Let It Flow! a/k/a “Delightfully Bewildered”

With the mild winter behind us it was time to reconnect and rev up the hydroelectric turbine and reconnect the drinking water line to the barn.

Woo Hoo!  We ended the winter with plenty of firewood, more than half-again as much as we used.  I’m looking forward to increasing that reserve even more by next winter.

I walked the water line last week and checked it out, making repairs as needed to two places where trees had fallen on it.  This was the least damage it’s had over winter.  I also took some time to re-route some sections of the line to straighten it out a bit more.  Even emptied of water a hundred feet of 2″ Schedule 40 PVC pipe is heavy and awkward.  Especially when you have to move several of these.  My shoulders are barking at me in several languages today.  The process is exhausting mostly because the footing is so treacherous in and along side the creek I have to be at maximum attention to avoid slipping and falling.  Which I did.

Late afternoon Saturday I connected all the penstock sections and opened the gate valve to the hyro-turbine and it went “whoosh!”  The subsystem electronics booted themselves and the electrons were flowing.  I guess it is time to set to work on designing the new downstream cross-flow turbine.

I had planned to take advantage of the next warm and sunny day to make one final attempt to troubleshoot the solar controller, the solar sub-system had been limping along for the past four months for no discernable reason.  But much to my bewildered delight I noticed that the solar sub-system charge controller was working perfectly when I checked the powerhouse at the end of this afternoon.   All by itself.

I’m not saying it was Divine Providence, but I’m not not saying it either.