08:13 am - Monday - December 29th - TWW - 33° F, humidity 23%, wind 18 mph out of the east by northeast.....crystal clear, sunny, windy skies with a forecast high of 50° F, and winds in the 20-30 mph range all day long.
.....similar to Sunday, but the sky is a deeper shade of blue. On this date in 2018 TLE and I arrived at Cedar Key, FL for the third time in our nomadic wanderings.....
.....after working at Amazon in Campbellsville, KY for the third and final time. Sadly, we have not returned to Cedar Key since then, although we think about it often. The most magical time we spent there was for five weeks in early 2013. After 3 hurricanes causing extensive damage in the interval between 2013 and 2018 it was not the same. Almost all of our favorite 'hangout' places had gone out of business. As they say, "You can't go home", and sometimes that is true.
It was cold, and windy Sunday, and we did not get dressed to do any work outside until around 11 am. Over he past 12 months TLE and I have raked a lot of smaller rocks into piles on the north side of our site, and we wanted to load them into the Yamaha Rhino and move them out to that low spot in the entry driveway we worked on a week, or two ago. Unfortunately, the Yamaha was being cranky, and wouldn't start. I ended up spending well over an hour trying to diagnose and fix it, and I did. One of the fuel lines had a crack in it, which allowed air to enter the sealed system, which is not conducive to starting and running. Once that was fixed we began loading 6 of the many small piles of rocks into the Yamaha. When we had a full load we took them out to the driveway not far from the entrance, and dumped them along the side of the driveway. We'll rake them out in the next day, or two, but we've still got 6, or 7 other piles to load and move. By the time we finished around 2 pm it the temp was dropping rapidly.
As you will recall we set the timer on the diesel heater in the greenhouse to run for 12 hours Saturday night/Sunday morning (8 pm to 8 am), and the temp inside the greenhouse got as low as 32° F overnight (the outside low was 24° F). We decided to have it run from 7 pm Sunday night to 9 am Monday morning, and that seems to have done the trick. When it came on at 8 pm Saturday night it was already down to 33° F outside, so by starting it at 7 pm Sunday when it was only 40° F gave it the head start it needed. At it's highest last night it had risen to 52° F inside the greenhouse, and when we got up this morning (Monday) it was still 45° F inside, even though it was 29° F outside.....much, much better. All that being said, the plants survived Saturday night/Sunday morning just fine.
The Sunday night NFL game between the Chicago Bears and the San Francisco 49ers was a barn burner with the 49ers winning 42-38. Win, or lose, it was a great game to watch.
The last days of 2025 are slowly slipping into the rearview mirror as I write, and as that transpires we are getting to the cold/breezy part of the winter. We're in much better shape this winter than last, and not worrying from night to night if we can keep our water bay warm enough to avoid anything freezing, or get our batteries recharged. Those ceramic heaters in the water bay are working better than okay, and with the added solar panels for the house batteries they are getting a full charge most of the time. We're getting our house and shed batteries recharged via solar input virtually every day it is sunny. The only exceptions have been the heavily overcast, rainy days, which is to be expected. We're still looking at a new wind turbine option to help out on those stormy days. The best thing so far is we've had NO snow that has stuck.
Thanks for stopping by!
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