A productive day......

 7:34 am - Saturday - January 18th - TWW - 26° F, humidity 43%, wind 4 mph out of the southeast.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 50° F.  On this date in 2013 TLE and I were having lunch at Ken's Seaside Diner....a 50's kind of place....

.....like I said....I love sitting across from this gorgeous woman, and that captivating smile!

Usually I avoid being outdoors before 10 am, but I had a lot to do on Friday, and could not afford to burn any daylight, so I was dressed, and out the door by 9 am.  My first task of the day was to assemble the solar panel brackets which would enable us to place our two 325 watt panels on the ground, and no longer have them on tables, leaning against the cedar shed, and the back of Phyllis' Newell.  Those triangles are not too intuitive, at least not for me.  It took me several attempts to put them together in a configuration which suited the 325 watt panels.....

.....I fully expected this task to take an hour, or so, but by the time I finished attaching the brackets to the two solar panels, then screwing them onto four 4" x 4" x 4' posts it was after 11 am.....lol!  The Hockwald way rears its uncomely head once again.  Anyway, now they are both together in the same place, and will get the sun earlier in the day.  The one that was leaning against the back of the Newell did not get any sunlight until after 10 am, while the one leaning against the cedar shed had sun before 9 am.

Next up I needed to turn my attention back to our house water pump.  You will recall that over a month ago I removed the 13 year old ShurFlo water pump (rated 45 PSI), and installed the brand new SeaFlo water pump (rated 60 PSI).  The old pump was just not generating enough water pressure for our Gerard tankless water heater to work properly.  The issue with the new pump was that if the house batteries (it is a 12 volt pump) were at 100% the pump would continually surge, which the tankless water heater also did not like.  Eventually, about a week ago I finally surrendered, and reinstalled the older ShurFLo, which I almost immediately regretted, because it was impossible to get the water in the shower over 100° F, which means you're taking a barely above lukewarm shower.  After taking my first lukewarm shower I immediately ordered a brand new ShurFlo pump.....

......it is rated at 3 GPM (gallons per minute) at 55 PSI.  The SeaFlo pump was rated at 5.5 GPM at 60 PSI....too many gallons per minute.  It took me over an hour to switch out the pumps, but the result was well worth the time!  The new pump is 1/2 the size of the SeaFlo pump, so is a better fit in the space allocated for the water pump, but the main difference is that I was able to take a shower with the temp remaining constantly at 106° F.....a nice HOT shower!

Just as I was putting away my tools from the water pump project Charles suggested we try and start the Ford tractor.  I had the Honda EU2000i generator powering the battery charger for several hours prior to this while I worked on the first two projects, and by the time we headed over to fire up the Ford tractor the battery was at 13.5 volts....pretty much fully charged.  I switched the setting on the charger to 50 amp quick start, sprayed a little ether in the air intake housing, and she fired right up!  So, for the first time since we arrived 3 months ago the tractor was running, and I was moving it over to the area by our IBC water tote.....

....frankly guys and gals, she runs, and functions like a charm!  I parked her between the Newell and the water tote, so we can work on 'reinflating' that left, rear tire.  Once that is done I will begin the leveling work on our permanent site.  I cannot believe we're finally to the point where we can begin to think about moving the coach to a spot where we'll get better sun on our rooftop solar panels, for longer periods during the day.  I'll spend some time today putting grease into all the grease fittings on the tractor, and, hopefully, by Thursday we'll be working on the new RV site pad!

By 3 pm the temp had dropped from the 53° F high of the day to under 50°, and it was time to head indoors, take that wonderfully hot aforementioned shower, and get ready for dinner.....

....Phyllis prepared a very flavorful turkey soup, and coleslaw for dinner.....good conversation and vino were had by all.

Thanks for stopping by!