charged up about the new system

The solar trailer is no more!  Finally, the batteries, that we've had for 10 solid years, had had enough. So I got around to building a new way to hold all that extra power generation stuff.  A little box behind the house:

it was a nice little puzzle to work out how to get the inverter, charge controller, fuses and connections into a tight spot without causing other problems (like overheating):

Just 4 6 volts all in one series to make a 24 volt system that works with the old inverter.  Powering the chest freezer now!

Chimney holes

Deciding to just avoid all possible hot chimney pipe exposure to the walls, I've added a cement board outer wall:

There's still a gap, so I put cement board all the way around as well:

and then added a little extra aluminium at the top for heat buffering. Can't hurt, right?

Rescued umbrella

Home grown umbrella pole attached to canvas umbrella rescued from the trash.  Creates great shade!

hole on purpose

One more step towards fighting off the encroachment of nature on our stuff - removing mouse nest opportunities in the truck.    I finally decided to make the move and cut a hole in the plastic under the glove compartment.  Found a lot of leaves and mouse nest activity:

Cleaned that all out, made a wooden cover for the hole:

Sooner or later, the whole thing is going to be wood.

Sauna updates - ceiling and heat shield

more updates on the sauna, which started with this post

The ceiling started going in, with a vapor barrier above it (which is really just a bit of a drip stopper plan).  Those are cedar fence boards from the lumber yard. 

As the roof was getting done, I started prepping for the cement board and heat shield installation, and thought I'd throw a little more heat shielding onto the studs: 

Here's the cement board - my 'non-flammable material', layer 1: 

Ceiling got done. Later got a piece of trim at the ridge line. 

A round wood post went in to hold up the center of the 'high bench' so it can take a lot of weight: 

And after the corrugated metal went in (non-flammable material, layer 2) I set down an old piece of granite counter top and got the little stove in.  

Now to go get the chimney parts, and figure out how I'm going to cut a chimney hole. 

big things from the outdoors

Zuccs that got away:

Great Horned Beetle that won't go away:

One tree, saved for a rainy day: 

project picking up a little trash

So this little item was down in a gully quite a ways off the road.   It had been used as a shooting range target for a number of years.  

Here's a view of the uphill path it eventually took.  It's maybe 50 yards at about a 45 degree angle.

Surprisingly, with a bit of cable and some chains, it came out of the woods pretty easily.  Now to bag up the trash inside it and get it all hauled off the mountain.

Setting up to bake

The solar oven got wings the other day, to increase reflective heat gathering.  There's also a stick with nails in it to help position them. 

Dragged this cedar shed over from the neighbor's who wasn't using it.  

and took a day or so to get it into place. I had built a simple sled underneath it, to hold it together and slide it on the ground.

And got it settled.  Now to clean it up, add benches and wood stove, and have a sauna!

1. 
   

Thar be dragons here!

that apparently can climb ladders...

more holes

Truck fuel line had mouse chewed hole.  Took me a while to figure out why the truck wouldn't run on veg. 

Split a Log

So there was this big piece of log laying where I was hoping to have a flatter space, so I decided to try and lift it up and get it out of there.  Turns out it was bigger than I expected:

 So I got it flipped over - it was a slab from a tree with one side charred from some old forest fire -and decided if I could split it, I could move the two pieces easily. So I got my wedges and my hammers:

 And after much pounding and hacking, I got it split.   someday, I'll put these pieces on the sawmill and make some lumber from them.