Update
The monsoon season has finally started, we get some rain once or twice a day, I haven’t had to water my garden in about 4 days (woo hoo!). Today has been mostly cloudy, but it hasn’t rained yet. The only drawback to the rainy days is we don’t get as much solar power… it means we have to really watch how much electricity we use, can’t run the computer all day, or run the refrigerator.
The hottest part of the summer has passed, the nights are cooling down, the days are still fairly warm/hot, but once the sun starts going down, I start looking for something to cover my arms, this morning it got down to 59 degrees F, I’m even starting to think about firewood for this winter, only have a couple of months of warm days & nights.
The garden is doing pretty well, but there has been some insect eating some of my plants, chewing the stems and killing the leaves, I’m pretty sure it’s cut worms. I know about using collars and such, I am looking for BT, that has always worked good for me in the past. I ordered some diatomaceous earth and a duster to apply it. I also ordered a hose end sprayer, I’m going to use an organic mix to spray for fertilizer.
We have been seeing lightening bugs, just a few at a time, but more and more each night. I’ve been told that before the summer is over, it will look like Christmas trees all lit up, I can’t wait to see that. :)
I have been cleaning a lady’s house out here, it’s much more fun cleaning someone else’s house for some reason. She thinks my house must be super clean because I do such a good job on hers… I hope she never sees my house! Living in a small, barely 2 room cabin/house, yeah, it’s clean, NOT! Hehehe, I tried to tell her that, but she doesn’t believe me… oh well.
This lady wants to sell her house and she wanted me to detail clean it, from the ceiling fans to the corners of the rooms, it’s been quite interesting… she is an artist and a very nice lady. The first day I worked over there, about 3 hours in, she asked me if I wanted to go into town, I said sure, we went to the bigger town nearby, then she took me to another town where I hadn’t been yet, we went shopping and I took advantage of being in town to stock up on foods and goods, I don’t think she was expecting me to get as much as I did, but I went as fast as I could, and she had plenty of room in her vehicle, it was quite the fun day. She has offered to take me into town any time …
These panels have a limited lifespan, usually MUCH less than the other types of panels. If you have the $ to buy 760 watts, they can be had for $2.98 per watt and are kick butt panels. https://www.sunelec.com/
If you want to learn LOTS about solar electric stuff go hang out on the forum at https://www.wind-sun.com/ForumVB/
The bottom line is the the HF panels are ASI silicone that do not last very many years. I do have a 20% coupon for HF if you are interested email me at:
survival@roscoevideo.com
Take care,
Skip
June 23, 2008 11:36 PM
Wretha said…
Hi Skip, thanks for the info, I included the link in the message. If I had a spare 2 grand, I would probably order a pallet of solar panels from that company…
Email me directly about the coupon.
Wretha
wretha @ gmail . com (just remove the spaces)
June 24, 2008 4:22 PM
Wretha said…
Oops Skip, I didn’t see your email address until after I posted my reply, I’ll email you.
Wretha
June 24, 2008 4:23 PM
If you check with Steve Spence @ greentrust.org, he had mentioned on one of the yahoo groups about having the HF panels for a number of years already and they are still working fine.
June 30, 2008 10:25 PM