Random Acts of Progress

Well, we're a little stalled on installing the pump in M's water well, because the small print says you want an extra valve in the system if you're pumping more than 100 feet to keep from bleeding the water back into the well. This does, on reflection, seem more important than getting the well pumping NOW, so we've held off while M orders the part.

Yesterday we (hopefully) accomplished a major milestone in removing irritants from the infrastructure. [WARNING: Embarrassing disclosure follows - may not be child-safe] The owners paid a local "expert" to install the solar system and what should have been a ridiculously-overspeced battery bank about five years ago. And for five years, people have been saying things like "Why do we have so many big-ass batteries and so little electrical storage?" This is interspersed with statements like, "This isn't the way I was taught to wire a series-parallel circuit." But the "expert" insisted everything was fine, and nobody who lived here felt competent to do what in their hearts they wanted to, which was just re-wire the batteries. Well, since our population suddenly tripled this has become an issue once more, and quite the subject of conversation. One of our neighbors has been developing an expertise in off-grid DC systems, so we just decided to cut through the bullshit and hire him to come out and tell us what the hell is wrong. He diagrammed our circuit, bit through his cigar, and then rather shyly informed us that only six of those sixteen big-ass batteries are actually doing anything useful, and that two of the six have gone to meet Jesus. Yesterday he re-wired the fourteen good batteries and tweaked the voltage regulator. Early indications are encouraging: This morning for the first time since I bought it a few months ago, my coffee maker did NOT kill the system.

This morning we stripped the forms off the cabin piers and sorted the 2X12s I've held stacked at the staging area at the top of the ridge between those I'll use for the floor joists and those M will use to roof his powerhouse. Then we carried mine down the 30' hill to the cabin, which was all the work a sane person would wish on himself. I'm eating oatmeal between sentences in this post, and as soon as I'm done I'll get some bread going and then go back and do the bolting and screwing that will firmly establish those big 16' stringers. By then, if today goes the way the past three or four have, it'll be so hot there'll be nothing rational to do but siesta till four in the afternoon or so.