We are so tickled to have quite a bit of sun lately. I can’t praise our new lithium-ion batteries enough. We replaced our old lead-acid batteries (golf cart batteries) a couple months ago and boy is there ever a big difference! They hold more of a charge, charge quickly, and we are using less batteries and getting more power from them. Yes, they were kind of expensive. But we saved for four, then another four. Will hauled all of our old batteries up out of the basement, which killed his bad back (they’re heavier than lithium-ion batteries too), then connected up all the new batteries, adjusted the charge controllers and we are hardly using the generator at all. I can even use the oven without starting the generator. Bad me. I wanted a stove with heavy burner grates and bought a new one. Only to find out that the oven is run by an electric heating coil to ignite the burner. Bad move, when you live off grid! But now the new battery bank lets me use the oven whenever I want to (unless we’ve had many cloudy days).
Yesterday, Will and Drew worked on hooking up the stove again, having to weld brackets to hold the stovepipe away from the house and support the long vertical piece of pipe that is fairly heavy, being double wall. I had to laugh last night. Drew was sitting in the chair and Mittens hopped up on his lap and snuggled down on his leg, just like he does on Will’s. It’s funny but Mittie won’t do that on my leg and seldom will do it for anyone else. She and Buffy still don’t get along but do tolerate each other. Kind of. No blood is drawn but there sure are some evil looks at one another!
I’ve now saved up 100 pounds of spring wheat. Some will be ground into flour but half will be planted. I truly believe a lot of our health issues come from the food we eat and today nearly all wheat is sprayed with glyphosate when it is just ripe to ensure it all ripens at once. Now that ripe wheat is what is ground for commercial flour like Gold Medal. Yep, they “say” it’s harmless. But they also told my late husband, Bob, Agent Orange was harmless and when he was in Vietnam, planes sprayed the jungle and him with it. He died as a result, years later.
We’ll be planting a lot this spring. I was thinking to myself “not so much,” but that got turned around as I thought of things I want to increase, from asparagus to berries and plenty of vegetables, especially those I can can or dehydrate. Eating good food is nice, don’t you think? — Jackie
