Wednesday (09-October-2019) — New Jersey

Home Cooking: Bread and Salsa Verde.

It must be autumn as it is cold and raining outside. Spent the day making Bread and Salsa Verde. I made a Time-lapse video of the time in the kitchen cooking both using a Garmin VIRB-360 camera.

Whole Wheat & Muesli Bread Recipe: Bob’s Red Mill Muesli (1 1/2 cup); Bread Flour (1/2 cup); Whole Wheat Flour (1/2 cup); Sprouted Wheat Flour (1/2 cup); Flax Seed (1/4 cup); sugar (2 tbs); dry milk (1/4 cup); salt (1 tsp); egg (1 large); flax oil (2 tbs); water (1 1/4 cup). Above ingredients added to the Panasonic Bread Bakery. Yeast (2 tsp) added to yeast hopper and the unit set for Whole Wheat Bread (Rapid) and started. Three hours later, the loaf of bread was removed and allowed to cool. This time the bread stuck to the cooker and was hard to get out. Next time reduce the Muesli by 1/2 cup, and increase the bread flour by 1/2 cup. I like this bread since it is not as dense and heavy as the Rye & Whole Wheat loaves.

Salsa Verde Recipe: First I grilled/blackened husked and washed Tomatillos (2.5 lbs), Red Onion (1 quartered), New Mexico Hatch Chile Peppers (4, cut in half and de-seeded) on a broiler pan. These were placed in a 4 quart Instant Pot pan along with garlic cubes (12, Trader Joe’s), salt (1 tsp), Coriander (1 tsp), Cilantro (fresh, 2 oz, washed and chopped), Apple vinegar (1/4 cup), Lime juice (2 medium, squeezed). Then cooked for 10 minutes at high pressure. After relieving the pressure, the mixture was blended with a hand-held immersion blender. Still a bit too sweet. More vinegar and salt?

Daily Electric Energy Used (52.5 kWh) from Sense and Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (12.9 kWh) from SolSystems and Locus Energy. Cloudy and rainy all day. One load of laundry and two loads in the dishwasher.  Overall a net deficit of 39.6 kWh. Hope to see more sun this month… But the ground is dry causing the deer to keep getting into the fenced wildflower meadows.

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Sunday (06-October-2019) — New Jersey

Autumn Indoor Nature in New Jersey.

Daily walkabout with a Nikon 1 V3 camera and 70-300 mm VR lens. After the rain and temperature dropping 40 degrees, I thought all of the Monarch butterflies left for Mexico. Today, I found one of the hundred or so that were here last week remained. It was spending its time feeding on the Cosmos flowers. Afterwards, I mowed the lawn. The grass is pretty dry, and the leaves from the trees are starting to drop. There are lots of black walnuts on the ground. This year I’ll leave those for the squirrels to collect. It’s too much work to dry them and then after cracking the black walnuts open, it is really hard to remove the nut meat. Finally, a Harvestman (daddy long legs) spider visiting a security camera in the middle of the night.

Click on the above image to access my Photoshelter gallery that contains the images in the following slideshow.


Daily Electric Energy Used (49.6kWh) from Sense and Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (204 kWh) from SolSystems and Locus Energy. Lots of clouds. Overall a net deficit of 38.3 kWh.

Weekly Electric Energy Used (364 kWh) from Sense and Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (206 kWh) from SolSystems and Locus Energy. Several cloudy days, and the indoor hydroponic systems came online. Overall a net deficit of 158 kWh.

Past Week Weather Conditions.

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Thursday (03-October-2019) — New Jersey

Autumn Indoor Nature in New Jersey.

The two AeroGarden Farm 24″ systems arrived a day late. The UPS driver claimed I wasn’t home to sign for the package even though I hadn’t left the house all day. The security cameras also didn’t show anyone arriving at the time they supposedly tried to deliver the package. These two would become the base for a stacked set using the two 36″ systems I assembled on Tuesday. Some assembly required. This time, both packages contained all of the parts. I used the Garmin VIRB-360 camera to record the assembly process for a Time-Lapse video.

Daily Electric Energy Used (47.0 kWh) from Sense and Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (5.3 kWh) from SolSystems and Locus Energy. It rained all day, and the temperatures dropped nearly 40 degrees since yesterday. The Geothermal HVAC system wasn’t needed. The new hydroponic gardens used 8.9 kWh. Overall a net deficit of 41.7 kWh.

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Tuesday (01-October-2019) — New Jersey

Autumn Indoor Nature in New Jersey.

I am expanding my indoor hydroponic garden capacity this year so I can have both fresh vegetables and greens as well as wildflowers. Two AeroGarden Farm XL systems were delivered. Some assembly required. I set up the Garmin VIRB-360 camera to record the assembly process for a Time-Lapse video. Unfortunately, one of the boxes was missing the hardware (bolts, cables, control unit). ARRG! I’ve requested the missing items be replaced but haven’t heard from the Support folks from AeroGarden yet so I can finish assembling the 2nd unit.

AeroGarden Farm XL Box One -- Contents Jumbled, and Parts Missing. Image taken with a Leica CL camera and 23 mm f/2 lens. (DAVID J MATHRE)
AeroGarden Farm XL Box One — Contents Jumbled, and Parts Missing. Image taken with a Leica CL camera and 23 mm f/2 lens. (DAVID J MATHRE)
AeroGarden Farm XL Box Two -- Contents in Order, and no Parts Missing. Image taken with a Leica CL camera and 23 mm f/2 lens. (DAVID J MATHRE)
AeroGarden Farm XL Box Two — Contents in Order, and no Parts Missing. Image taken with a Leica CL camera and 23 mm f/2 lens. (DAVID J MATHRE)

Daily Electric Energy Used (54.3 kWh) from Sense and Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (41.6 kWh) from SolSystems and Locus Energy. More sun in the afternoon and warmer out. The Geothermal HVAC used 6.1 kWh for cooling. The new hydroponic gardens used 8.7 kWh. Overall a net deficit of 12.7 kWh.

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Thursday (12-September-2019) — New Jersey

Backyard Summertime Nature in New Jersey.

The air-dancer kept the deer out of my kitchen garden wildflower meadow. I did however have an opossum visit my patio and Garden Towers. Unlike the raccoons, I  am a little more tolerant of the opossums because they supposedly eat any ticks that attach themselves to the opossum. It has been eating leaves off my hot pepper plants (leaving the peppers).  It has been a couple of weeks since I last mowed the lawn. Time-lapse video using a Garmin VIRB-360 camera. Video created using Photoshop CC (including the Little Planet view).

Daily Electric Energy Used (51.9 kWh) from Sense and Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (28.6 kWh) from SolSystems and Locus Energy. Clouds most of the day. Ran a batch of laundry (3.9 kWh) and had to run the Geothermal HVAC system on to cool the house (11.7 kWh). Overall a net deficit of 23.3 kWh.

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