t-8 days

THE SOLAR PANEL ARRIVES

And I still have no idea what to do with it.

I got much help with research and selection from my friend Jake Sosne's dad Alan (a.k.a. 'Solar Alan'), but best solution we could find, which is the awesome Voltaic Generator Solar Laptop Charger turned out to be a little more expensive and less versatile than I was looking for. (It is a very cool bag though:  http://www.voltaicsystems.com

/bag_generator.shtml )

So, I ended up ordering a panel and a charge controller off amazon. Together they were under $150.00, so it was a pretty good deal. I still don't know exactly how to use them, though, or if the charge will be sufficient to power my laptop.

What I need to do now is take the panel out of the packaging and make sure the controller is the right voltage and everything. 

Karen came over again today to continue working on the chicken coop (or as she says, with a French affect, "coo"), with Orlando, Tom, and her grandmother this time. Tom worked on hacking the post bases into points with an axe, and then Orlando beat them into the ground with a sledgehammer. From his position on the ladder, about 3 feet taller than the rest of us, Orlando wielded the sledgehammer with accuracy. But I was terrified, because a miscalculated swing would not bode well for Karen's grandmother, who was standing below him, steadying the post. 

(below, Orlando and Karen's grandma fix the chicken wire to the posts.)

I pointed out the irony of using a chainsaw to build an off-the-grid structure, and Tom reminded me that everything we're using is gridlocked in some way, from the chainsaw to the

 handsaw to the hammer to the nails and staples. The only difference is, the chainsaw is actively gridlocked, like my computer is now (before I have the solar panel set up). We didn't buy any gas to power it this time, but using what was left in the tank just means my dad will have to buy some more when he needs to use it again.

We are hoping that the hens will arrive ASAP, so they can have some time to get used to their new surroundings. Otherwise, the optimistic estimate of 1 egg per hen, per day, will most likely go down due to stress. Unfortunately, there have apparently been some problems with the hens, who have been pecking at their own eggs in their coop in Noyac. The person who owns them is waiting to see which hen is whacked before letting us pick them up.

PHONE CALL WITH Paul Hamilton: I've had an irregular correspondence with Paul in the past few weeks, but he is still interested in helping out! Paul is an organic farmer at EECO (East End Community Operated) Farm in East Hampton, and he used to do guided nature walks out here, so he knows how to identify forest flora (and fauna?), and has lots of experience building forts out of found materials with his two sons. Paul also subs at Ross, and replaced my English teacher for about a week this spring, when I first got a chance to tell him about the project. He lent me a few books that he thought I would find useful. One of them, Stalking the Wild Asparagus by Euell Gibbons, was apparently a sensation in the 60's and 70's during the whole back-to-the-land movement, and works as a kind of detailed, instructional field guide to procuring wild edibles. I haven't gotten a chance to use it practically yet, but Paul said he was willing to do a kind of nature walk with us and maybe experiment with building an organic structure of some kind.

The Platform Tent Arrives.           Now what?

It's here!! 

The two little bundles of packing plastic that are the canvas tent and its supports have arrived via an "On Time Trucking" semi, transferred to my dad's big old front loader, placed at the tent site, and are now awaiting further instruction. 

But hold up... the platform isn't even finished yet... it's kind of barely started. We have the skeleton in place, minus that for the extended porch... and I don't have the necessary wood for the decking. (Problem!!) 

I did some research a few weeks ago, looking for reuse centers or building surplus stations in the metropolitan area, and I found a few that look promising. The problem is, the wood suggested in the tent blueprint are 2" x 6" planks. For a 16' x 24' platform, this means about 96 pieces of lumber, if they're all 8' long!! Sounds crazy, but do the math. This is why we were trying to see if maybe 16 8' x 4' boards would work instead. When I spoke with Dan at the Colorado Yurt Company, he said that 8' x 4' boards would work, but should not be used for the extended porch. This is because the space between 2" x 6" boards allow for water drainage, while the large boards (especially on uneven ground), would start to collect pools of water that would probably run inside the tent.

This is a picture of our tent, (or what we hope our tent will resemble eventually, minus the little chimney.)