Author: Daniel

It’s that time of year again – winter prep! It starts with cleaning the flues for the wood stoves (one each, house and workshop), ahead of the season’s first fires. I love this easy do-it-yourself flue cleaning tool. Just send the orange sputnik look-alike up the flue on these fiberglass rods that connect together, attach … Continue reading Flues, Booze, Ooze, Store & Door

Conventional wisdom says that when a new honeybee colony is established, the steward should not expect them to make enough honey to harvest in their first year. There are good reasons for this. First, the bees need honeycomb to store and process nectar. The bees need to actually make this honeycomb before they can use … Continue reading How Sweet It Is

I always knew that this HomeBox project was going to be a perpetual work-in-progress. In this way, it is no different than the rest of my life to-date. Anyone who’s known me for any length of time has observed that I am always adjusting myself and my environment in an effort to converge on a … Continue reading Filter, Frogs, Flower, Bees, Nature

I got out my thermal camera today to see how the beehives were doing in the infrared domain. These are composite pictures from the thermal imager, which combines the IR and visible images. The imager is relatively low-res by modern standards, with 320×200 pixels. That’s plenty to do inspections looking for hot/cold spots, but doesn’t … Continue reading Thermals

The phoebes are back in their prior nest on the porchlet. This pleases me greatly. These wee eggs have since turned into balls of fluff & beak! Last year, Ma & Pa Phoebe had two sets of children here. We shall see how things go this year. In any event, I like having the baby … Continue reading Birds, Bees, Trees, Critters, and a Tall Tool Tale

After all that mud, wiring, and other prep, it was time to go get the bees this weekend. And so it was. The bee farm promised to close up the nucleus hives for safe transport but offered, for a small additional charge, a mesh bag to go over the hives for added security. I opted … Continue reading Apiary!

When we last left our intrepid electrician, he had just received a new 6kW inverter and was contemplating wire upgrades for the breaker box (“load center”) to handle the 100 amps the dual inverter system could supply. If you’re doing nerdful math in your head, you may conclude that 2x 6kW inverters at 240V does … Continue reading Shop Power Upgrade, Final Bee Yard Prep

As spring approaches, it’s time to repair the damaged fence around the bee yard (which failed to attract wild bees but did evidently attract a wild bear). Actually, the whole skimpy step-in fiberglass poles and tie-outs concept was deficient — but it was the best I could do since it is so very difficult to … Continue reading Bee Yards, Ice Storm, End of Battery Saga, More Power Upgrades

Turns out that shelflet for the water flosser/brush was just slightly in the way of moving around in that tiny bathroom, so I moved it to the other side of the sink, where it (a) looks better and (b) is less in the way. Sometimes it’s the little things. Speaking of little things, that little … Continue reading Shelflet Relo, Some Photos, Battery Potential

About 4 years ago, I bought a bunch of solar power related equipment from The altE Store. This equipment included everything I needed for two complete and independent systems: photovoltaic (“solar”) panels, racking systems, junction and breaker boxes, charge controllers, AC inverters, roughly 1000 pounds of LFP batteries (two different kinds – more on that … Continue reading The altE Store: My Worst Tech Support Experience Ever