We had rainy weather this weekend, with snow predicted soon and bitter cold less than a week away as a polar vortex is expected to extend its tentacles our way. That’s OK. I prefer it to be 20°F and snowing than 40° and rainy. The dampness makes the air seem colder, and we are still fighting mud in what passes as our “yard” and on the private road where we have no gravel.
The only good news about the road is that the propane truck made it up on the last cold day and delivered more than 500 gallons of propane to my neighbor. He should be pretty well set for the balance of the winter.
After ending last winter, a warm one, with a surplus of firewood, I am concerned that we may run low this year as it has been a cold winter thus far. I continue to cut and split wood so that I have something to burn on those wintry days in April. I normally get a wood delivery in December and another in January, but it’s impossible to get a dump trailer up the hill right now. Plus, my normal storage location for the December delivery remains covered in mud from the landslide. I hope to get a delivery in January so I have some hardwoods to mix in with the fast-burning tulip polar we are cutting and splitting.
Solar Power for Power Outages
At my wife’s suggestion, I set our solar power system to keep the battery fully charged at all times during this period of adverse weather. We had one outage this weekend, but it was measured in hours, not days. The battery gives us about 30 hours of backup power if the weather knocks out the grid, so the outage had no impact on us. This setting also recharges the batteries using grid power if there is no sunshine. And because we expect bad weather for at least the next week, we won’t be generating much solar power.
When we have a sunny day, we can generate 30 kWh of power even near the shortest day of the year; the problem is, we have run out of sunny days. On Sunday, we generated only 2.7 kWh, barely enough to run the refrigerator for 24 hours.
For the month of December, we produced 505 kWh and consumed 736, meaning we produced more than two-thirds of the power we used. In August, when the days are longer, we produced more than 1100 kWh and used 970, a surplus of 13 percent.
Today, we can use the grid to make up our shortfall. In a grid-down scenario, we won’t have that option. We will have to minimize electricity use and conserve, as we did during Helene, or run the generator.
Generator Replacement
I took advantage of the lack of snow to drive down the mountain to exchange my Predator 8750 generator with an inverter for a new one. The model we bought in October and was delivered last month and while it produced plenty of 120 volt power, it could not or would not consistently produce 240 volt power. After four calls to the Harbor Freight technical support line, they decided there was a problem with the inverter and suggested I exchange the generator before the 90-day warranty expired. So I did.
Hopefully, this new one will work correctly and can successfully recharge the batteries in our solar power system. That will allow us to get through a week of rain or snow when we can’t produce solar power if there is another lengthy power outage.
The folks at Harbor Freight were very nice about the exchange. I was afraid there might be a problem since my friend Karl bought it for me in another state. I was returning it to a different store, without the credit card used to purchase it, and under a different name, but it was smooth sailing.
Granted, I have to spend a few hours this week unpacking the new one, setting it up, putting on the wheel kit, swapping in the high-altitude jet in the carburetor, and filling it with oil, but what else am I going to do on a wet, dismal day? I want to get it up, running and tested before the polar vortex hits.
The hardest part about the exchange, besides the lengthy round trip, was getting the 150-pound generator into the back of my pickup. I had to get out the ramps I use when I load the lawnmower into the back and my wife and I push-pulled it up them. Getting it out was easier, and the boxed generator was easy to move around using a hand truck, but the ramps still came in handy.
Gold and Silver Prices Fall
If you have been paying attention to the financial markets, you probably noticed that there were multiple days of losses leading up to Christmas. Gold and silver also experienced a drop, with the price of silver dropping to less than $29 and ounce, a price not seen since September. Because demand for silver bullion and 90 percent “junk silver” coins is low, premiums—the amount coin dealers charge over and above the official price-per-ounce—are also low. This means you can buy silver coins today for less than you could a year ago when the price-per-ounce was $6 less.
Crazy how the market works, but if you wanted to stack some silver, this could be a good time to act. The melt value of junk silver is about $21 per $1 face value and it is selling for $22 to $23, which is significantly lower than I have seen recently. Shop around as prices vary, both online and in local coin shops.
Drone Update
As I hoped, I received a drone for Christmas. The DJI Neo is a tiny drone, almost a toy, but is feature rich. While it won’t be much good for remote scouting and patrolling, it will be a good platform on which to learn. At $200, if I lose or break this one, I won’t feel as bad as if I damage a high-end drone. From what I have seen on YouTube, they are pretty indestructible. I am thinking of putting an Apple AirTag on it in case it crashes somewhere and I lose sight of it as it goes down.
Due to the wind and rain, I haven’t flown it outdoors, but I have flown it around the living room.
Cough, Hack, Bleh
I am afraid my daughter may have given us germs for Christmas. I have been fighting off a cold and sore throat. On Saturday afternoon, I took a three-hour nap. Not my usual nap where I doze off while watching YouTube, but a full-fledged crawl-into-bed-and-zonk-out nap that lasted through the dinner hour. I took it easy on Sunday, too, and hope to be feeling better soon.
Stay well and Happy New Year!
