Monday (29-November-2021) — New Jersey

Autumn Backyard Nature in New Jersey.

Birds of the day viewed at the birdfeeder and in the backyard: Blue Jay, House Finch.


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

Little Planet Time-lapse Videos. Continuing to evaluate the LabPano Pilot EE 360 camera. I found that I can do longer shoots using an external USB-C battery pack. It just needs to be one that can do fast charging. The first time-lapse little planet video was changing the AAA batteries in the solar powered Trolls.
Five of the batteries that were removed, wouldn’t take a charge. With the new batteries, three of the Trolls LED lights were on during the day. They are supposed to charge the batteries when it is light out, and only light up when it gets dark out. All but one of the Trolls lights went on when it got dark out, and they were still on at midnight. Will continue to monitor if they continue to charge during the shorter days, and now that the temperature is dropping below freezing every night.

For the next video, the camera was mounted on Red Rover, and on a tripod in the field. Today’s main project was to prepare and seed some of the back sections. A couple of months ago, the sections were fertilized, rototilled, and then covered with black agricultural fabric (to kill germinating weeds). The wildflower seed vendor recommended to sow the seeds after the first few freezes. Apparently, some seeds germinate better if they are out for some time in the cold. (Just hope the birds and mice don’t eat all of the seeds). Today, the black agricultural fabric was removed, the plot leveled with a drag harrow, seeds sowed, then the seeds pressed down with a water-filled drum roller. The LabPano Pilot EE 360 camera was set for a 20x 4K time-lapse video. The white balance and exposure were set to Auto. In the time-lapse video you can see problems with the white balance and exposure. The lighting conditions kept changing from sunny to cloudy.

Daily Electric Energy Used (69.1 kWh) from Sense. Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (24.5 kWh) from Sense and SolSystems. Cloudy and cold. Geothermal HVAC heating the house. Deficit of 44.6 kWh.

Monday (08-May-2020) — New Jersey

Backyard Springtime Nature in New Jersey.

Back Wildflower Meadow. Last year this was a mixture of wildflowers and sunflowers. The sunflowers dominated. In the fall I used the brush mower to cut everything down. I didn’t plant additional seeds and this is the result. The plants that I have identified include Red Poppy, Lance-leaf Coreopsis, Bachelor Button, Cornflowers (various colors — white, pink, purple), Sweet William (various colors — white, pink, red, dark-red), and Evening Primrose. I haven’t seen any sunflowers, so the birds and mice got all of those seeds.

Wildflower Meadow. Composite images taken with a Leica CL camera and 35 mm f/1.4 lens (ISO 400, 35 mm, f/8, 1/80 sec). (DAVID J MATHRE)
Wildflower Meadow. Composite images taken with a Leica CL camera and 35 mm f/1.4 lens (ISO 400, 35 mm, f/8, 1/80 sec). (DAVID J MATHRE)


Back Wildflower Meadow. Individual images in the slideshow are available in my PhotoShelter Gallery.

Birds of the Day — Brown-headed Cowbird, Northern Cardinal, Tufted Titmouse and lots of immature/junior birds.


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

Daily Electric Energy Used (50.1 kWh) from meter reading. The daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (89.3 kWh) from meter reading. Much more sun. A surplus of 39.2 kWh.


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Wednesday (16-October-2019) — New Jersey

Backyard Autumn Nature in New Jersey

Before it started raining, I used the DR Field and Brush mower to clear more of the wildflower meadows and sections next to the house. I left the section with the Marigold flowers and Lemon Mint flowers as there are still bees and bumblebees working the flowers. Also the deer ignore these plants. Later in the afternoon, it started raining followed by heavy winds.

Daily Electric Energy Used (54.1 kWh) from Sense and Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (7.6 kWh) from SolSystems and Locus Energy. Heavy clouds and rain, not much solar power.  Overall a net deficit of 46.6 kWh.

Current Weather Conditions

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Saturday (12-October-2019) — New Jersey

Autumn Outdoor Yard Projects.

Day two with the DR Field and Brush mower. Cleared the south-east wildflower meadow in the backyard. Ordered new V-belts for the roto-tiller. Need to repair fence poles the deer broke, and put down some cover crop seed. Some of these activities were recorded on a Garmin VIRB-360 camera for a Time-lapse video.

Daily Electric Energy Used (56.8 kWh) from Sense and Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (38.8 kWh) from SolSystems and Locus Energy. More sun than yesterday.  Overall a net deficit of 18.0 kWh.

Current Weather Conditions

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