General

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    Spring in the Woods

    We had a dry April mostly with above normal temperatures. We weren’t complaining because it is spring.

    molly in garden_450

    Molly began her garden plan in late winter and started tomato and other seeds indoors. In late March into April she’s been planting onions and potatoes in the garden along with seeds and this weekend she hopes to plant her indoor-started plants in the garden.

    redbud_450

    I’ve been taking walks when there’s been a chance and one day I noticed that the redbud trees were blooming. This is a small redbud tree on the edge of the garden. In the background the large shed and the shack can barely be seen.

    redbud and bug_450

    Along with buds there are bugs!

    dogwood_450

    And flowering dogwoods of course.

    wild iris_450

    This is a patch of wild dwarf iris on the county line road south of our home. I hadn’t noticed this patch before. There is another patch across the road from our house and even more iris in the hollows. The iris is flowering now.

    We’ve had a week or more of rain and it’s cooler. The rain encouraged the trees to leaf out. Last week we could see our garden from the house, now we can’t because of all the green.

     

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    Lights in the Addition

    Our solar electric project is proving to be lots of fun. We have lights in the main part of the house and we are finding we can do a lot more in the evening — it’s just a lot easier to see than before with kerosene lighting.

    The next step was to wire the addition and install lighting. We did the wiring in the attic, dropping wire through conduit into the addition below for switches and plugs. Everything is on a single 15 amp circuit.

    attic_wiring

    We also installed four downlights (LED like all our lighting). We tried to put the lights in activity centers in the addition. Our hope is to install a new wood stove, next year, in the addition and be able to use this as a year-round living space like the main part of the house.

    downlight

    We have also been working on upgrades for the solar power generation — extra batteries and a new MPPT charger found on eBay are already installed.  More panels are next.