A Sunny Sunday at the NW Corner

Today started cool, but it quickly developed into a beautiful, sunny spring day. The PV array was pumping out the juice. We were operating in excess of 3.5 kW for several hours in the middle of the day (remember, we're north of the 48th parallel). March is going to be good on the PV front.

I continue my efforts to turn the shop into a useful space. Part of today involved me at my drill press drilling 99, carefully countersunk holes into some cleats for the deer fence. So I cleaned off most of my workbench and the space around the drill press.

Yesterday I went over to "Waste Not / Want Not" a local construction salvage place. Much of their stuff is over priced, but their used shelf brackets are great. For just under $5 (including tax) I got enough stuff to put my good quality wood supplies -- much of it leftovers from the house construction -- up off the floor of the shop and onto the wall-hung shelf brackets. This is a very good thing. I need to rig some kind of bungee-strap-based safeties on the wood supplies so they don't all come crashing down in an earthquake. I am thinking about a design and am pretty close to something good.

Now that most of the wood is off the floor of the shop, I can assemble two more low shelf units to give me a bit more storage and some more work surface area. Finally, there are garden tools to hang on one stretch of walls. Usually, I study and do computer stuff during the week. I might do that tomorrow. OTOH, I might just go out and work on my shop. Probably just as useful and plenty of fun.

I also spent an hour or two trenching along the north side of the deer fence that's going in. We're going to bury 4" - 6" of fencing in the ground beneath the lower rails. That'll keep most of the larger animals from digging under the fence.

Basically, we're finally getting to the stage where we're able to get things organized and useful. Angel's shipping materials go there. The Amigo's tools go there and there. Angel's Nailtini inventory is now in the right part of the basement and all organized. You get the picture.

In the daylight basement near the south windows, seedlings are bursting out of their tiny little nursery pots. You can almost watch the zucchini reaching for the sun. Since we're so far north, our growing season has multiple stages:

• The sprouting stage in the warm, controlled part of the basement.
• The spring growth stage in the greenhouse at the south side of the yard.
• The sunny garden area between the south side of the house and the greenhouse.

We're told that the soil takes a long time to warm sufficiently this far north. There are various things we can do to address that and the above three seem to be a fairly simple set. Of course things like chilies may need to stay in the greenhouse. Whatever works will be fine with the Amigo.

Tired now. More soon. I'll try to put up some photos of shop, of greenhouse, of worm bins, etc.

I've thought of a marvelous design for a basement wine rack. Can't wait to try it.