And now I shall tent my fingers and wheeze “Excellent!”

Since Saturday afternoon I’ve waited with special impatience for my Amazon order to arrive. I’d accumulated $135 in there over months, and major invasions have probably gone off with less planning than what went into my constantly-changing shopping cart during those months. But one thing remained constant: I was always gonna spend fifty bux on a new circular saw. Landlady’s gave up the ghost last year, and it was the only one between the three of us.

I say I’ve become impatient for it since Saturday, because theoretically the Lair became capable of running a circular saw when the new electrical equipment came on line. My old 1500-watt inverter just couldn’t get past the amp surge of starting one up. Intellectually, I knew all would now be well. I’ve got a 4500-watt inverter, and that’s enough. Emotionally, I’d believe it when I actually witnessed a saw running.

Got the call from my neighbor about three this afternoon that my package had finally arrived. Loaded up the boys for their Jeep ride, picked up my big box, ran home, tore open a whole bunch of packaging. Away with the new Larry Correia book, aside with my new mixing bowls and sharpening steel: What I wanted was that saw. Didn’t even bother mounting the blade, I just dragged it out of the box, plugged it in at the kitchen counter, and hit the trigger.

High Pitched Whir! Yes!

We’ve had an unusual lot of sunshine yesterday and today, and while the new solar panel isn’t exactly exceeding my fondest hopes for charging the batteries – I could really use two – by itself it’s behaving far better than those six tiny, worn-out things I scavenged from an old cattle-watering station. When the cattlemen abandoned that station they took all the equipment except the panels, so I was initially pleased to learn that they worked at all. They did work, but they were really small, really old, and in truth they didn’t even produce enough power to run this laptop. Even in the most direct sunlight, running the ‘pooter dragged the batteries down. My new panel, far larger and built in this very century, can at least keep up. And the “new” inverter, which was scavenged from some big RV, can provide power enough for the biggest draw I’m ever likely to use.

Big improvement.