Sometimes we should just stay home...

Well today was a day of extremes. We spent the majority of the day working on the homestead and made really good progress in many of our projects. I built the frame for the coop roof and test fitted a sheet of salvaged metal roofing.  The roofing sheets are just barely too short, so we'll do some creative cutting with our extra piece to span the length.
Casey built most of the battery box out of scrap OSB and painted it. Not only does it look good, but it will provide a weatherproof shelter for the batteries, the inverter, the water pump, and the solar controller.
Casey also started plumbing the kitchen area, so I am very happy we now have running water in our sink and a drain through the floor.  The drain empties into a bucket for now, but soon we will be filtering it and watering our garden with all our gray water.
Our wind turbine is up an running again, with new blades and a smaller hub. We spent a few hours whittling the blades to a better airfoil, and we can really tell the difference with noise output. It is much quieter, but it isn't putting out as much power as it did when it was still broken! We shortened this set of blades, but next time we will try lengthening them. For now, the PVC blades are a fun project and work well, but eventually we would really like some prefab carbon-fiber blades.

Our last project for the day was installing our last window. It is our only window on the southwest side and lets in a wonderful amount of light. The window also gives us a view of the wind turbine, so we will be able to monitor it from inside. Best of all, however, the window really opens up the kitchen corner and makes the area a lot more open-feeling.
But we probably should have patted ourselves on the back after that, because the day was really downhill after that.

After the window installation, we headed out to visit our neighbors Debby and Dennis. We picked up a nice loaner-panel from Ron via Dennis (18V, 7A mono-crystalline) and admired their clever PV array mount -- a re-purposed large satellite dish mount that can tilt and twist. On our way out, I volunteered to navigate to another neighbor's house, which was (in retrospect) a mistake.  Everything was fine until I realized I had two different roads mixed up in my head and we had to turn around.  We took the next familiar road, but it was very hilly and washed out in places from the heavy rain and hail. Let's just say the low-riding Suzuki did not appreciate the backwoods charm of the road....

After feeling really bad for taking the highway car out gallivanting on ranch roads, we made it to our destination.  After visiting the neighbors for a few hours, Casey and I hit the road again (still rutted and washed out, but now in the dark at night) happy to be on our way home.  After a couple miles, I asked Casey what the smell was.  He didn't know. It got worse.  I reached down to see what was on the floor and I felt a super-slippery liquid on my fingers and then Casey realized what the smell was: muriatic acid. 

Apparently Phil had very generously loaned Casey the use of his gallon jug of muriatic acid, which he uses to clean stones (and, well, a lot of other things -- it's very useful stuff, but quite dangerous too).  Casey was supposed to use the acid to clean the inside of copper tubing so that we could make our own battery cable terminals, and he thought the safest place to put it would be on the floor of the front seat with me, so that I could keep it from tipping over.  Unluckily for us, this was well before our departure and Casey forgot to tell me.  I didn't see it when I got into the car because I was saying goodnight to Phil and Gina, and the rutted roads took care of the rest.  the jug tipped over and dribbled on the floor, turning part of the floor mat into a bubbling puddle of black goo. Yay.

Of course immediately after realizing what had happened, we pulled over and removed the bottle of acid and the carpet.  We poured water from our drinking bottles over the spill and my hand to neutralize the acid, but we left it there on the side of the road.  It is not littering, because we will go back and retrieve it tomorrow, but we were too tired and shaken up to deal with it on the side of the road in the middle of the night.

So like I said, the day was great until we left the house!  We should have quit while we were still ahead, I suppose.

Thanks for reading!