All around Farmington only tiny patches of snow remained in some of the perpetual shadows. But none was left at the cabin where I had been cleaning the stuff I'd brought over from the land. On the way back from the big house after feeding my neighbor's cats I chose to take the snowmobile/ATV trail back to the cabin...
At this time of year everything is so washed out looking. The color had been pulled out of every object and rinsed away into the past. Yet, the sun was just unstoppable and growing in intensity with every new day.
My sister was graduating from the University of Southern Maine with a Masters in Social Work. She invited me to the ceremony on May 11th. It happened that I was looking to get a car. And just before the day, I found and bought a used 2004 Jeep Liberty, which I was thence able to drive down to Portland...
Our new Governor, Janet Mills, gave the keynote speech.
An extremely rare scene: My dad, my sister, Deb, and my mom.
Deb and a friend.
I was very proud of my little sister. She worked her ass off, with two kids, three dogs, two cats and my mom under the same roof. She seemed genuinely happy on that day. It was fun from start to finish. I put off leaving for Farmington until after sundown. It is a two hour drive between South Portland and Farmington.
* * *
Back at the land I continued to clean and prepared to remove the tent from the inside of the shelter. It had lasted long enough to keep me dry over the better part of the last two years. Now it's job was over. Not bad for $89. The next day I would finally open up the shelter. And, you will get a better idea of how it was built last fall...
With the new Jeep.
* * *
I spent the night at the cabin where most of my stuff was and the next day and got up early and went straight to work...
I hosed down the carpet that was in the tent and soaked for most of the winter.
Studio stuff.
When I got to the land I jumped right into cleaning out the shelter. I was interested to see the areas in the shelter that I had not had a chance to see over the winter. Recall that this is a shelter with 128 square feet, but it was built around an eight person tent which still resided within it. The interior of the tent was only about 50 square feet. That was my winter living space! And, most importantly, I took the time in the fall to stuff literally 500 pounds of clean dry leaves all around the inner tent for insulation, even on top of it. Now that summer was approaching, I needed to clear out the leaves, and the tent, and use the entire shelter as a frame to be transformed into a small cottage...
Opening the back tarp.
Four feet of compacted leaves. They had been all the way to the top of the tent.
Now we see the orange tent beginning to peek out above it all.
From inside with all the leaves removed.
Now came the fun part. I took out a new razor and literally separated the entire tent from it's tub bottom. It was amazingly easy to remove the tent. The only things that I didn't take out were the dresser and mattress. I was able to open up the whole area. It was rather encouraging to see all the extra space I could use now...
Couldn't have asked for a better tent. Presently, I cut it up and burned it.
A coming project. I need to recondition these windows, which will require scraping them,
removing the panes, reglazing and buying new hardware.
On the next day I would return with the solar power system, which was still back at the cabin. I hung out at the land, burned the tent and a bunch of other trash then returned to the cabind for the night...
Little flowers on the cabin lawn.
Magnolia at the big house.
* * *
On the next day I returned to the land and put myself back to work...
Humanure compost. On the left is from this last year. On the right is from the previous year.
The objective now was to add dry leaves and green weeds.
Building up the inside of the new space took a surprisingly long amount of time. What I really needed was a FLOOR. With a good floor and some OSB sheathing around the outside--along with a bunch more framing support, I believe the little house will be quite able to make it through next winter. But for now, I simply needed a waterproof way to move back in. I intended to add a sunroom off this front (west) side.
Finally, I could reinstall the solar electrical system. I had cleaned it up and made the wiring a bit more logical. I screwed it into an inner section of the shelter...
Not a very clear shot. But, starting at the top right of the panel and moving clockwise:
(1) The black "Wanderer" charge controller, (2) DC/AC inverter, (3) off/on switch (at bottom),
(4) two heavy cords--one for each of two battery banks, just above them is (5) the voltage
meter for the battery banks, and top left is (6) my ingenious orange switches which can be
toggled to feed solar power to either battery bank, and similarly toggle to
choose which battery bank is powering the inverter load. So I can mix and match.
Each battery bank (1 & 2). Heavy duty 220v dryer cords (30A & 50A, respectively)
are especially good for this kind of thing, since the plugs have such a wide
contact surface area--perfect for DC.
With the electrical system installed and working better than I'd hoped I took the rest of the day off. My heart was hurting and I had very little energy. Still though, I was quite satisfied to have electricity again. It is my intent to add more batteries and maybe other solar or wind generators.
After watching the fire fade away, I hopped in the Jeep and returned to the cabin, ready the next morning to bring more stuff over. It was a good day.
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