It was damned cold yesterday, damned cold today, and promises to remain damned cold for the next few days. But I’ll take my good news where I can find it, and the good news is that the sky was cloudless all day and the batteries got a nice soak. I was so anxious to encourage this that I actually turned the inverter right off to remove all parasitic draws. The batteries in a solar power system are rarely fully charged, but we’ve had several days of rain, snow and clouds and everybody in the gulch has been complaining about the state of their batteries.
I also did something unusual for me: I heated the Lair to damned near eighty degrees. This was not from a sudden love of unreasonable warmth, but to finish emptying the near-empty propane tank so I could swap them before dark. It’s gonna get, as previously mentioned, damned cold tonight and so I’m going to cheat. The old tank would never have kept the oven going all night. Turns out it wasn’t quite as empty as I thought, though, because it took a few hours of burn time to empty the thing. Saved a stick of wood or two, I suppose. I’m in pretty good shape for propane right now, but I can’t stand to waste it.
I really dislike the cold. But having shivered through many a winter cold snap without more-than-adequate supplies of electricity and warmth, I’m riding this one out with more than my usual complacency.
