From our family to yours, we wish you all a safe and joyful holiday with family and friends.
Merry Christmas!!
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Reality bites
Happy December!! Since we are celebrating six months, I guess now is as good a time as any to do our best to explain how we’re making out since La Nina left laughing at us…
A token of our appreciation
Happy Thanksgiving!! It’s hard to believe all that has taken place to bring us here in celebration of big moves, positive changes, and living life to the fullest. We couldn’t have made it this far without your support. We truly are grateful for YOU!!!
As a way to say thanks, we are going to give one lucky blog follower this pretty and practical little shopping bag to use for your holiday purchases, or to give as a gift. If you haven’t pushed the Follow button to receive our updates directly to your email, you might want to do so now. 😉 We’ll select at random on Nov. 30 and let you know by direct message if you are the big winner. Happy following, have a safe and joyous holiday with family and friends, and good luck!!
La Nina leaves this lady leery
Forty below they said. Nine feet of snow they said. First flurries by Halloween they said. All of these threats weighed heavily on our minds since loading in at the start of summer. We prioritized our to-do list accordingly by trying to amass a mound of firewood, situating and insulating the water tank to avoid freezing, raising our solar array, mounting our snow tires and securing chains, ordering snowshoes, stocking up on dry goods, and enclosing the potty, among other things. While there is always more to do – And you never quite feel adequately prepared going into the cold season no matter what you do – we were also making mental preparations to steel ourselves against a typical bitterly-cold winter to arrive on schedule. Now, it’s almost Thanksgiving and we’ve barely touched 20 degrees overnight with only a random rain shower. As if we didn’t have enough to anticipate for the first of the year with the election fallout, we’re left wondering if La Nina is going to make this winter a non-event, or bring it on with a furious force.
Denver or Bust
Sturgill Simpson in concert at the Paramount on November 4th. Who could say no to that? We hadn’t even finished packing up the house in Cocoa and we were already planning the road trip to Denver way back in May. (Evidently the goosebumps hadn’t gone away from the solo show in Madrid.) This would make our third Sturgill session if we actually made it to the big city. (There were serious doubts about dodging winter weather at the time this date landed on our calendar.) Well, the stars were aligned and the sailors shoved off… Denver or Bust!!
Solar A-Raise
It seems like a million years ago now that Mark and I hooked up the wee little 300W PV system for basic operations when we first arrived on-site in June. Ben and I made a few little upgrades over the summer to include adding a 4th panel, switching to a more robust charge controller for future growth, and adding both a remote inverter start and Ethernet communications port for the charge controller. All of this was fine and dandy for the past few months, but we needed to give the array a boost for winter. Below are the progress photos so you can see more about our shoot-from-the-hip PV facelift.
The calm after the storm
If you have been following over the past few weeks, you will have seen that we’ve been operating in a figurative – and literal – whirlwind. After raising a second yurt, spending time with Hurricane Matthew, and marching on with homestead improvements, we are looking forward to reacquainting ourselves with the quiet surroundings and slower pace that Sahalee so wonderfully delivers. That being said, winter is on its way, as the falling leaves remind us, and we still have much, much more to do before we can comfortably and confidently nestle in for our first cold season on the side of the mountain.
Upgrades
Working on things a little bit at a time over the past few weeks, we’ve managed to button up some for winter and get a little more comfy. Here’s a quick look at some of our recent upgrades…
Groovy baby!!
The Sahalee Off Grid family welcomes our newest addition… Mark’s little yurt!! Yet to be officially named, the ‘mini-me’ version of our Super Ger arrived in typical ‘Groovy’ style when Yves pulled into Cuba with the big rig. (Several curious locals stopped to inquire, and one even made comment that the yurts are very much like a portable hogan used by the well-established Navajo people in the area for eons.) After loading up Buffy with the pre-built platform and entire structure (described as a one-camel yurt in Mongolia), we climbed the hill to unload and started set-up around 9am. It was a mild sunny day and all went off without a hitch to adorn the deck with a beautiful handmade dwelling. Mark was anxious to move in and spend his first night solo, so we bid him adieu after a celebratory toast. Please join us in congratulating Mark and welcoming the new baby to Sahalee!!
Off-Grid with Hurricane Matthew
Leaving our home in Cocoa after fifteen years (and feeling quite an emotional return), we lamented not being able to experience another hurricane in the high-and-dry oasis of River Heights. As fate would have it, we actually were able to ride out the spinning giant named Matthew while staying at Mark’s house for an appropriately-timed and eventful family visit. What a thrill to experience the awesome and intense tropical power one more time!!!