Finally completing our Grid.

We had made the decision to purchase some  big  heavy duty lead acid deep cycle batteries to complete our  storage system for our  house.
We  had arranged with Jarrod from Battery world at Tamworth to deliver the batteries on Friday.
e assumed as he had to travel several hours to deliver that he would most likely arrive mid-morning, but  much to our surprise  we received a phone call at 6.30 am to let us know  he was at our front gate.
He came up  and he and Brian unloaded the batteries off the trailer.

It was early and the sun had just came up and when I looked out I laughed as the circle of batteries  made me think of a mini Stonehenge...
These are huge batteries, each one weighs 130 kgs..

We  soon discovered that  they were too heavy to manhandle  and Brian decided to borrow the carry all from next door and we  were able to slide the batteries onto it .

We then  very slowly moved them up to where they were going to be unloaded.
Brian built a timber platform for them to sit on,

The tractor was reversed in close to the platform and we slid the batteries one by one over  onto it.

Brian then began  connecting up the batteries to one another ,

and began erecting the small shed that would be  placed over the top of the batteries to protect them.

While Brian was working over on that I decided to do some clearing of a pile of old timber and rubbish that has been slowly accumulating over the last few  years.

I  had an old 44 gallon burning drum and over  the two day period I finally cleared it all away. I am a real fire bug and I had a lovely time  tending the fire and keeping it stoked.

Brian completed  the shed and we   lifted it over, we thought we had bought an identical shed to what we had already, but  once erected we found they were slightly different.

They are all now connected to the solar panels and inverter and regulator and are working well, this now completes our  off grid set up it's just a shame we haven't had much sun since, to  really get  the charge into them fully.
While we were doing this,  i  cooked a batch of beetroots in a pot on the  lounge room fire and then water bathed them in the jars in there as well.

It was election day here in Australia on Saturday  and we got together with the BIL and SIL and their grandchildren  from next  and had a lovely hot finger food lunch, we had a very enjoyable few hours together.

We have still been hand feeding the sheep a bit of hay, as even though we have had  some lovely rain, due to the cold weather the grass really hasn't grown  that fast. It is green, just not lush.
I took this photo as Brian gave them a bale of hay in the feeder, I especially  loved  the cute on with the hay hanging out of it's mouth.

The shed is slowly clearing up,  Brian has knocked out some of the shelving, and the old second hand batteries have now been  taken down and  given to the neighbour , who in return has offered us  one of his pigs to butcher  that. he breeds . We are very happy with that arrangement.

It was   a horrible day here today, freezing cold, windy,  and sleety rain. We have laid low inside and I got  busy and made  a couple of batches of  mini quiches. I made 4 dozen salmon and 4 dozen  asparagus. I  have packed them all in the freezer for future use .

Hopefully tomorrow will be  a better day weather wise as  Brian hopes to  be able to go up the back and  cut some more wood so we will be able to keep the house warm next week while the grand kids are here. We are really looking forwards to their visit.
Take care every one , until we  meet  again down the track,
Cheers
Jane.