Housebound......

8:05 am - Thursday - March 12th - Wittmann, AZ - 63° F, 90% humidity, wind 5 mph out of the east.....raining hard right now....rained on and off all night.  A lot of standing water in the yard right now.....the view this morning......↴

With rain coming and going most of the day I decided to work on a few indoor things.  I still had to enclose the tankless water heater wiring in wire 'loom' and fasten the loom to the interior wall of TLE's closet.......

.....that task took a while because of the tight space, but it did not take an inordinate amount of time.  Of course, what do I care? I'm retired, have time on my hands, and am indoors because it's raining.

Next up was what I thought would be the easiest task, and it was up to a point, then it became very difficult.  I mentioned a few days ago that I wanted to install a switch indoors to be able to turn off the Girard Tankless water heater without going outside to turn it off at the source. Even when the Girard is not producing copious amounts of hot water it is still drawing some power....something you do not want if you are dry camping, or boondocking.  When we boondock I try to eliminate as many of these type of electrical draws as possible.  At any rate, I had a 12 volt switch I have been carrying around for a few years now which was perfect for this application......

 12 volt disconnect switch successfully installed

......I decided to use the switch to interrupt the ground continuity, and thereby shut down the Girard.  Some prefer to install the switch on the 'hot' wire, but I prefer to use the ground.  There is no right, or wrong, but that is my preference.  When I installed the new ground I left enough slack in it to cut the wire, attach two female blade type connectors, and plug them into the switch.  I first drilled a hole in the wall, then attached the female connectors, then plugged them into the switch.  I tested the switch, and it worked as I hoped.  Easy peasy, right?  When I went to push the back of the switch into the hole it would not go in all the way....wait, what?  As it turns out there is a panel I removed to get at the wiring behind the various switches,  and when I reattached it the left side of the panel partially blocked the hole.....now I had to cut out part of that panel to get the switch all the way into the hole I had drilled.  This is where it became difficult, but after another 40 minutes I had cut out a big enough piece for the switch to be easily inserted into the hole, and it was just a matter of using two screws to attach the 12 volt switch to the wall.

Other indoor activities included finalizing my 2019 tax returns (Federal and California), which was a breeze, because I only had the two tax returns to file this year.  Last year I had to file Federal, Arizona, Kentucky, and Maine, as well as Calfornia even though I earned no money in California....what a mess that was!   I also spent time listing my 4th and final Seiko Automatic on eBay for sale.....

......$300 BUY IT NOW, or BEST OFFER....everything works except the inner bezel does not rotate.  This is a typical issue with these vintage watches, and of the three watches I have already sold only one had a functioning inner bezel.  This particular Seiko Automatic (6139-7100) is 'Water Resistant'. It has a new crown and stem, as well as new push button springs, and a new gasket to ensure it is still water resistant.

By the time I finished all of the aforementioned indoor chores it was 4:30 pm....where did the day go?  It stopped raining just long enough to get a nice Wittmann sunset.....

......since we are essentially housebound not only due to the rain, but the ever increasing danger of being infected by the Coronavirus, we are content to be housebound for the time being.  We are grateful we are currently residing in a very rural location, with very little exposure to large crowds of people, and in fact we have been in very rural locations since February 4th.  Nevertheless, we will make every effort to avoid large groups of people for the next couple of weeks.  I have plenty of projects to keep me busy, and I can have the necessary parts/materials shipped directly to our location.  We are going to forego dining in local restaurants, movie theaters, and going to box stores, or large grocery stores.  There are a couple of local, uncrowded mini-markets we can access for food, necessities, etc.  We are healthy with no symptoms, and hope to continue at that way.  Our prayers, and hopes are with all of you during this difficult time.

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