Moving our Solar Panels and Batteries

Once the water lines had been taken down and cut up into firewood for next year, the other big obstacle to excavations was my solar array and battery/electronics box. I was not a little leery of having heavy equipment tearing things up anywhere near my power station.

I anticipated this to be both a crisis, as well as an opportunity. I didn't want to risk my whole solar array to the whims of gravity either. With Donna and Grandpa helping, we gingerly detached the main support pipe from the tree trunk it had been attached to, and relocated it on the other side of my pathway to a new trunk.

I also dismantled the battery bank, and then with much grunting and groaning, rocked and rolled the box over to the new location as well. With Donna's help, I managed to level the box at the new location, and then reloaded the batteries - this time with good space between them, and no foam insulation. I don't anticipate that they will need to suffer another winter. I plan on locating them in the crawlspace under the cabin, foam insulation as an option but not a requirement. As long as the crawlspace stays around the freezing mark, I don't anticipate any real issues, aside from a reduction in overall capacity.

With only one or two sparks, I connected everything back together again, plugged in my panels, and voila! Power on the first try!

It was a good chance for me to clean out the box, spread out the batteries and do a bit of re-cabling. Now it is much easier to plug in other items, as well as charge the batteries from the generator if I ever have need to do that (now seemingly more unlikely for the remainder of the summer, but still, with a modified sine wave inverter, I do need to run the generator to power the washing machine).

It was a very windy day when I did this - the panels were really swaying. I decided that because we seemed to be charging up very consistently, I would tie down the panels semi-permanently facing south-south-west. Now we don't have to constantly be checking to make sure they track the sun every day. I also have the added sense of security that they are soundly fastened and no longer able to swing due to a sudden gust of wind.

Let's hope the next time I have to move these guys - it's to their permanent home on our cabin!

 

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Dismantling our Gravity-Fed Water System

Now that we have contacted F! and have arranged for excavation of our sauna and cabin building sites, it is time to prepare the location for some heavy equipment, followed up by some exciting construction!

I first prepared the area with Grandpa by staking out approximate squares where both the cabin, and the sauna would go. I placed our first two stakes where I thought the south-west wall should be, approximately 24' apart. Then, using a rope that turned about to be nearly a perfect size for it, I tied three knots - two that were 24' apart, and a third that was 34' from the second one. In my head, 24^2 is 576. 576*2 is 1152. The closest square to 1152 is 1156. That's close enough for my tastes. Thanks to Pythagoras, finally, a practical use for geometry!

After the ongoing failure of our water system over the winter, I had cut out a segment of the raised water lines to keep it from blocking our sunlight. Now that the snow was off the ground in that area, I decided to dismantle much of the remaining water line as it cut off access to the cabin site from our main driveway. Carefully saving the tie-wraps, I clipped free both the water line, as well as the electrical line that powered the sump pump.

With these lines out of danger, I knocked apart the log supports and untwisted the wires that had helped to hold them together until we could drive in spikes and screws. I tried as best I could to make the locations of the screws and spikes that I was unable to remove from the logs.

Piling the logs together, I got out the chainsaw and very gingerly cut them into stove lengths. As dull and beat up as my current blade is, I still wasn't interested in seeing what happens when chainsaw meets spike. As much as I put great effort into putting up the original water system, which did serve well until the lines froze, I took uncommon delight in cutting it down and rendering it too into something to keep us warm this upcoming season.

For now we will schlep buckets from the end of the hose, which is still closer than the neighbours. I also have decided to purchase a water filter - likely a Big Berkey with British Berkeshire filters. Not that I'm an expert, by any means, but a bit of internet research seems to indicate that the "American" filters are of very poor quality, and the British ones, while making fewer claims to their abilities, are nearly bulletproof in terms of quality - and they have over 100 years of history to back them up. I'll try to remember to do a bit of a review of the filter after we have it and have used it for awhile.

Having our source of water back has been great, and now if we can also drink said water, we will be much further along our journey to some independence!

 

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Spring Run-Off

As I have complained about lately, we have had an excess of snow. In fact, although much of our snow is gone, it is snowing as I type this - on May 11th.

 

This snow was a hassle to navigate while it existed. Now that it is melting rapidly, it has again become a hazard. It has turned most of our pathways and trails to mud. The truck and car have gotten stuck a few times just outside of the dojo tent - not because of ice, but now because of mud. Sigh.

For the past week we have abandoned the notion of driving up to the dojo tent. I now park both vehicles near the entrance of our property. The driveway is simply too soft, and I'm doing more damage driving up close than I care to repair with the tractor and grader blade once drier times arrive.

Halfway down the driveway, and continuing to the entrance, there is a veritable lake growing almost to the height of the gravel.

In an effort to prevent a full blown washout or stream across the driveway, Grandpa initiated a goal of creating a secondary ditch from this lake, directly to the highway and culvert. Kenny and I have regularly revisited the location to dredge it lower and lower. In this picture you can see it near the centre of view.

The melting of the snow is an exciting time though; it does clear the way for excavations to begin! Just today Grandpa and I set out preliminary stakes to mark off the cabin and sauna. We also discussed some other work to have done when F! arrives to do our heavy equipment work. Some ideas have included a greywater pit and a small pond. Both are exciting notions. I also like having a better idea of sight lines now that we have an idea where our cabin walls will really need to go.

 

 

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