My Summer Vacation: More Inside Work

I awoke to another rainy day. Box #96 here I come!

Sixteen minutes after sunrise; time to get out of bed.

The birds did try to get me out of bed thirty-one minutes before sunrise, but I resisted.

The Aix Weather app on my phone said it would rain all day here with up to 0.025" per hour; it showed the heaviest rain to be between 8 am and 2 pm. It was not very accurate about rain all day, the heavy rain period was actually kinda dry. (Honolulu showed only 2 periods with rain but not enough to show an accumulation.) Today I took hourly photos of the rain rather than trying to get it when it was actively raining. Basically these are hourly snapshots of the weather today; I also did a cat food check at each hour.

Raining at 6 am.

Still raining at 7 am.

I put the food out for the morning feeding shortly after 6; it was still there at 7.

Misting at 8 am.


Untouched at 8 am.

Drizzling at 9 am.

Still untouched at 9 am.

At 10 am; no precip in the middle of what was supposed to be a downpour.

Someone came in for a couple of bites.

Misting at 11 am; Wiley is at the far edge of the grass near the center of photo.

No one came back for more since 10 am.

Still dry at 12 noon, but the rain started about 10 minutes later.

Mom Cat & Wiley have now finished the morning rations.

Overcast but dry at 1 pm.

More of the same at 2 pm.

Ditto at 3 pm.

Starting to get sunny at 4 pm.

Getting cloudy again at 5 pm.

I put out more food around 5 pm for the evening feeding.

Clearing up at 6:15 pm. It began raining after dark.

Days like yesterday and today test out the solar power set-up that I have; yesterday it produced 10.3 kWh. That's less than half of what it usually produces on a sunny day but more than twice as much as the lowest I've seen it. And it was able to provide all the power for the house during daylight hours as well as fully recharge the battery; overnight it only drew the battery down to 70%. By the way, there were 2 periods yesterday where there were localized power outages; one for 5 minutes and another for 1 hour & 35 minutes. I think the longer one was the time the Spectrum wifi was out; I had to use my Verizon hotspot to keep working online. The Tesla app on my phone keeps track of the times when the solar panels & battery are providing all the power for the house; there have been 13 events since I had it installed for a total of 17.5 hours. Previously I knew the power went out at least once each time I was away since the clock on the stove would be flashing; I have not had to deal with that since the solar power went live on June 7th last year. Even with mainly overcast skies, today the panels produced 13.7 kWh

I have a couple other solar-powered things at the house. One is a toy, the Solar Dancing Cat that Lori gave me as a birthday gift one year; I keep it on the window sill. It is like the Maneki Neko and waves when there is enough insolation. The other is a lantern by Solight Design; I got several of them when I first started working on the house so each bedroom would have a light source when the power went out. This used to be a Solar Helix; but the housing disintegrated over time. The others I have are either the Solar Puff or the Solar Twilight; the housing of these are made of more durable materials.

I keep it in the plastic so it is easier to clean the gecko poop off.

The solar panel for the Helix; the LEDs on the other side still work as a light source so I still use it.

There was an article in the Well Done email, Here's What Grocery Shopping Could Look Like in the Future. I agree with their assessment about use of masks, one-way aisles, and sanitizing; but I will have a hard time with it if they all start going to pre-packaged meals. I like the Farm to Car type of programs where you can get fresh whole foods and support local agriculture while still reducing your potential exposure.

Sir Purr once again ate all his food and used the litter box after I went to sleep. And used the litter box; he a smaller deposit today than yesterday.

I saw Wiley at the edge of Jessie's back yard about 11 this morning. When I checked, the cat food was still partially eaten as it had been an hour earlier. But I think Mom Cat and Wiley came by some time shortly after I took this photo because at noon all the cat food was gone!

Wiley scratches an itch.

Like Box #266, Box #96 had some loose things stacked on top of it that I would have to deal with before I could even open the box. The imprint on the back of this says, "Wilson Specialties Co. Inc. Brooklyn, NY" and "Hand Wrought Aluminum"; it appears to be a nut dish. I remember Mom & Dad having a large aluminum dish that we put nuts in but it did not have the thing in the middle like this one does; I wonder what happened to that one?

Here's a better view of Box #96.

Would you have been able to figure out this was a nut bowl without Google? Me neither.

This Presto All Electric Frying Pan says it is fully submersible; if it works I think I will keep it. Initially I thought it might be a slow cooker since the liner bags were together with it. Obviously not.

My first look in to Box #96.

Look! Even more dish towels! In fact, there are more dish towels here than in Honolulu; I am taking 4 or 5 back for The Roommates so they don't have to use a bath mat to dry dishes! And that extra long barbecue fork, that's also a keeper; just need to find the rest of the tools. Plus something to grill on.

With the addition of these frying pans, there are now 8 that are available for use. Three of the other pans are cast iron and 2 are non-stick. I like that I was able to find these 2 smaller 8" pans; better for a single serving of eggs or similar things.

I found a waffle iron! It was made by Manning-Bowman & Co. out of Meriden, CT. Although the lid and handles look like the less expensive model called The Sub-Deb, it has the automatic controls for the more expensive model called The Debutante. Its model number is 1663, which is not listed, so perhaps it was a later model combining the automatic controls in a less fancy-looking package. Only problem is, the removable cord was not with it. I will keep searching for it. I'm not sure why, but it comes with the warning, "DO NOT USE ON D.C. - USE ON A.C. ONLY".

I found a large National Rice-o-Mat rice cooker, Model SR 18- R. Did you know there is one of these in the National Museum of American History? Me neither. It has the cord with it, so I am assuming it works; it will come in handy for large family gatherings. But for smaller groups there is a more manageable (& newer) 6 cup rice cooker that was purchased in 2017 when we were unable to locate this one.

I unclicked the "On" button before I put it away.

In Box #96, I also found some lacquer ware. There is a shelf in one of the cabinets that has several other pieces of lacquer ware; these will join them for use on special occasions.

I found a bag full of potholders and trivets. And a bear for I'm not sure what; let me know if you know what it's for. I'm not sure I would use the knitted things as either potholders or trivets; they feel like they are synthetic not wool and it seems like they might melt if the hot item is too hot. (Or burst in to flame if I get it too close to an open flame.)

The final item in Box #96 is ... another box. And it really does have "tea cups, chawan, little plates". There were 9 Mt. Fuji design tea cups, 5 ume design tea cups, 12 bamboo design chawan, and 13 little bamboo design plates. They were hand-painted; each one is a little different. (The hand writing on the tag is mine but I just noted what I found in it when I found the already-packed box.)

Washing everything before I put them back on the shelves takes up a bunch of time.

The path to the front door is slowly becoming more accessible!

Trust me, it is getting better.

I ran in to a little glitch with getting the anthuriums; the grower would not take credit cards for them. Fortunately, Kamaka has a PayPal account that I could transfer the money for the anthuriums in to so he can pick them up for me. I am having Kamaka help me do things while I am here to help him with paying off his $50K+ student loans. For every $10K he raises he will host a community event to help give back to the community that is helping him pay off his student loan debt. The 3 things he is helping me with is 1) picking up the anthuriums, 2) moving the hāpuʻu, and 3) sharing about his experiences in Madagascar. (As a biologist the last one is important since Madagascar is one of the most ecologically diverse places in the world.)

Orion arrived shortly after dinner to finish off the fence and gate. He put in a section of grating and also lowered the gate about 4 inches; those pigs shouldn't be able to get in now! He said if they do, let him know. He said the next thing that needs to happen is to replace the fence that Jessie and I share but it would take a lot more work since the shrubs would have to be cut in order to put a new fence up

Orion adds the last piece to pig-proof the fence.

The gate is much lower now.

While I was taking photos of the things I found while unpacking, my phone said, "Not enough space. Delete some files, then try opening Camera again." I had deleted all my old photos from the last few days so there were no more of those to delete; so I would have to delete emails and texts, but that would take time. Then I remembered, I still had not submitted my eBird data for several walks and those can be large files; it turns out I had not submitted 45 of them! I had not submitted anything since February 4th, so I got to work submitting them. I started out showing that I had submitted 20 checklists for the year and 1030 lifetime checklists; when I was done it was 61 and 1071 respectively. (The numbers don't add up because I deleted 4 checklists that I had started but stopped shortly after I started.) But that still did not solve the space problem! Unbeknownst to me, the eBird mobile app also saves the submitted checklists on my phone! Aue! Fortunately I can go in and delete the submitted checklists from my phone; I deleted the ones from December 2018 when I first started using the mobile app for the Checklist a Day Challenge which got rid of 18 checklists. (They are still saved on the eBird website.) Unfortunately I need to do them individually. That has now become another thing to do while in quarantine!

I have narrowed the search area for the source of the smell I mentioned yesterday. I noticed it quite strongly when I was standing at the sink washing dishes after lunch; a quick sniff near the other window verified that it was coming through the window above the sink. Which means the source is either in the garage or just outside it. Or maybe in Jessie's yard on the other side of the fence from the garage opening. When the weather is nicer I will start looking for the source.

I spent about an hour talking to Kai this morning. While we were talking he sent me the xkcd.com comic that sums up how he feels about the 6-foot physical distancing recommendation.

(From xkcd.com)

About 10 this morning, I got an email from Hawaiian Airlines; they changed my return flight. Instead of leaving around 3:30 pm, I will now be leaving around 4:50 pm. My seat appears to have remained the same, #15A. Although there are 6 more occupied seats in this portion of the diagram, it appears they have retained the blocked seats to create some physical distancing. I guess I will just have to see if that is really true when I board the plane.