Cozy Through The Storms

Just checking in real quick!

We've been keeping pretty busy just keeping a path cleared to the tiny house! We made it through the first storm no problem, and I sit here nice and cozy as we ride out the second. I think all the snow around the base of the Pod is helping keeping us a bit warmer too. 

We are certainly loving our deck from a whole new perspective! I can't imagine thrashing around in snow up to my hips and then walking directly inside! I'd take a pile of snow right in with me! I think one piece I do miss about larger homes is the entry way or mud room. You don't realize how useful they can be until the first mud season or good Nor'easter. But we make do! We hand our snow dripping clothes in the bathroom and place a towel on the ground. 

Not much else has been going on here! Dan is in full swing with work and school, and I'm trying to adjust to having so many free nights. I am determined to get back to guitar and painting on a regular interval, so I'm making the most of it. Who knows- I may even start a quilt for our bed. I have decided on a pattern- simple, but still pretty and bright.

We were eager to see if the power would go out in either storm, but alas, it did not. I don't know why we are so tickled by it, but we are just so happy about being totally solar power based. I've also started noticing solar panels left and right, in all sorts of uses. HOORAY!


In other news- we are giving Wendy "free range" times and working towards letting her be a free range bun all day long. We are also very excited to meet tentative bonding partners for Wendy this Saturday! We've read a lot about the benefits of rabbits being in pairs, and they are less likely to get bored and be naughty. I've really learned a lot about rabbits and gained a much deeper appreciation and respect for the little fluffy creatures. :) We are going to visit a great little specialty shelter dedicated just to rabbits. It's called Sweet Binks and they are great people. I was astounded by how many rabbits are dropped off at a shelter or just abandoned each year. The biggest culprit is Easter. So many parents buy their children a cute little baby bunny with no regard for the 10 year commitment a rabbit can be. I read about an Easter present bunny that a couple girls "set free" in the heat of July. The poor guy was found collapsed in the beating sun, and nearly died of dehydration and heat.


I'll be the first to say I love dogs above all other types of pets. No question. They have qualities and a level of connection that no other animal can match, but Wendy has opened my eyes to respecting, loving and connecting with any little fuzzy creature. What's the point here? I didn't have one really, when I started, but I guess it would be: If you are thinking of getting a little chick or bunny for your kid for Easter, remember that's a life you are taking responsibility of! Make sure your child is ready for that level of responsibility or just get them some candy*!
 (*In this instance I condone candy.)

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Where does she immediately go? To investigate the blockade for weaknesses.

It's Official! We are OFF THE GRID!

The Annoying Fitness Couple of the 80s

These past two weekends have been full of major progress!

In the past two weekends we have done a plethora of stuff ranging from post-wedding to life in general to tiny house related tasks. In between, I flew out to Little Rock, AR for a busy work week. My apologies for the long awaited next post, but there has been just too much going on! And I'd rather be out DOING than in Writing. ;) I know for a fact that many of you are squirming at the edge of your seats, waiting to hear all about our solar power set up, so let me just break it to you in the first paragraph- this isn't the post. HOWEVER, I will be doing something a bit different this week- since there is so much to talk about. I will be doing some posts in rapid fire! Expect two more posts from me within the week! I have tomorrow off, which I plan to make wise use of, and also spend a little time with my favorite veteran- my older brother, Adam. I am going to break down the solar power set up in two posts. In the first post I will catalogue the components of our system so you know exactly what we have. I will also introduce some of the major items you should be evaluating when you first make the decision to go solar. I may even include some helpful resources in that one- or maybe the second one. The second post will most certainly contain a video of me showing our setup and giving and VERY rudimentary explanation of how it all connects and works.

But for this post- I will stick to the highlights and plaster the place with photos.

Halloween weekend- we did something fun and unusual for us- we made a little effort to plan costumes and then headed out to Twin River to meet some friends, take in the entertainment, a few beverages, and we even gambled a smidge. We walked out with five extra dollars. 

The gifts keep trickling in! We love it!

Saturday was a slow lazy start, then we suddenly had to help out a family member which ended up taking a good part of the day. So we scrapped the rest of it (as far as work on the house was concerned) and tended to a few errands of our own- like laundry. And we put together our new Berkey!! Thanks Lupo! :) Gotta love the late wedding gifts that keep showing up.  

Dan digging out a trench to bury our grounding rod.

On Sunday, we completed the last few connections that were needed. We realized part way through that we didn't have the additional wire and teeny weeny connector pieces for the Trimetric monitor, but we kept going. The Trimetric is not necessary to allow the system to run and produce power- it simply monitors the battery levels and a few other things. We just wanted to make sure the whole system worked at this point! We didn't turn on the inverter. It was late in the day and we wanted the batteries to get a good charge before we asked for any power. 

I'm not sure I can describe the slow steady rise of joy that came over me as we flipped the breakers at each point. First, we were at the panels, flipping the connector box breakers- and seeing the little blue lights of the lightning arrestor beam up at us was a lovely first sign. We then headed to the utility closet and began flipping those breakers too. When the charge controller powered on we were AMPED!! (See what I did there?)

It's lit up!!

By that point in the day it was getting dark and quite crisp. We headed inside and started reviewing manuals so we could start understanding what all these little monitors needed from us, and what they would tell us in return. 

This past weekend, we spent Saturday getting the materials for the heater and the Trimetric. We finished installing the battery monitor to the system and programmed both the Trimetric and our charge controller as needed. At first the charge percentage didn't display and we got a bit nervous, but after more reading we realized it would not display the first time until the batteries were at 100%. 

On Sunday, we finally saw it hit 100% within the first half hour of morning sun. We decided to go for it! We turned on the inverter and plugged ourselves in! We are now proudly, joyously, FINALLY using power from the sun!!! YYEEEEEHAAAWWW!!!

The rest of Sundays light hours were spent installing the heater. Dan's Dad came over and gave us a hand. Since I did most of the homework on the solar power, I told Dan that the heater was his homework.


 It was quite nice, just hanging back and taking photos, letting him and his Dad do the work. :) We found that we are missing just one little connector piece, which we plan to get tonight. Then we will see how our new heater works!

Marking the hole...

After these past two weekends, two major major tasks have finally been accomplished, and we are ahead of the winter weather still. I have felt this rare, remarkable calm settle over me. The entire vision is finally coming together. I am beyond proud of what we have done together, and even more so now that we can say we successfully installed our own solar power system! It can be done people!

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Cutting the hole with a jigsaw.

Finishing the cut on the outside!

Hey there! Our pipe fits!

 

Progress: An Inch at a Time

Our activity over the next month will undoubtedly be minimal as we close in on the big day.

That being said, I will try my best to keep in touch and keep posting! They might be micro-posts in comparison to our usual content, but hey! We're still here- still doing the tiny house thang- we just need to divert more attention elsewhere for the time being.

Sooo- Dan's truck broke down Saturday morning, and he started his first day at RIC this week. We scrambled around to make arrangements for another car in the meantime, a tow, getting ahold of the mechanic on a holiday weekend, making sure his parking pass deal wouldn't get screwed up, and so on. Needless to say, that threw a big ol' wrench into plans we had for the weekend. I never realized just how much we use his truck when it comes to hauling basic stuff around. Collecting more pallets, getting long pieces of lumber at the store, hauling power tools from one site to the next...not to mention just not having your own set of wheels. We often split up duties, one of us will run off and do this, while the other goes there and does that. Not this weekend! So we re-adjusted.

 Among many other wedding things, we were able to mark the new/correct angle for our panels on the racking. After seeing how much we have to lop off- we were happy to learn that we can still use our racking. There are only a certain number of holes on the back side of our panels and we needed to make sure we could still fasten onto the racking at those distances. We came up with a new way to mount them once all the cuts have been made.

I'm not even sure I want to say- "We hope to work on the panels this weekend"- but I guess I just did! Progress seems to be crawling while time is flying. We are making a point to stay positive each day. We've jump started our super healthy eating once again, back to meditating, got all of our favorite supplements back on the shelf, and feeling pretty good each day. We want to look our best for the big day! And we really needed to quit it with all the take-out. It was beginning to be more of a problem than a convenience. We were feeling groggy, sluggish, cranky. It's amazing how much food can affect you. Eat garbage, feel like garbage.

Anyways! We plan to take it all in baby steps, but we really hope to take the panels off one rack and get the rack cut. Then, if there's more time in the weekend, we will try to re-mount!

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Time Keeps On Slippin'...Slippin'...Slippin'

During one of the several interviews we have done so far, I was asked- "You seem so on top of things, especially for a project this size. Do you ever get overwhelmed or are you always this cool and collected?"

WELL. The short answer to that is yes, we DEFINITELY get overwhelmed. A great example of that? RIGHT NOW. I'm stepping away from the usual tone of my posts because I'm not feeling my usual self. The last few weeks have been a whirl wind. I have moments where it's all I can do to just breathe calmly. The crisp cool air of the evenings and mornings has always been one of my most favorite things. A sign that my favorite season is on it's way....but this year, there is so much going on that I wish summer could last another 5 months. 

Dan recently found employment (HOORAY!), which we are both very happy about. He did such a bang up job his first week and a half that they asked him to come on full time. Considering he has been looking for quite some time, and our financial situation was getting a bit tight, we were happy for this opportunity. What I wasn't expecting however, was the inevitable backlash to our progress on the house. 

In fact, it was never made clearer to me than now. One of the biggest balancing acts of life is time versus money. This is a scale I have had trouble with for many years- always trying to make time the more valuable item, but somehow someway, money always had more heft. I can't just walk away from my bills and my debt, and I will not put them off any longer either. I am determined to reach a point in my life where time out ranks money- sooner rather than later. We are positioning ourselves with the tiny life we have chosen, but it seems, much like everything else, there is always one more major stressful squeeze before you burst out the other side. 

I have been traveling quite a bit over the last month, and when I am home, our schedule has been filled with family gatherings, weddings, showers, and other related parties. I get this feeling like all my waking hours from now until some point in the unforeseen future has already been scheduled for me. It's quite frustrating at times. 

We need to finish the dang siding on this place. We need to put our solar power system together. We need to water proof and seal the siding. We need to create gutters and some form of water shed for our roof line. We need to purchase and install a wood stove. We need to do all this before November.

Now- add getting married out of state in October to that list. Catching my drift?  

This past weekend we attended a beautiful garden wedding on Dan's side of the family. We wanted to save money and time so we drove home that night instead of staying over. We spent part of Sunday morning in recovery, then dragged ourselves out to Dan's dad's store to do more work. We needed to process more pallets. Our tools have been scattered to three different places now...and I don't like it. Some things are here at the Pod, some things are at my Dad's, and some things at the store. More than once we have gone one place only to realize the tool we need is at another. I don't recommend this. haha We wanted to give my Dad a break from seeing us constantly working in his yard, and we needed to use the table saw at the store. His dad's saw is the only one that will hold the special blade we use for ship-lapping. 

So, the only free day we had was spent sweating in the beating sun of a paved parking lot. I know I'm probably being a total whiner right now, but DAMN! It's been almost 2 years of working constantly on this place. I want it to be over! I want to return to having time to relax, be social (not just attend major family events), visit my hobbies again- I'm pretty sure I will have to learn guitar all over again. Blurg.

Oh, and the solar power system saga continues. We ordered what we needed and now have another 6 boxes of stuff waiting for us to open. We also realized that our solar panels are at the wrong angle. Joy. The semi-good news is that we did do our math right, we just flip flopped how it should have applied to the racking. We don't have to build them all over, since the angle we need is sharper. We plan to take the panels down and make the angled cuts to the posts right where they stand. That should be fun. 

Some nights I lie in bed feeling like I have the actual weight of our tiny house on my chest. I try to keep my mind on the positives. We have accomplished so much and we are making our dream a reality, but I feel I have mustered all I can muster- even from my reserve tank at this point. It's hard to be the spearhead day in and day out.  My brain begins to skip and scramble as I think about all the loose ends we still have and all that MUST get done before the cold sets in. 

I WILL come back to you all with a more chipper voice again soon. But until then, do any of you folks that have already "made it to the other side" have any advice? Maybe part of your story you can share? I could really use something to recharge my batteries. 

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What A Weekend!

We aren't done yet, but we feel light as feathers!

It was a big pain and an even bigger relief to get the solar panel racking built and in the ground. Over the last week we have been steadily tying up loose ends. I sanded down all the areas of siding that I applied wood filler to, and then went out and got a stainable kind- which should make things way easier. We also finished building the rest of the posts needed for the panels, continued siding work, and then this weekend, mounted the posts in the ground. 

Talk about work! It took us almost two full days and some extra help to get those posts in the ground, level, plumb, and ready to rock. Luckily it was flat out amazing weather. Mostly sunny, low 70s, and breezy. When you are digging holes, the weather can play a big part in your experience. We definitely got frustrated and threw shovels (ahem, DAN) more than once, but I can only imagine how it would have gone down if it were say....98 degrees, 99% humidity and zero breeze.

The soil at the farm has a LOT of rocks in varying sizes from baseball to "Why don't we just put a koi pond here by the time we get this freakin' thing out!".  On day one, we did most everything ass backwards. Maybe it was the added stress of possibly moving the next day (which didn't pan out) but we both were approaching the task in a not so efficient way. We dug holes first and expected the rest to fit flawlessly. Never again! Thankfully, most of our holes were not too far off, but we did end up digging more than the 6 you see in these pictures. 

Dan's Dad came by later in the day and helped us get the first row secure, level, even, and pretty much any other direction descriptor you can think of. Man, can it be hard to get things lined up when they can go wrong in about 8 different directions! We put in about 9 hours on Saturday.

On Sunday, we came back and finished the second row. We had the holes dug, and things looked relatively straight. That was until we started measuring with tools. HA! Long story short, we had to dig our holes deeper, and of course we ran into a very large rock right where the pole needed to go. Deb and Michael were home Sunday, so Michael came to the rescue with his tractor and dug a great big hole before that stupid boulder was out. The second hole seemed fine, so Michael went off to tend to his own chores. When we got to the third hole, we realized that the poles were not in a neat row, and the hole had to be moved about 6 inches over and be about 6 inches deeper. We found another rock. We battled with that thing for about an hour, using every technique we could come up with including using an 8 ft 2x4 as a lever. 

Layla knows just where to lay down and relax...

After enough grunting, screaming, swearing, sweating, tripping, shoveling, filling, packing, twisting and tweaking, we had our second row in order. We thought it would only take an hour or two, but ended up taking the better part of 4 hours. We plan to add some more supports to help brace against wind. We will put a small leg under the front low arm and another 2x4 bracing against the back of the pole too. 

Our site supervisors. If only they were as helpful as they were attentive! :)

Pointing directly south? Check! 

Needless to say we are two pooped, sore, but very happy people. Sure the job sucked, but the land, the weather, the view, and all the wildlife made it worth it. The farm is SO beautiful and we cannot wait to get there! 

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Solar racking: MOUNTED!