and I drove to Home Depot and picked up various items, most relevant to the season. Fuel stabilizer for the snow blower fuel? Yes. Chains for the snow blower? Nope. Lighted, moving deer for a holiday inflection? Yes. Trufuel for the chainsaw? Yes. Clothing hook for the loft bathroom? A nice one from the pine cone cabin shop. Material for decorating the pine cone wreaths we bought at the Conifer High School Christmas boutique? Kate got those yesterday at Target. Lighted fox made from grapevine? Also from Target yesterday. Tire rack for the Michelin Latitudes now awaiting the end of snow? Nope. A normal sweep for this and that.
We had a mid-morning break at Lucile’s, another fine New Orleans food place. There’s a Luciles in Denver, too, but this one is closer to us. Chicory coffee cafe au lait and beignets. Delightful.
The snow has been coming down since sometime around 11:00 and it’s now almost three. This is wet, but not bulky. Pretty though.
Solar Project Continues
Samhain Thanksgiving Moon
Nathan and Luke have been on the roof all day. First, they used small pieces of plywood, maybe two feet by one foot, to scrape snow off the roof. They had to do this because the rails now in place make it impossible to use a broom to sweep snow down the roof’s pitch. What a chore.
Now they’re installing the micro-inverters which will allow segregation of panels and their production. This is cold, lonely work, much like roofing in the winter. But, they seem to enjoy it, cheerful and committed to solar energy generation.
Dana, the physical therapist, said her brother-in-law, an electrician, liked the plot of land she and her husband want to purchase. Excited, he said, “I can rig you up with solar panels and a battery that lasts for four days! How many times in Colorado do you go more than 4 days with no sun? You’d be off the grid.” An interesting point and I want to find out about the battery.
Solar is the ultimate sort of disaggregation, moving away from centralization by going directly to the source, no mediation save the solar panels. Being off grid, of course, only makes sense as long as there is a grid. The more folks move off, the less size grids will have.