Monday, May 16, 2011

Internet Cafe / Pepper Update

First off the missing mountains from the last thread are back. The smoke seems to have gone somewhere else.

Yesterday my neighbor Robert came by about 9:00 AM to watch some NetFlix and do some work on his computer. Shortly after that Nick came by to use his computer and wound up also watching a couple of movies. Both had their computers plugged in so with mine going also and the swamp cooler going to it was too much for the little 200 watt inverter to handle so it shut down. To handle the load I switched to the 400/800 which is a power hog, but it was the next step up and I sure didn't need the 1000.

All went well until about 8:00 last night and that inverter shut down because of low batteries. I ran the generator to charge the batteries with a car battery charger because the gas charger I kept the old batteries charged with is unmovable for now because Bigfoot borrowed my 2 wheel dolly yesterday. (I need to get it redone with wheels so I can move it.) Never fails that when I loan something out I always seem to need it. ;) Anyway the generator ran for 2 hours last night and another hour and a half this morning and only got the batteries up from 11.5 volts to 12.1 volts. The sun didn't get on the panels until about 9:30 because of the position of the sun now and the shadow of this trailer blocks it until then. The batteries are just now up to 12.37 and they need to be 13 volts plus to be fully charged. Looks like I'll try to get by without the Swampie today and will have everything else shut down except for occasionally checking in online. Probably no movies tonight either. :(

About mid afternoon before Nick and Robert left Bigfoot came by to borrow my 2 wheel dolly and Nick and Robert left shortly after he got here so we went to the legion for a cool one. Just Me showed up there just as we were getting out of the vehicles so we got to visit with her for a short.

There's a new dog on the block where Pepper lives (Male) and he was seeking to make pepper his new girlfriend and kept trying to mount her, but she didn't want any part of that. Dave said she finally got tired of it and she started putting a whippin on him even though he was a much bigger dog. Dave said he tried to break up the fight and Pepper tried to take a chunk out of his hand. Looked pretty bad to me. I guess its a good thing she isn't here anymore because that would have been a death penalty if she'd done that to me.

10 comments:

  1. Glad the smoke has cleared - hopefully the fires are out...?

    Batteries - tell me about them! :-)

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  2. I just checked and the charge hasn't gone up much since this morning so... I'm about to move 7 of the other panels over to the new battery bank and hope that helps. I may take the PU over to the Foot's place to get my dolly so I can move the charger.

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  3. Why isn't Pepper fixed. It is only $55.00...It would be cheaper than feeding 6 or 9 more dogs.

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  4. She is fixed Frann. Maybe the male dog is one of those that will hump anything???

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  5. Good Grief...no leg is safe!

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  6. If she's fixed, the humping was probably a domination thing. Hope she came out on top in the dispute. When Quinn and Tara got into it Christmas Day, I had to wait until Quinn was backing out of it to grab Tara, and by then it was too late for Quinn. She must have gotten 20-30 stitches. I read recently that you really need 2 adults to break up a dog fight, and you grab the end of the tail, not the collar - if they feel something touch their neck area, their instinct is to bite since it's probably another dog taking advantage of the situation and they automatically defend that flank from the new "attacker." Hope Dave's ok, and that Pepper and the male were both up to date on rabies vaccines...

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  7. Morning Tffnguy.
    John Wells gave me a link to your blog. Hpe you don't mind me contacting you. I'm working on some research for a production company in the UK. We are working on a range of new ideas. I would really appreciate any information or guidance you can offer about life off grid.

    I'm interested in finding out about people living in remote environments in the usa. It would be really great to speak to you about your off grid experiences. If you have time it would be great to speak with you about our project. Let me know if this is possible. Thank you for any help you can offer.

    dthompson@wagtv.com

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  8. Awhh jez David your going Hollywood too!

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  9. Abby, I'd have never thought to grab the tail. Makes sense though. Pepper got all shots and such before she came down here so I assume all is good with that. From what I was told she was Kicking Butt!!! ;)

    Dunct, it would only take 3 words to describe my off grid experience. Life is Hard Outside of that everything about it can be found in this blog if you start at the beginning and read to the last thread.

    Not me Frann.

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  10. Lol, I couldn't help but smile at Frann's comment :D

    I do feel bad about what happened to your friend David though...hope he is OK.

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