In this episode Our Country Cottage reaches out to say it has lost power, the solar control unit stops logging and snow. In The Beginning, ITB, Month 23, June, standing water and a walk through inspection. In The Beginning, month 23. ITB is the part of the podcast where I collect all my emails, texts, logs, notes, pix etc to try to give the best recollection of the early days of OCC, Our Country Cottage. It seems to be getting harder and harder to figure out as the changes are getting smaller and smaller and sometimes none at all. I have vivid memories of arriving at the site and finding nothing had been done. Finding no one there was now getting common place but there was always hope that you just happened to miss them and stuff was getting done anyways. The next few months seemed to be the worst. Shure I had spent my first nights there but always in the back of my mind I had to be ready just in case someone showed up to do work. At this point OCC really didn’t feel like ours, yet. If you recall I ended last podcasts, ITB, still at OCC on my first two day stay. The beginning of a new month had me trying the downstairs shower for the first time. There seemed to be plenty of hot water, as I took my time with no signs of it cooling off. Happy, happy. Toast and coffee for breakfast and I took notes as to how much power the coffee maker and the toaster took. Outside was muddy and wet. I had planks on the mud to get to the generator and propane tank. I put down a couple of those wooden shipping pallets, one in front of the gen and one by the propane tank, to stand on. A rustic look for sure. With the grass and weeds starting to show an interest in growing I started looking into what it would take to convert the tractor from the winter snow moving configuration, to the summer grass lowering configuration. The tractor had been delivered in winter mode, with a promise the dealer would send someone out to help with the first conversion. Manuals were read, pix were taken and some loose ideas were mocked up with the idea of putting the heavy attachments on moving dollies so that I could wheel them around easily in the garage, once they were taken off of the tractor. The garage offered a nice smooth cement floor. And thus ended my first ever stay at OCC. I was back for a one day visit, 4 days later. There were signs of snow and standing water, still. I topped up the batteries and took the data from the temperature loggers. There was an increase in temperature in the utility room that coincided with me turning up the temperature on the hot water tank. Another 4 days pass and I was back for another overnight stay. Things were greening up, but there was a lot of mud to contend with. That damp corner, in the crawl space, was back adding urgency to getting the land, outside, to drain better. That will have to wait till we get a dry patch. If you think things get messy when to walk in mud, try driving a tractor through it while attempting to move some of it with a blade. It could only end badly. On the bright side, I got my first deer pics standing in tall grass to the south. Capped off the day with some moon images. The next day the project co-ordinator and the site supervisor were up for a walk through and to see what was left to do. This produced three pages of notes of items such as, marks on floor, dings in cabinets, missing light fixture or two, rusty roof edge, missing bits of siding, footings for deck stairs, broken window trim and on and on. Like I said, three pages of stuff. The project head had his own list which ended up with 17 or 18 items to be seen too. Some overlapped. His form was titled the Pre Delivery Inspection form. PDI for short. There was a place for the builder and a place for the home owner to sign. Neither were filled in that day. He did take those skylight blinds, that were the wrong size, with him, though. Handy tip, take pictures of paper work, use your phone, you then have a date stamped copy to refer to. I ran the dishwasher for the first time after turning on its water and setting a few things. On the last day of this visit I saw a red fox cross from the south and through the mud to the parking area. It was this day that I did the first load of laundry in our combo washer/dryer unit. A lot of manual reading and informed guesses got the job done. It actually produced some dry, clean items. A week goes by and I go up for a one day visit. The generator hadn’t run for awhile so I decided to start it manually for exercise. It fired up right away but was not charging and produced a “Start Fault” event. I cleared the error and put it back into auto. The gen stopped by itself five or ten mins later. Not sure what to make of it I left it. The site supervisor and helper showed up to drop off their work trailer and promised they would start working, again, the following day. It had been a while since much had been done. Another week passes and I am back for a longer stay. I managed to get pix of a large woodchuck on the stack of leftover bricks from the fireplace. Yup, leftover bits a pieces from construction were still scattered about adding to the ambiance of Our Country Cottage, in the mud. If you remember when I purchased the tractor I was told that they would send someone up to help me with my first conversion from winter to summer mode. That is, replace the snow blower and rear blade with the mower deck. Now, at the time of purchase, I was still under the impression that all I had to do was drive off of one and drive onto the other. Those TV commercials made it look so easy. And yes, I have to admit, there was a lot of wishful thinking going on there. With the passage of time and the reading of manuals etc, I became more aware of the reality, that it was much more than that. Good to their word, the actual guy that sold me the tractor, was the one that came up to show me how it was done. Try to get that in the city. I had already removed as much as I felt comfortable doing in prep for the visit. So the actual snow blower with its hydraulic lift kit and the rear blade were out of the way on customised movers dollies. The smooth cement of the garage floor made pushing these thing around easy. The salesman/tech arrived on time, with his own tools and went to work removing the driveshaft extension and a couple of mounting brackets. He then hung the auto connect unit for the mower deck and adjusted it. It was now time to drive the tractor onto the mower. He instructed me how to line it up and then drove it on, can’t remember if he did it or I did it, but it hooked up with no problem. There were some other minor adjustments but that was that. When I engaged the blades, it sounded like a jet engine spooling up. Needless to say I wear a hard hat with hearing protection while mowing. Already to mow the next day but it rained. It was while I was sitting on the couch watching the rain fall that I saw that red fox approach from the south again. This time I was ready and got some great pix while sitting on the couch. You can’t beat wildlife photography that you don’t even have to stand up for. I had been running my emergency alert system for a bit with various degrees of success. During this wet day I started looking into the code to see if I could make it work better. Being very power conscious I checked the performance and found it was running the main processor at 100% and consequently using more power than it needed to. OK it doesn’t use a lot of power anyway but every bit you can save helps. Bottom line, with the addition of a couple of lines of code added I got it down to 35%. At last, the last day of the visit I got to mow our one kilometre of fun. Pix were taken of the tractor and its new appendages along with pics of the drive with freshly mowed sides and centre. I also noticed that the baseboards and window trim in the loft over the garage had been installed. That wraps up ITB for month 23, a soggy June for sure. Now on with OCC, an update. With two and a half months since my last update, in some ways a lot has happened and in some ways not so much. The last podcast has my partner and I loading up the utility trailer with trash ready for a dump run. It wasn’t clear when a run to the dump could be done as the weather was getting colder and colder and chance of snow getting greater and greater. A flash of inspiration told me to put the loaded trailer in the garage ready to tow. Seemed like a good idea at the time. Anyway, my alert system told me one cold morning that Our Country Cottage was colder than norm. It was down to 2 and a quarter degrees C, just above freezing. I decided to go have a look. When I arrived I found the mud room was warmer than the livingroom along with the master bedroom being toasty as well. The thermostat in the living room was showing the temperature well below what it was to but it was not calling for heat. It was like the zones swapped. Very confusing. I checked and readjusted the settings for all the thermostats. That seemed to kick them into action and they were now calling for heat. Not very reassuring. I built a fire to help get the temp back up. There was snow on the ground about 4 or five inches. Didn’t have the time to clear the drive but I did use the roof rake to get about three inches of snow off of the solar panels. Always amazes me that the snow collects on them at that steep an angle. I topped up the batteries with distilled water and then collected all the data I could. The data loggers and the solar control system logs. I found that the logging for the system had stopped about a week earlier. Great, again with no data for the time period I need. Packed up and headed back to the city. Two days later and another alert system email. This time no power. Did the generator fail, again? So back I went. A nice sunny day. The batteries were down to 38% and the solar panels were charging at 7.2 Kilowatts. That’s the rated max for the array. Good stuff. The solar control reported that the generator had a “Fault No AC” error (IE generator was running but the system did not see any power). That being said the temperature inside was OK. Outside the gen showed no errors and the oil level was good. Propane was good at 68%. Hmmm. In the battery room I found the input breakers from the generator were tripped. I reset them and went back into OCC. At the solar control panel I pressed the manual start button for the generator and it fired right up. The only thing I can think of is that every so often different demands on the system line up and draw just a bit more that those breakers can take. It happens so infrequently (this is the second time ever) I don’t mind living on the edge. I collected the data again. This time the controller had been logging. Starting to suspect a certain SD card as causing the problem. The gen was still running when I put it back into auto and with the batteries at 69% continued to run as I left. Nine days pass with no more heart stopping emails, only the good emails telling me that the inside temps are holding ok. I decide to go up for a couple of nights. Another nice sunny day. My fave. The batteries were at 79% and being charged by the sun. Yes, the generator had stopped. After building a fire, I vacuumed OCC for the first time in a long time. I then plowed the drive. Back in OCC, wearing long undies and a tuque, I built another fire and had supper. Going to bed that night was a challenge. Even with long undies on, the bed was very, and I mean, very cold. The next morning brought snow and another chance to clear the drive and the panels. Oh joy. The last day of this visit had me topping up the oil in the generator and checking the propane level. 62% ok. This visit was somewhat miserable with the weather being mostly grey and overcast and not being able to stay warm inside. Also, with the trash trailer still parked in the garage my vehicle had to stay outside in the cold and snow. I was starting to think of where else I could put it in the future. Anyway, it didn’t help. With a masonry fireplace, a three day stay is not enough. The real heat was probably starting to happen the night I left. That’s probably why I was staying a week at a time before the gen broke last year. It was just over two and a half weeks before I went back again. I took up some more distilled water and topped up the batteries. I also checked and topped up the generator oil and noted the propane was down to 58%. Two days later, a break in the weather gave us the opportunity to take the utility trailer out of the garage and to the dump. Over eight hundred pounds of recycling and trash were disposed of. The empty trailer was then stored in the Quonset freeing up space in the garage. There was another longer delay before I would return, almost two weeks. Prepping for the holiday season had some part of that I guess. Anyway I had decided that OCC was not going to interrupt my xmas and to that ends I decided to drain OCC of its potential toilet tank bursting water and add RV anti freeze to the tender parts. The driveway, that kilometre of fun, demanded to be cleared again and at a point far down the drive I broke a shear bolt on the snow blower. The purpose of the shear bolt is that if the snow blower jams because of ice or rocks etc the bolt would break before the impellers would bend or the snow blower transmission would strip out. A lot cheaper and easier to replace a small bolt. Anyway, I had to go back to the cottage for the tools I needed to make repairs before I could carry on. I now had only one spare shear bolt left. Mental note, get more. While driving back I had an epiphany! Why not keep the two wrenches required to change the shear bolt in the tool box that is on the tractor? How many years has it been? Well that’s where the tools are now! Gad. When I left the batts were at 100%, propane at 51% and I topped up the generator oil again. Our Country Cottage was well behaved during our merry making days, but on the very last day of the year I got an ominous “Power Has Been Lost” email. Dah Dah daaaaaaahhhh! So, this update does bring you up to date to the end of the year. Tune in next episode to see what the New Year brings to Our Country Cottage. Also in the next episode, ITB, In The Beginning, month 24, will anything get done, will there be progress to the completion of OCC. For pictures and more info, you can visit our website at www.ourcountrycottageanarrative.com If you have any comments, questions or if you would like to be added to the “Friends of OCCaN” Our Country Cottage A Narrative, mailing list, you can email me at John@ourcountrycottageanarrative.com. Members on the mailing list will get website and podcast updates as soon as I do :). The Our Country Cottage a Narrative podcast is on iTunes, Stitcher and Google Play so you can subscribe there and get the podcast downloaded automatically when they get released. Till next time…. Happy New Year and don’t forget to smell the roses.