Wednesday (01-December-2021) — New Jersey

Autumn Backyard Nature in New Jersey.

Birds of the day viewed at the birdfeeder and in the backyard: Black-capped Chickadee, White-breasted Nuthatch, House Finch, Dark-eyed Junco.



Birds of the day. Individual images in the slideshow are available in my PhotoShelter Gallery.

Little Planet Time-lapse Videos. Red Rover using leaf vacuum and moving some black mulch. Last week I was not able to complete the autumn annual leaf cleanup with the John Deere mower and DR Power leaf vacuum. I attached a leaf vacuum adapter to Red Rover’s mower deck, but the 8″ diameter flexible hose to connect the mower deck adapter to the leaf vacuum was too short. I ordered an 8″ x 8′ flexible hose from McMaster Sunday night, and it was delivered Monday evening. I attached the new hose — it was just barely long enough. Once attached, I did the leaf cleanup. It took some adjustments getting the mower deck height on Red Rover right. I wanted to collect the leaves without cutting too much grass. I had to stop a couple of times to clear the vacuum hose plugged with leaves and grass clippings. When the leaf collection bag was full, I dumped the leaves in a temporary mulch heap. The cart was too full (and too heavy to dump by myself), but this time I remembered I could pull the long hinge pin and remove the collection bag cover and dump the contents. A lot easier than having to use Red Rover with the front forks. For the second time-lapse video, I moved some more of the black mulch, and finished the leaf collection. Most of the trees have dumped all of their leaves, so probably only need to do one more collection when the Sycamore tree drops the last of the leaves.

Daily Electric Energy Used (63.6 kWh) from Sense. Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (29.8 kWh) from Sense and SolSystems. Sunny. Geothermal HVAC heating the house. Deficit of 33.8 kWh.

Wednesday (27-October-2021) — New Jersey

Autumn Backyard Nature in New Jersey.

As you can see in the pictures, the autumn leaves are falling. I’ve ordered the materials to install a deer fence around the property. Everything shipped last Thursday from Pennsylvania and arrived early Friday morning at a Carteret, NJ. Even though the tracking info indicated delivery Friday by 5 PM, nothing was delivered. Finally, on Tuesday I got a phone call that the delivery would be between 1 and 4 PM on Wednesday. The UPS LTL (less than truckload) truck arrived, but there was a problem. The 4 pallets were very heavy, and two were 8 feet wide. The driver did his best, but some of the steel poles had to be manually unloaded from the truck. A bit later, another truck arrived to deliver a DR Power half-ton tow-behind trailer. That was easier to unload. Some assembly required.


Deer Fence Delivery. Individual images in the slideshow are available in my PhotoShelter Gallery.

Daily Electric Energy Used (41.9 kWh) from Sense. Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (9.2 kWh) from Sense and SolSystems. Cloudy most of the day. Deficit of 20.7 kWh.

Wednesday (27-November-2019) — New Jersey

Autumn Yard Work.

Snow is forcasted for early next week. I finished assembling the DR-Power leaf vacuum and connecting it to my John Deere lawn tractor. I added ~ 1.1 L of 5W 30 Mobil One oil and filled the gas tank. It took a few minutes to start the engine. I am happy I got the electric starter option. Between the noise from the tractor motor and the leaf vacuum motor, I decided I needed to be wearing hearing protection. Even though the grass and leaves were a bit damp, the majority were picked up. I also learned the hard way to check to see if the leaf collector was full. I kept going until the leaves were not being sucked up. Then when I checked found that the trailer was not only full, but over full. Compare the 2nd and 3rd video… It was very difficult to empty the trailer, and I had to dig a good portion out. I managed to collect three trailers full of leaves that are being used to start a new mulch pile. I will go out again tomorrow to finish the job, and to assemble the snow-blower attachment for the DR-Power Field and Brush mower.

 

Daily Electric Energy Used (74.1 kWh) from Sense and Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (9.4 kWh) from SolSystems and Locus Energy.  Cloudy all day. Overall a net deficit of 64.7 kWh.

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Tuesday (26-November-2019) — New Jersey

Some Assembly Required.

Snow is forcasted for early next week, and I still have some outside end of season projects that need to be completed. While using the DR-Power Field and Brush mower a couple of weeks ago, two bolts holding the disk brake pads fell off. Since it was only the 2nd time I had used the mower, the company sent me replacement parts. I needed to get this fixed so I can install the snow-blower attachment. I also needed to make a custom attachment to connect the DR-Power Lawn Vacuum to my John Deere lawn tractor. They provide a generic attachment that needs to be cut to fit my mower. Some assembly required. I spent the afternoon in the garage working on these two projects and used a Garmin VIRB-360 camera to make a Little Planet view Time-lapse video. Tomorrow, I will connect the lawn tractor to the leaf vacuum and make sure it works.

Daily Electric Energy Used (70.1 kWh) from Sense and Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (30.6 kWh) from SolSystems and Locus Energy.  Overall a net deficit of 39.5 kWh.

Current Weather Conditions

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Saturday (19-October-2019) — New Jersey

DR Power Lawn and Leaf Vacuum.

Some assembly required. Recorded with a Garmin VIRB-360 camera for a four minute time-lapse video.

Daily Electric Energy Used (72.0 kWh) from Sense and Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (37.9 kWh) from SolSystems and Locus Energy. More sun than yesterday, but getting colder. Overall a net deficit of 34.1 kWh. Geothermal HVAC to heat the house (6.2 kWh), Laundry (4.7 kWh), Hydroponics (22.5 kWh), Computers and Servers (20.7 kWh), Kitchen (2.7 kWh).

Current Weather Conditions

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