Apocalyptic Homesteading (Day 1264)

Hello Everyone!

Late to bed early to rise, Shuffling stuff in the shop tent, More lumber painting & Testing the new charger!

Alright, I am running eight minutes behind schedule with my writing routine... because I put off setting the espresso to brewing until the last possible minute this evening. Having that 'target time' is nice and all... but it seems like I am always either starting not long before it.. or after it... yet very seldomly exactly at it.

Last night I was up much later than I wanted to be... due to stressing over finances... and repeatedly crunching all the numbers that I could in an effort to figure out how to do what I am trying to do at the new land. Some of that 'number crunching' also involved the actual move itself... and all the expenses around it... which yeah is a whole other 'ball of wax' so to speak.

Somehow after a rather sound sleep I managed to wake up rather early in the day... and immediately dive into my Hive engagement routine as well as making some responses to some commentary on a legacy social media site. I have to admit that the former is a much more enjoyable experience... and the latter is often a hassle... that is often accompanied by me asking myself: Why did I even bother to post anything there!

Anyways, since I am trying to maximize my days I got outdoors rather quickly... and got myself all setup to do more painting. The shop tent being such a massive clustercuss of stuff (that has already been packed) made getting to the painting supplies a job in itself... and I am quite appreciative of me taking the time to let my leg heal up.

I have no idea how long that I spent painting, but I not only got all that lumber that was already on the sawhorses painted... but I also got the last round of boards that I had washed yesterday painted as well. At one point I was so zoned out doing it that I accidentally poured the paint into a container that I was using to hold the smaller container that I was dipping paint out of the bucket with... and poured it all over my gloved thumb in the process... which gave me quite the blue thumb!

Late in the afternoon I got my new packages (and that pre-owned dog crate) dropped off which was awesome... because I now have all the dog crates that I will need, the replacement battery operated chainsaw, the vehicle charger for the cordless tool batteries... and the pyrethrin that I needed for treating the mites. I also caught a quick ride to that nearby store... where I was able to replace some of my food supply (after having burned through it early) due to unexpectedly having to take all that ibuprofen.

Since I already knew that the cordless tool battery charger was on the way today... I went ahead and moved a bunch of stuff out of the solar shack... so that I could access my twelve volt batteries... and make sure they were both charging from the solar panels. I have no idea how I remembered it all incorrectly... but come to find out my small true deep cycle battery was the one that has been hooked up this whole time... and not the marine grade one like I thought.

Honestly, I have not given all that stuff much of a look since first setting it up... and whoa it is all going to be much easier to uninstall than I thought that it would be. Basically, when I set it all up I mounted everything on small pieces of plywood that are screwed into the wall studs... and taking it all down will only require unplugging the solar panels... and disconnecting the charge controllers from the batteries.

As far as testing the new cordless tool battery charger goes... my results were inconclusive... because after only a few minutes of having it connected and charging a battery... I got a low voltage warning from it... due to the marine grade deep cycle battery not having a good charge. Over the next week or so I am going to try to borrow a real twelve bolt automotive battery charger... and try to give all the batteries that I have a deep charge before the move... so that I can see what kind of capacity that they still have.

My test today was not all that great anyways... because the sun had already arched over the treeline... and the big solar panel (that is connected to that battery) was fully shaded. In essence, I want to test my 'live power' idea when the sun is fully on that panel... to see if the cordless tool battery charger can still get enough amps (and voltage) even if the main twelve volt battery is mostly discharged.

Well, I did a bunch of other stuff today... but I am running out of momentum here rather quickly and need to wrap this entry up. I hope that everyone is doing well. Ta ta for now.