Tag: Yard Work

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 (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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Wednesday (06-November-2019) — New Jersey

Backyard Autumn Nature in New Jersey.

Rain, and much colder predicted for the next few days. Trying to catch up on some winter preparations. The rain barrels and outdoor hoses needed to emptied before it freezes. I am continuing to cut down the remaining wildflowers and clearing the walkway around the house. I am going to miss not having the rainwater for the hydroponic systems. For the winter I will need to filter the well water (ZeroWater) to remove the sodium chloride added from the water softener. Some of the work was recorded as time-lapse video with a Garmin VIRB-360 camera.

Daily Electric Energy Used (70.3 kWh) from Sense and Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (31.6 kWh) from SolSystems and Locus Energy. More clouds than yesterday. At this time of the year the sun is lower, and the Sycamore tree leaves shadow the solar panels part of the day. Overall a net deficit of 38.7 kWh.

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Saturday (26-October-2019) — New Jersey

Backyard Autumn Nature in New Jersey.

Heavy rain is predicted for tomorrow so I needed to put down some lime, rototill, and seed some of the wildflower sections with crimson clover as a winter cover crop. Some of the work was recorded as time-lapse video with a Garmin VIRB-360 camera. During the work I found another Praying Mantis ootheca or egg sack that I moved to a protected location.

Daily Electric Energy Used (62.8 kWh) from Sense and Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (28.7 kWh) from SolSystems and Locus Energy. More clouds than yesterday. At this time of the year the sun is lower, and the Sycamore tree leaves shadow the solar panels part of the day. Overall a net deficit of 34.1 kWh. Use higher than yesterday because of laundry (4.2 kWh)

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Thursday (04-October-2018) — New Jersey

Backyard Autumn Yard Work in New Jersey.

There is a lot of yard work that needs to be completed before winter. I set up the Garmin VIRB-360 camera to record the day on the front of my Lawn Tractor.  I’ve ordered a powered mounting bracket to mount the camera in my car. A lot easier than when I mounted a camera on a tripod sitting in the passenger seat for recording time-lapse videos of cross country road trips.