Gone Solar

*I have edited this page as I had the wrong information about the solar panels.

Our solar system has 24 Kaneka 80 watt panels in parallel producing 1.9kw. It is coupled to an Outback Mx60 MPPT Regulator. Our inverter is a Xantrex 4548, set up with four, 12 volt, 100 amp batteries. Phil has it set up to sell excess power from the solar panels and batteries to the grid. He is currently in the process of asking lots of questions on what type of wind turbine to purchase.

Panels
A closer look

Some spare batteries he has scored.

Four solar batteries

The setup in our shed

Xantrex Inverter

New meter in meter box.

All the best

Tania

Daily Living

Sunset taken from hubby's train, snapped somewhere out west.

Bird of Paradise trying to survive in my somewhat dying garden. It breaks my heart to see my plants withering away because of the lack of water. I spent years getting it to look nice only to have it destroyed by severe water restrictions.

We have a salt lake directly behind us. When it rains it looks like a nice lake with water, the rest of the time it is bone dry.

Thyme and Oregano, these are mainly watered with dish water.

I do not own a dishwasher, so this is how I wash my dishes. First, I run the hot tap into the bucket pictured, this is used for rinsing. (Our hot water is solar and takes a while to get hot when running the tap). When the water starts to warm I then run this into the other square container to which an earth friendly detergent has been added. As you can see I don't use very much water, depending on the amount of dishes of course, if there is only a few I use very little. I wash dishes at lunch time and after tea (dinner). I used about six litres of water all up this time around. When this cools down I put it onto the herb garden.

Neighbours house with wind generator, situated across the road from us.

I couldn't help but capture this evening shadow coming through my laundry window yesterday on sundown.

Have a blessed Sunday.

Tania

Lamp Lighting Time

Last night was our first night with solar powered lighting. I found myself thinking I was wasting the power in the batteries when I turned on a light, so I decided to get out the old lamps and spent the evening with the two lamps gently burning.
There has been a lot of cackling noises coming from the chook house of late. The reason being is pictured above. Our new hens have started laying, so there are plenty of eggs at the moment. I have included a larger egg that belongs to the old girls and the smaller ones are from the younger girls.

A couple of my attempts at crafting. I made these a few years ago now, don't get the time these days. Once a month I used to sell some of my goods at a local market. The "kitchen closed" cow was very popular.

Hope you have had a wonderful day.

Tania

I'm Back

Let the sunshine in.

Hello again,

The weeks have flown by since I was last here. I had good intentions of returning sooner but life got in the way.

I am now busy again caring for little ones while their parents are working. My work load is a little easier than I thought it was going to be because I didn't get the baby that required 45 hours a week care. Instead I have a dear little 18mth old starting.

Pictures of some of the Day Care area, not very tidy when this was taken because they had just finished playing here. Top one is the shaded area and below is the playground area, includes sandpit, swings, slippery dip and climbers.

Today we were hooked up to Solar Power. At the moment it is only our lights that are running from the system. Hopefully in the future we will be able to run more than just lights. We are looking into buying a wind generator next.

Best wishes until next time.

Tania