Tag: Little Planet View

Friday (12-November-2021) — New Jersey

Autumn Rainy Day in New Jersey.

Time-lapse video. The weather forecast for the day was rain in the morning. I spent the day cleaning and organizing the garage. Need space for the soft-pots containing the Canna tubers to overwinter, and space for the car. Empty the tow-behind sprayer, assemble the tow-behind fertilizer spreader, start to assemble the wire racks for the Canna tubers. Bonus clip at the end of the possum trying to steal food from the rat trap.

Daily Electric Energy Used (40.9 kWh) from Sense. Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (9.1 kWh) from Sense and SolSystems. Mostly sunny. Deficit of 31.8 kWh.

Thursday (11-November-2021) — New Jersey

Autumn Working in the Yard.

Time-lapse videos. The weather forecast for tomorrow was rain, meaning lots of things in the yard needed to be done. 1) First I needed to move the 64 bags of Quikrete into the garage. Red Rover is not able to lift a pallet weighing 3200+ pounds. My initial idea was to build wire storage racks with wheels so I could have flexibility to move the bags around in the garage so I would have space to park my car. So I built on of the wire storage shelving units with 3 inch wheels. Unfortunately, once I loaded 12 bags (600 pounds) onto the rack and tried to move it the wheels snapped off. 2) Next idea was to move the bags onto a pallet in the garage. This meant first reorganizing and covering the bags of fertilizer and Miracle Grow Potting Soil in the backyard to free up three additional pallets. Then moving the remaining Quikrete bags into the garage. 3) Also before it rains, I wanted to brush mow the last section of wildflowers, flowers gone after last several mornings with frost. Followed by using the leaf vacuum to clean up the fallen autumn leaves before they get wet. Since it has been a long time since using the leaf vacuum I forgot not to let the trailer get too full. It was too heavy to dump the leaves and grass clippings into the mulch pile. I ended up needing to use Red Rover to help dump the leaves out of the trailer. ARRG!!!

Daily Electric Energy Used (44.7 kWh) from Sense. Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (24.3 kWh) from Sense and SolSystems. Mostly sunny. Deficit of 20.4 kWh.

Wednesday (10-November-2021) — New Jersey

Outdoor Autumn Yard Projects in New Jersey.

My Little Planet time-lapse videos. 1) Building Shelter Logic storage shed #3. This one is a bit larger (12′ x 12′ x 9′) to store Red Rover’s tractor implements. For this shed, the estimate was 2.5 hours for two people to assemble. It took me about 6 hours by myself. 2) Red Rover was then used to move the pallets with the rototiller, snow blade, front loader bucket, Auger, and weighted rear tool basket into the shed. Once I was done, wish I got the version of the shed that is 20′ deep so I could also store my other powered garden tools.

Daily Electric Energy Used (46.3 kWh) from Sense. Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (26.5 kWh) from Sense and SolSystems. Sunny. Deficit of 19.8 kWh.

Saturday (30-October-2021) — New Jersey

Autumn Backyard Nature in New Jersey.

Birds of the day viewed at the birdfeeder and in the backyard: Black-capped Chickadee, House Finch.


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

During the rain and wind storm last night the two of the tie-down stakes holding the storage shed I assembled yesterday pulled out of the ground. According to my weather station, the wind gusted to nearly 30 mph during the night. I should have tied the shed to the pallet with a ton of steel pipes for the deer fence.

Storage Shed off base. (David J Mathre)
Storage Shed blown off base. Image taken with a Leica CL camera and 23 mm f/2 lens. (David J Mathre)

In addition to resetting the Storage Shed, projects for the day included assembling two workbenches and moving/inventorying the steel pipe for the deer fence.

Daily Electric Energy Used (43.6 kWh) from Sense. Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (23.4 kWh) from Sense and SolSystems. Sun and clouds. Deficit of 20.2 kWh.

Friday (29-October-2021) — New Jersey

Autumn Backyard Nature in New Jersey.

Birds of the day viewed at the birdfeeder and in the backyard: Downy Woodpecker, Black-capped Chickadee, House Finch.


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

Images of a new solar-powered water fountain in the birdbath at different exposures/shutter speeds (1/100, 1/30, 1/13, 1/8 sec).


Water Fountain in a Birdbath. Individual images in the slideshow are available in my PhotoShelter Gallery.

Today I figured out how to attach a rear weight and tool box to the 3-point connection on the rear of Red Rover. It took a while to figure things out, and I can see I need to get a variety of pins to hold the connectors. Also, I couldn’t adjust the turnbuckle on the 3-point hitch stabilizer chains. The jam bolt was “jammed” too tight. Will probably need to take it off and put the turnbuckle onto a vice. Job for another day. Then moved the last of the deer fence pipes from the metal pallet.

Assembling the Shelter Logic “Shed in a Box” Storage Shed on a windy day. The first thing the hieroglyphic assembly instructions show is two people, and that it can be completed in 2 hours. By myself, it took a lot longer…

Daily Electric Energy Used (39.2 kWh) from Sense. Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (12.5 kWh) from Sense and SolSystems. Cloudy most of the day. Deficit of 26.7 kWh.