Electrifying
May 28th, 2008 - Posted in eco-building, geekiness - by Brendhan|
We recently passed a milestone here at the Croft as we now have power to our workshop! After our last building related update we had a reasonably weather proofed building so we decided to get on with power ASAP. After the quotes came in (scary stuff!!) we selected the one that was happy for us to do a lot of the work (and the cheapest). The first job was to drill holes on the studs for the electrical cable to pass through.
Brendhan drilling a hole in our framing.
This was a lot of fun with the insulation getting caught in the drill a few times until I sorted out a method of holding the stuff out of the way (Sarah)! I guess the professionals drill the holes before putting the insulation in. After the holes were drilled it was simply a matter of pulling through the cable provided by the electrician for the three power circuits (one for the caravan point outside) and the single lighting circuit.
The cable in place waiting for the electrician.
We also screwed the lights to the trusses and fixed the wires in place. The electrician turned up on time with all the bits he needed which was a good start. Then a few minutes later the electrical inspector turned up to switch the power over from the old temporary supply box to the newly installed (by yours truly) meter box. Unfortunately the wiring was not completed by then (he was supposed to be on-site about an hour later) so he just hung around chatting with the electrician who happened to be an old friend. Which was all well and good until we got the bill and discovered we were charged $57 +gst for the hour of chit-chat!
We have power and light – yay! (note the black comms cable lower right)
So while the inspector chatted with the electrician and I chatted with our neighbour who happened to pop over at the time we all left Sarah busily digging the hole around the old meter box to move the cable over to the building. Much to our amusement our neighbours’ 8 year old son found this very confusing coming from a real west coast family (ie Dad digs holes and Mum cooks and cleans)! Since Sarah had dug the hole I then reasoned that it should also be Sarah who filled it in so afterwards left her to it while I got on with the far more interesting communications cabling…
Sarah filling in the hole she dug.
With the boring 240volt stuff out of the way it was time to move the phone from the caravan to the garage/workshop. Of course not being allowed to touch the little white telecom box we phoned telecom to come out and switch it over for us (not!). After I had moved the telecom box to the workshop I pulled the extra wire through the walls in the same way as the power and connected everything up to the 4 port network I’d installed earlier.
The most important bit – the comms cabinet awaiting its door
So all the network stuff (ADSL modem, Wireless access point etc) lives in the comms cabinet with a structured cat6 wiring running through the walls to a couple of points around the workshop (horizontal wiring). There will also be another four cat6 sockets next to the four at the top of the cabinet that connect the workshop to the main comms cabinet in the house (vertical wiring) once we have built the house.
Animal update
May 24th, 2008 - Posted in chickens, ducks, self-sufficiency, sheep - by Sarah|
Winter is on it’s way now and while it may mean that we have to wear our woolly hats and long johns while watching South Park in the evening it doesn’t seem to be bothering the animals at all.
Apartheid has finally ended in the paddock as the youngsters have reached puberty and realised that although they look different they are still anatomically compatible. Mittens has wrested control of the flock from Cardigan and poor Singlet gets chased away whenever any of the ewes are on heat. I have been learning things I never guessed about sheep courtship. Mittens starts by hassling each of the girls until they pee in front of him. He then has a good sniff and sticks his nose in the air and wrinkles it up (he looks a lot like a hairy anteater at this point;-)). This ritual seems to enable him to decide whether it’s worth pursuing the sheep further. And when I say pursuing, that’s what I mean, as the ewes tend to spend a lot of time running away from him. Singlet on the other hand just sneaks in there whenever Mittens attention is distracted (eg by a handful of sheep nuts) and gets right on with it.
Mittens with Hat and Scarf.
The chickens seem happy too as I have changed the chicken run around so that they have a new area to explore. They have found a perfect dust bathing area and scratched out a hole that is currently about big enough to bury a whole chicken.
Queueing up for the dustbath.
We are still getting an egg or two every few days as well. One less observant hen has not realised that the seasons have moved on and is still trying desperately to hatch the 3 plastic eggs that I keep in the nesting boxes.
We are currently duck-less until we get some more eggs next spring. They roasted up beautifully and we even shared them with Brendhan’s eldest brother and one of his nephews.
