Electricity production on an off grid property is always an important consideration. Until now we had made do with banks of large second hand gel batteries that were 2 volt 1000 amph, but as these are getting older we were beginning to experience a few problems with them .
We decided to bite the bullet and purchase a brand new set of lead acid batteries that hopefully will be dependable for the next 10-20 years.
As they are lead acid they couldn't be stored inside the shed where the other batteries were, so hubby had to build a new little shed at the back of the power room to store the new batteries
He then connected this through the power room wall to the inverter and controller.
We have also purchased 8 new 250 watt solar panels, and we are halfway through installing them up on the roof, hubby has to put the last four up tomorrow. This will make a huge difference to our power supply, we will run the house off the new panels and batteries, and run the cool
room and laundry off the old panels and batteries.
Our building is progressing well, the builder is now up to doing all the trims, architraves and cover strips, we chose cover strips as we have a flat roofed house and we get a little movement and the strips will allow for that.
It is finally starting to look like a proper room now, and we are also really pleased with the more uniform look of the front of the house.
This morning I realized how great those three new front windows are, we had the most amazingly stunning red sunrise and the view through my new windows was just wonderful.
Our vegetable garden has been going well, we have been picking piles of green beans,spinach and have dug lot's of lovely new potatoes.
We pulled the small crop of beetroots that we planted and I pickled them into pints,( the lid went onto the water bath pot after I took this photo) they will come in handy over the summer days for salads and burgers.
The cauliflowers are growing nicely, they have just begun to form their lovely white heads, and we have also planted two raspberry vines that our next door neighbours on the coast gave us as a leaving gift.
We had a very special visitor for a couple of days and she loved helping her Pop with the chooks and turkeys, she is such a busy little person.
I also had a few goes at making soap, we have been saving the sheep fat when we butcher our sheep and the first batch I made we were really pleased with , so this time i did a batch with purple colour and berry fragrance and the other batch was green colour with green apple fragrance.
I mixed the green batch while it was still too hot and that is why it ended up with two colours.
It smalls delicious, almost edible, and if these batches are as nice to use as the first was I will be very pleased with it, I am really enjoying soap making and will continue to make more in the future.
Tonight we lit a bonfire of some dead wood,sticks,palm fronds and old furniture that wasn't worth donating or giving away, we invited the neighbours over and shared a few drinks and nibbles with them, we had a lovely evening.
We will probably have a few more fires over the next couple of months as we have several piles of dead tree stumps and sticks that need burning and we haven't been able to burn the last couple of years as it had been so dry and always happened to be windy when we would be here for a few days at a time.
We should soon be able to paint and tile the new area before much longer and finally will be able to unpack the rest of the boxes, it will be wonderful when my home gets back to normal.
So until we meet again,
Take care ,
Cheers,
Jane.
No comments:
Post a Comment