Grid power

As of yesterday, we have grid power.

As of today, we have grid power as our battery backup, so no more generator!

The Reluctant Farmer has had to do a lot of research and try out several different configurations to get all this working, but we are good to go. As someone told me today, there's nothing quite so handsome as a capable man. :D

As much as I would prefer to be completely off the grid, at this point, our solar and not-yet-installed wind power is just not enough to power a reasonably comfortable life, especially with doubling the size of the house. Still, the power bills will be lower than they'd be otherwise, and should there be a lengthy power outage, we still have enough from the sun to cover the basics.

Yippee!

Construction on the North Wing

Construction on the North Wing continued last week. The Reluctant Farmer's parents came from Saskatchewan to help with the building, and my parents came over to assist as well.

As you can see, the dads got along famously! The moms helped out with meals and did some touring in the area, and the end of the week saw all the exterior walls up and sheathed, the interior walls all framed and in place, and the north wing ready for trusses.

Today's good news is that trusses can be ready in a month - woohoo!

The Reluctant Farmer spent today working on the temporary electrical box that will allow us to connect to the grid: grid power is cheaper than the gasoline required to run our backup generator, and the sun just isn't quite enough to power the house (especially not with the addition). It'll be wonderful not to need to fill up jerry cans every other day, and to have quiet evenings without the roar of the generator in the background. With the solar panels and wind generator (yes, that will be installed before too much longer) we will be much less reliant on grid power, but it will be awesome not to have to worry quite so much about running out of fuel on a dark, chilly day.

Experimenting with colour

You can do interesting things with KoolAid powder, wool, and sunshine.

Place wool in a zip lock bag with warm water and unsweetened KoolAid powder. Add a splash of vinegar. Mush the wool around in the coloured water, then set the bag out in the sun for the afternoon. Remove the wool, drain it, rinse it, and hang it to dry.

Voila, coloured wool!

For this experiment I used some washed fleece that I found lying around - I believe it came from the stash of miscellaneous fleeces that are in my shed outside. It's got some second cuts in it, so it wants to be spun up into something on the lumpy bumpy 'creative' side. (Second cuts are the little short bits of wool that you end up with when the shearer goes back over a section to get closer to the skin, somewhat analogous to the bits of hair that fall down your shirt when you get a haircut. They tend to make little lumps on the final spun yarn.)

I took the "strawberry kiwi" and spun it up into a reasonably lumpy thick-and-thin single, then spun up a very smooth thread from some commercially prepared white batting. The two plied together nicely to make a candy striped yarn that I'm attempting to make into ... something. Possibly a felted sunglasses/eyeglasses case, possibly a handbag ... I'll see what happens as I knit.

I carded the "cherry" and "grape" into fluffy bundles of fleece then spun them onto the same yarn, alternating colours. The end result is a fairly loosely spun pink-purple concoction that will probably also end up as some felted item. The openness of the spun wool should lend itself reasonably well to felting, and hey, at this point, it's all about the experiments.

Ahhh, I do love fibre.

Working on Gram and Grandpa's garage

Gram and Grandpa are building their garage, now that the weather dried up enough to get concrete poured and the walls put up.

On Sunday we went to help put the sheathing on the roof - we had a very productive (if extremely hot) work day. We got the whole thing done, nobody fell off the roof, and the worst injury was to my backside: I managed to stab a nail into my leg by sitting on the plastic bag of roofing nails as I attempted to scoot along the roof. Hey, at least it was clean - brand new nails aren't rusty or dirty. I got a nice bruise out of the deal though!

Here's a wonderful image of The Reluctant Farmer, posing for the camera. Handsome guy, eh?

All colours, shapes and sizes

God makes lots of people in all colours, shapes and sizes.
He loves them very much and what we need to realize is
that calling people names because they're different is wrong.
Instead we need to look on them in love, and sing this song:

I can be your friend (la la la) I can be your friend
If your hair is red or yellow, we can have lunch, I'll share my Jell-o! ...

I do love Veggie-Tales. :)

This morning my company attended an annual breakfast hosted by Chrysalis, a local organization that assists people with a variety of disabilities to find their place in the larger community. While we were there, I noticed a young lady crossing the field: she used arm-brace crutches and had to wrestle her lower body with every step she took, but walk she did.

When I saw her, my first thought was that had my daughter Jessica's birth defects been less intense, my little girl might have grown up to be like her: earning every step with exhausting physical effort, leaning on metal crutches while dragging her reluctant legs forward. Jessica had a spinal column defect that would have created mobility problems and other challenges, had it been positioned lower on her spine. As it was, the Jessica's spine was damaged high on her neck and resulted in malformations in her brain. She could not have survived with the incomplete neural structures she was born with, so for her, it was a blessing that she was here only long enough to say hello and goodbye.

Still, had things been just a little different, I might have been taking my daughter to physiotherapy, doing exercises with her every day, fighting with her for every step. I might be thinking about things like wheelchair ramps and automatic doors when deciding where to eat out and where to shop, or dealing with the frustration of people not shovelling snow from their walks because we can't get through with a wheelchair or a kid on crutches. I might have had to rehearse explanataions of the assistive devices that become extensions of a damaged body, and forced to develop courteous responses for rude strangers - pointing out that just because a body or mind isn't as quick as yours doesn't mean the person inside that damaged body or slowed mind won't be hurt by cruel words or ignorant stares.

I thought about how easily it could have been my kid who needed the help of organizations like Chrysalis, and I was grateful to all the people who work so hard to ensure that our community welcomes people who come in unusual packages. And, I realized that I'm part of that community, too, and I vowed to be more open and welcoming to those who could so easily have been just like my kid, had things been just a little different.

Jell-0, anyone?

Construction begins

We're ready ... construction begins in earnest this week!

The subfloor is in place, the moat around the foundation is slowly drying, we have gravel spread on the driveway, and the materials for framing have been delivered. The power poles are in, the temporary power box is set up, and the motorhome is parked and ready to accommodate the extra bodies that will be here to assist with the wall-raising!


The Reluctant Farmer's parents will be arriving Sunday to help for a week, and my parents will be coming over most days as well. We have a contractor coordinating the whole adventure, and we are looking at hot sunny weather all week.

Next job: moving the tools out of the bathroom so that it is safe for people who are unaccustomed to stepping over skill saws and cordless drills on the way to the loo!

Happy feet

My sister and her husband sent me an LLBean gift certificate for my birthday.

Look what I got!