On the 'threshold' of something great.....

 7:52 am - Wednesday - December 10th - TWW - 35° F, humidity 32%, wind 5 mph out of the east.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 67° F!!!  On this date in 2012 TLE and I took the ferry from Whidbey Island to Port Townsend, WA to ride our Cannondale tandem around the town....

.....we came across this cool coffee shop during our ride.

We were expecting the arrival of Charles and Phyllis around 10 am (we were wrong....that was the time they were leaving Phoenix) so TLE unloaded the firewood we had cut and split into their barrel inside the house.  While she did that I busied myself with removing the ashes from the wood burning stove, and then laying a fire for them.  As it turned out they did not arrive until after 1 pm, so the fire was unnecessary, but it's the thought that counts, right?

Once that was done I headed over to the greenhouse to install thresholds on each of the two gates to keep the small animal population from entering the greenhouse growing grounds under the gate.  The threshold area of each gate is 4 feet wide, and I had an 8 foot pressure treated 2 x 4 to use for this project.  Once I had the threshold area level I drilled three holes in each 4 foot 2 x 4 and then pounded 12 inch pieces of rebar through each hole, and into the ground to secure them in place....

The north gate

As you can see, the gate closes against the 2 x 4

South gate

.....both gates open into the greenhouse area.  It took me around 2 hours to finish this project, but I think it turned out pretty well.  Time, and use will determine how effective this solution is.

We've been here 6 weeks and I hadn't installed the tire covers on the trailer, or Newell, so that was my next task.  I don't know why I procrastinated this long.  It only takes 10 minutes to install all of them.

My final task of the day was to set up our Christmas tree.  The last few years we've been setting it up outside, and that is what we did this year, also....

.....I put a solar timer on it so it will be lit from dusk to dawn each day.  Once I finished trimming the tree I declared my work day finished.

Charles and Phyllis arrived around 1:30 pm, and we spent about 1/2 an hour helping them unload their cargo.  Some of the items were for us.  The two timers I'm using right now to turn the ceramic heaters on and off are pretty old, and only have one "on and off" option, which means once they are turned on by the timer I have to run them continuously for 2-3 hours to keep the shed, and water bay from freezing.  Each ceramic heater consumes around 120 watts of power per hour, which was driving our Bluetti battery bank down quite low overnight.  The new timers are mechanical, and give you the option of up to 24 on/off settings each day.  My theory was to have the ceramic heaters run for 30 minute intervals 4 times each night beginning at 2 am.  They come on at 2 am for 30 minutes, then at 3 am for another 30 minutes with 5 am being the last 30 minute cycle.  Tuesday night was their inaugural test, and they worked just as I hoped.  The temp in the water bay never got below 40° F, and the shed stayed above 37° F.  For the record I have two ceramic light bulb heaters in the water bay, and only one in the shed.

Charles also brought up six 4' x 8' pieces of solid foam insulation, which we will be installing in the shed during the next week to better insulate it.  Just before we left TWW last April we installed fiberglass insulation, which was difficult to install in the small confines of the shed.  The foam board will work much better, and be more effective in sealing the interior against the cold nights, and we should be able to stop using the ceramic heater to keep it above freezing, plus it will help keep it cooler in the summer.

Also, part of the cargo was a new diesel heater we're going to deploy in the greenhouse to keep the temp above freezing.  It is programmable to turn itself on and off during the night.  I'm hoping we can get it set up for Wednesday night/Thursday morning on Wednesday.  If it works as advertised them we can begin to grow stuff throughout the Winter....fingers crossed.

We had dinner around 4:30 pm (Turkey Shepherds Pie) prepared by the loving hands of Phyllis.  We had a great dinner filled with good food and conversation, as we always do.  We bid our adieus around 6:30 pm, and headed home for the night.

Thanks for stopping by!