Now Solar Powered! ... Maybe ...

As I was about to walk out the house to go to Waimea, I heard a truck pull up to the front of the house. Wondering if the Phantom Pruner had returned, I looked out the front window and saw a Hawaiian Electric truck pulled over across the street and a guy walking towards me. It was Kainoa & he was here to change out the meters! Yay! He & Judd took just a few minutes to do the work, which included shutting off the power for about 10 seconds while they pulled the old meter & put in the new meter; then they left. Zachary had told me it was up to me to throw the rest of the switches & get the solar-generated energy in to the system. I did what he said and I didn't get electrocuted and nothing blew up. Success!

The old meter waiting to be replaced by the new meter which is on the railing.

Judd (L) & Kainoa have just installed the meter for the CGS portion; its not hot yet.

Judd prepares the old meter for removal.

Judd has installed the new meter!

I flipped the levers and turned the dial on for the CGS portion! Nothing blew up!

When I returned from Waimea I checked things out again. The Hawaiian Electric meter said that they had sent me 1 kWh of their power and that they did not receive any power from me for a net energy use by me of 1 kWh. I could understand me not sending them any power since the battery is supposed to store anything generated until 9 pm, but I could not understand why I was using so much that they had to supply an additional 1 kWh more than what the panels were generating on this nice sunny day. So I went and checked the CGS (Customer-Generator System) meter in the back of the garage; there was an error message. It wasn't there earlier when I checked before I left for Waimea. I texted Zach a photo of the error message & requested instructions on what to do next. So far I haven't heard from him; I'll call tomorrow if I don't get any response.

This is how much power I received from Hawaiian Electric.

This is the net difference.

This is how much energy I sent to the grid.

The error message I found after I returned.

Directions for figuring out what the meter is saying.

I was on my way to Waimea to have lunch with cousin Leilani and check if HPM had a drip irrigation kit. Since Kainoa & Judd came by to install the meters that delayed my departure; I ended up going straight to Leilani's instead of stopping at HPM first like I had originally planned. Leilani made spaghetti with garlic bread and a chopped salad for lunch for us. I also got to meet her Shi Tzu Cavalier; he's a little over 7 months old. I also got a tour of her house and yard. We had a great visit that lasted over 3 hours!

The weather when I arrived at Leilani's house.

Leilani's late husband Kevin had this specially built for her.

Lunch! Yum!

I think this is a type of rhododendron. I will have to do some research on it.

HPM did not have the drip irrigation kit that I wanted. But I did find a new type of dehumidifier; its a rod that heats up and is supposed to create air circulation to keep things drier. I put it in the sewing room; we'll see how it does in there.

Six minutes after sunrise on Kynnersley.

This morning I started my walk closer to my normal time; I saw 12 cars and 10 trucks. I also saw a yurt; it was stationary. During my pig damage walk through I found the pigs had eaten all the rat bait again; they seem to be coming in the front now. I also found a couple of tiny mushrooms in the front lawn; apparently the pigs don't like these type of mushrooms.

I think its a yurt.

The caps are smaller than the diameter of a quarter.

Since I was going to meet Leilani for lunch I didn't want to get too dirty so I skipped the outdoor work and concentrated on unloading more boxes. My first project was cleaning up the toaster oven and testing how well it did toast. Did you know that toaster ovens also have a little hatch on the bottom to clean out the dropped crumbs? I did not, but I do now! After cleaning off the old oil residue with ammonia I made a piece of toast on the #3 setting; too dark! Then I made another on the #1 setting; still a little too much toastiness for me but way better than at #3. Previously when we used it I was cooking bacon & eggs; it did fine for those.

Before.

Its going to take a while to get all those crumbs outta there!

Look! The bottom opens!

A paper towel soaked with ammonia solution will get the old oil off.

After, nice & shiny!

On setting #3; too dark!

On setting #1; better!

The next box I worked on looked like it was a bunch of plates, a few bowls, and 2 smaller boxes. One contained hashi rests; the other looked like miniature katana. I think it is a set of steak knives made to resemble small Japanese swords even down to the wavy grinding pattern on the edge. I don't think tanto had scabbards like katana & wakizashi, and I think these are smaller than tanto. I opened a box that was topped with graters and decided to leave that for later.

Why 5? Because 4 is bad luck.

The knives made to look like mini swords.

The box of graters; actually there's a whole lot of stuff in here.

I then opened a box that contained a warning about sharp objects. And there were plenty of sharp objects in that box! And also some not so sharp ones, too. It was a very mixed box of stuff, including 24 spoons. Why would you need 24 spoons? And those were only the ones in that box, I already had 8 out for use, plus another 3 that were grapefruit spoons. I figure all those spoons went along with the giant coffee maker and the multitude of coffee mugs in this house!

Yes, there are!

A cleaver made in Hong Kong.

A knife made in Japan.

Haven't the slightest idea what this if; if you do, please let me know!

Why was there a hacksaw blade in the kitchen drawer?

I know what these are for! Do you? Answer here tomorrow!

Only one beater?

Less sharp things.

Twenty-four spoons.

After I returned from visiting Leilani, I continued with the unboxing. The next box contained a set of dishes that Mom said Uncle George bought for Grandma & Grandpa; I don't ever remember eating off of these. But maybe they put them away when us kids came to visit.

Golden Rhapsody dinnerware set.

Here's a little more pig math for today. In order to reach the LD50, a pig has to ingest 150 mg of  Diphacinone per kg of body weight and each bag of rat bait has a total of 50 mg of Diphacinone. So the 50 pound young pigs would need to each eat 330 bags of rat bait; but even with that only 50% of them would die. For the 175 pound adult pigs that would be 1,155 bags each! And again, only 50% of them would die. (That's why its called LD50 - lethal dose for 50%.) I wish they didn't like those rat bait treats as much as they do. I heard noises in the attic last night so I am continuing to set out the bait around the trees the rats are most likely using to get in to the house. I hope Orion puts that fence up soon! Or Shar is able to catch them. Buying all this rat bait is getting expensive!

Hauʻoli lā Hānau to Marcia, Kip, Gloria, & Peter!