Category: The Cabin

We arrived for a relaxing weekend to see this 50+ foot ponderosa came down inches from the cabin. It is feet from the propane tank, and inches from the house itself; missed the pump house by three feet. This time of year the ground should be fully frozen, but this is a very dry year. Compared to years past there was very little snow fall. The Friday night we arrived, it rained about an inch. The rain is welcome, but it is loosening the root structures of the trees at a time when there is much more wind. Since December at least five trees have come down.

Today the kids got dirty. They love playing in the dust, dirt, and digging holes. We dug out the base camp counter top clothes washer. This is the first time we’ve used this. Filled it with hot water, dirty kids clothes, high efficiency detergent and let it run.

This thing is noisy! The mechanical timer by itself is noisy. The agitator is noisy. Our kids clothing was so dirty, I gave up after rinsing three times. This makes me wonder how much water we use at home washing kids clothing.

We are expanding the battery bank to three strings of batteries. The primary reason for doing this is to decrease the cycle depth. The bank typically drops to 12.6v each night. My goal is to get this closer to 12.7v to 12.75v. Two more DC335-6 batteries will bring the capacity to ~1000ah at 20C discharge rate. A 20C discharge rate is 50amps per hour for 20 hours. I figure on average our consumption is 10 to 15 amps per hour.

This is a mild winter. We spent the weekend at the cabin. Temperatures were high 20’s at night and mid 50’s during the day. Wonderful weather. The kids played outside a lot. I worked on the slash pile and played with my new Sony NEX 3n camera.

Spent some of my down time cutting up fire wood. I’m slowly reducing the burn piles. I’ve had these piles for two years now. The burning season is really restrictive (my own standards).