Pastel dawn

 The clear skies and snow cover gave this morning's sunrise a peaceful pastel palette.

The solar panels were particularly pink in the first rays of the sun - with one mysteriously clear of yesterday's snow, giving the array the impression of a gap-toothed grin.

Snow on snow

If things have been a little quiet around here, it's mainly because I've been spending my spare time digging us out from underneath the snow.

After last Sunday's day-long blizzard, the gate next to the small barn was fairly well buried.

The last three days brought yet more snow and now the gate is barely visible.

But the high winds have scoured the snow off the solar panels, so at least we're back in production up there.

There's no sign of warmer weather in the forecast, although there are threats of more snow, so I suspect it will get worse before it gets better. Oh well, all the shovelling provides a pretty good workout. Who needs a gym membership?

Ineffectual sunlight

 In theory the solar panels work best in cold weather. In practice however, the really cold weather (today's high was -18°C/0°F) brings some snow with it, which refuses to melt at such low temperatures, limiting our production.

With a whole day of brilliant sunshine, you would hope that the snow on the greenhouse might melt a bit. Well, I suppose it did a bit, but hardly enough to notice. Not that there's much growing in there at the moment. Today I took a look inside for the first time in weeks.The sage bush is still holding on in there and I think one or two of my leeks, kale and parsley plants might just be still alive - but otherwise it all looks a bit bleak. It's hard to believe that in the summer months I am busy in there every day.

Really starting to look forward to spring...

Post-storm ruminations

Our power was restored at some point before midnight last night - a total of over 50 hours without mains electricity. We coped fairly well, although there are some things we might have done differently if we'd realised we were going to be without power for quite that long.

We've got a bank of batteries hooked up to the solar panels, so power cuts aren't usually a big deal for us. When the power goes down, there's a short pause, then system switches automatically over to the batteries and our lights come back on. On Saturday and Sunday we still had running water, thanks to that. We turned the geothermal heating off, but initially we still had the hot water heater running, which (in hindsight) we should probably have turned off sooner.

By Sunday evening we were running low on the backup power and there had been no sunshine to top up the batteries (there wasn't any on Monday, either - and a light dusting of snow came down and covered the panels, which wasn't going to help). We ran out of power completely at midnight on Sunday. The woodstoves did a good job of keeping the house warm, but I was worried about the water/sanitation side of things, as we need power to run the water pump. The usual advice is to fill the bath with water before the power goes out, but we hadn't done that and I wished we had - it would have been useful to have that water for flushing toilets. We drained the water that was left in the system into jugs and had plenty for drinking.

The fridge and freezers were without power for 24 hours and when I checked the fridge temperature after the power came back on it was only two degrees above the 'safe' zone on the fridge thermometer. We didn't open the freezers at all, so they should be fine after that period.

I was able to make hot food and drinks with the kitchen woodstove - we had omelettes, soup, quesadillas and a risotto during the outage. I'm really looking forward to being able to use my electric oven again today, though!

During Monday there were signs that people were working to get the power back on - at seven different times the fridge and freezer briefly came to life, raising our hopes, before subsiding back into silence. You realise how dependent you are on electricity when something like this happens. I spent my time reading to entertain myself, but the children both struggled without access to electronic devices (and through them, their social networks) - and we played a lot of card games. When the power came back on, Child#2 promised me that he'd never complain of boredom again.

The living room looked really cosy by candlelight, but I would have enjoyed it more if there hadn't been that nagging worry about when power would be restored and how we would cope for another day without it.

I'm very grateful to the power crews who have been working so hard to get everyone reconnected: I have a feeling that Christmas 2013 will be one to remember!

Ice storm

We have had two day's worth of rain, which wouldn't have been a problem except that the air temperatures were below freezing, so it formed a lethal layer of ice over everything and has caused a lot of damage to trees and to power lines.

Our power went out yesterday afternoon and still isn't back sixteen hours later. We're running off our solar panel-powered backup batteries, but as there's no sunshine around today we're using as little of it as possible - just keeping the fridge and water pump going, and non-turnoffable things like the smoke alarms. And the woodstove in the kitchen is coming in handy for making hot drinks and keeping us all warm!

Yesterday the ice formed a layer about half an inch/1cm thick over the snow, which made walking pretty difficult - almost impossible in places. I found that my snow shoes were the best way of getting around.

Overnight, some of the precipitation turned to snow, which has made it much easier to walk outside this morning. I hope it has made life a bit easier for the crews working to clear the roads and reconnect the power lines.

It looks like the worst of the storm is over for now. Not an experience I'd want to repeat too often.

I did manage to (inexpertly) ice the Christmas cake yesterday. Seems I chose an apt design!

Digging out

Yesterday was the first snow day that the children have had this winter. It snowed steadily with a strong easterly wind and we were all glad that we didn't have to go anywhere.

This morning is clear and bright, perfect for digging our way out of the house. After a rather self-indulgent day yesterday of comfort food and curling up by the fire with a good book, it was a relief to get outside this morning and do something energetic. I quite enjoyed shovelling the snow from the front steps of the house and from in front of the garage door, the barn door and, finally, the door of the greenhouse.

The solar panels had been caked in snow since last Saturday, as it's been pretty cold this week. Not prairie-cold, but in the minus teens on the centigrade scale, so cold enough!. Yesterday's wind actually helped out with shifting the snow on the panels: there's less on them now than there was before the storm and with any luck today's sunshine (with the promise of some slightly warmer temperatures) will clear them off a bit more.

The weather broadcasters were saying "it's going to be the worst winter storm since February 2008" and I felt quite a seasoned old hand when I recalled that we were here for that storm. The front of the house today looks just like it did back on February 7th, 2008. Well, except that today I cleared all of the steps, not just that rather small passage on the left which was all I'd managed in 2008. I must be getting better at this snow-clearing business!

UPDATE (2pm): As I'd hoped, the temperature has gone up to a balmy -5°C/23°F and with a cloudless sky the snow is beginning to slide off the panels. I love watching that happen. (Yes, I'm very easily entertained.)

Snow slip

The temperatures rose a bit yesterday, enough to melt some of the snow. On the roof of the barn the snow gradually slipped forwards as the layer closest to the roof melted. This morning the temperatures are back to 'parky': -12°C or 10°F and the snow slip is frozen in its half-on-half-off state.

The solar panels work more effectively at low temperatures than they do when it's very hot, so at least they're clear of snow now and by the look of the sky it will be a good generating day!

Despite the cold, the chickens ventured out this morning for the first time since Christmas, so it was worth clearing some of the snow from their run on Saturday.

Nary a cloud...

Well, alright, there was one - but even that had gone ten seconds after I took this photo in the hayfield. It's been a very sunny month and is on track to be our best month ever in terms of the average amount of electricity generated each day by the solar panels.

The stream that runs down from the big pond is down to a mere trickle and the seasonal pond in front of the greenhouse has already dried up. Usually this doesn't happen until June (just when it's full of tadpoles).

The other odd thing has been the complete lack of any April frosts - the lowest temperature recorded this month was 0.4°C/32.7°F. The average temperature for April is usually 6.1°C/43°F - this month it has been 8.6°/47.5°F.

We're picking asparagus already - last year I didn't pick any until the middle of May - and the lilac is very nearly out. The trees generally seem more leafy than usual: I didn't notice such a big contrast between the advance of spring here and in England. I'm normally struck by how much greener it is over there at this time of year, but this time there wasn't a huge difference.

Powering down

Perhaps you are a person who is interested in domestic energy consumption. It's not a subject area that absolutely enthrals me, I will admit, but it does interest Mike and he has kept a record of our monthly energy consumption from our electricity meter since we moved in.

I did think it was worth sharing the graph he showed me today and making a few observations on it. Electricity is our only externally-supplied fuel: we don't use natural gas or heating oil, so this graph represents our entire energy usage except for the wood we harvest from our land (which so far has been mainly from fallen or dead trees). A cord of wood generates heat at approximately the equivalent of 6,000 kilowatt hours of electricity. We probably burn about five cords over the course of an average winter.

During February 2008 we ran out of wood to heat the house and our electricity consumption rose, peaking in March at 3,500 kilowatt hours as we had to use the electric baseboard heaters instead. In that month, the average temperature was -2.3°C/28°F and there were 29 days where the temperature dipped below the freezing point. The dip in consumption in the January of 2008 was a result of us starting to use the big woodstove in the kitchen in that month (which we had been warned not to, as it didn't meet current safety codes - but there comes a point where all risks are outweighed by benefits and we reached it!).

In the summer of 2008, the geothermal system went in. In the last two winters we've had plenty of wood to burn, which has been our main source of heat, with the geothermal kicking in when it is really cold overnight and in the early mornings. With the exception of August 2009, our electricity use has actually been lower in 2009/2010 than it was in the first year of having the geothermal system. A lot of this can be attributed to the improved layer of insulation in the attic (installed January 2009) and to the windows and doors we've gradually been replacing. It hasn't been as cold this winter, either: over the November to February months, the average temperature has been nearly four degrees Celsius (seven degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than it was in the 2008/2009 winter.

We've reached the point now where our solar panels are generating the same amount of electricity that we are using - so our domestic consumption is getting close to being self-sufficient (although we are still using fossil fuels in our car and in the tractor).

To put all of this into context, it might be helpful to compare our energy use here to that of our old house in Manchester. There, we were using natural gas for heating and stove-top cooking. In the course of a year we would use the equivalent of 15,000 kilowatt hours of gas and 5,500 kilowatt hours of electricity (so 20,500 in all). Our total electricity use in a year here is 12,000 kilowatt hours, or about two-thirds of our previous usage. Which is quite a big difference, when you consider that the Manchester house was about half the size of this one, and the climate was considerably more temperate!

And if you're wondering, no, we didn't sit in the dark with candles for Earth Hour on March the 27th and I doubt we'll be doing anything for Earth Day (or Week, or Month, or whatever's next). Just get on and do something that has an impact all year round, I say.

Retrospective, 2009

I have a temperamental objection to committing myself to anything like a regular feature on this blog, but last year's retrospective post does contain a summary of events which might be useful in the future. So I'll do it again this year with the proviso that I might not keep up the activity in 2010.

Putting up the greenhouse was one of the big achievements of 2008 and this year we turned our attention to equipping the inside. Three large raised beds were built in February and filled with soil over the following months. Since then, they have been occupied with a succession of crops: carrots, herbs, lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes, peppers, aubergine, kale and broccoli. I was still harvesting tomatoes in November and we ate the last fresh tomato at our Christmas party on December 20th. Needless to say, I am delighted with the greenhouse and hope to put some more raised beds in there next year.

The vegetable garden beyond the greenhouse did well again and we harvested the first few spears from the asparagus I planted in 2008. I grew onions from seed for the first time; that harvest is down in the root cellar and will last a good few months yet. It wasn't such a good year for potatoes (although there are still a fair few in storage) but we got more peas and corn than we did in 2008, though still not enough of either to have any left over to freeze. On the other hand, we did end up with rather a lot of cabbages. I grew too many from seed and no-one was interested in buying baby cabbages at my first ever plant-sale. Despite the disappointing cabbage sales, that was a useful and very enjoyable experience which has given me a better idea of what people might like to buy next year.

We got the first apples, plums and pears from the slowly-growing orchard trees. Actually the chickens got most of the apples, so those trees need to get growing more quickly if I'm ever to get the benefit of the fruit for the human members of the household.  This leads me on conveniently to May's acquisition of the said birds. They've been a source of fascination for me, never having got close to a chicken before. It seemed a long time before we got that first egg, but they're all now laying in a manner that more than compensates for the stolen apples. We lost two of them in recent months: one hen to an unknown predator and one of the roosters to another Buff Orpington enthusiast.

The minor fault with the geothermal system that I reported on in 2008 was fixed and the attic was properly insulated early in the year, giving us a comfortably warm home and saving a considerable amount in heating costs. The solar panels have been in full production since 9 January and over 2009 we've exported one megawatt-hour of power each month, on average. To put that into context, this is equivalent to 90% of the electricity we've taken from the grid in the same period. A longer-term aim will be to export more than we use. Another first for this year was our involvement in the Green Homes Tour. That was hard work, but great fun and led to Mike's five minutes of fame on YouTube.

Inside the house we've done a fair bit of painting: two bedrooms, hall, landing, stairs, dining room and downstairs cloakroom. There's a new white toilet and basin in the latter, too, installed by Mike (his first major piece of plumbing work) and replacing the delightful Harvest Gold* combo that was there before. Our main upstairs bathroom needs similar treatment: the suite there is an almost equally revolting 1970s shade of pale brown (which I'm sure has a similarly misleading name: please comment if you can tell me what it is!). Unfortunately, that job is going to require more major remodelling but I'd like to think that we might be able to get it done in 2010.

*If Harvest Gold is new to you, have a look at another blogger's attempts to make her Harvest Gold bathroom look beautiful.

"Daddy's on YouTube?!!"

This was the reaction from our children when they heard that Mike's green home interview was up on the internet. I think YouTube just lost its status in our house as a cool website to look at.

Here it is:



The videos of the other homes featured on the tour are all available from the Quinte Sustainability site.

Harvesting peas, peppers and sunshine

I've had mixed success with my first try at sowing an autumn crop of peas. I sowed them indoors in July in the cool of the house.* They went out into the garden in early August, in a bed that is fairly shady in the morning. The sugar snap peas have romped away and I'm now picking them again:

Next to them, the Lincoln peas are not looking so good. I think members of the local rabbit population have been tucking into these:

The Corno di Toro Rosso peppers have started to live up to their name, at long last. The cayenne and tomato peppers have been red for a while now but, even with the benefit of the greenhouse, this variety have been slow to ripen.

The solar panels have been in operation for ten months now and yesterday the meter rolled over** to read 1,000. This means that the panels have harvested 10 megawatt hours of electricity from the sun since October last year. Highly satisfactory!

*At this point anyone who lives in Eastern Canada will be thinking that this was an unnecessary precaution this year, as July was cooler than usual.

**Well OK, it's digital, so it didn't actually roll.

Electric blankets

The first snow of the winter fell overnight - just a centimetre or two. By 9.30am the solar panels were almost clear of it.

In front of the barn the young shoots of the garlic that I planted in mid-October are still visible. There's a blanket of hay underneath the blanket of snow, so they're pretty well insulated under there. I always used to plant garlic in the autumn in England, but have read conflicting advice here about whether it's best to do it in autumn or spring, so this is a bit of an experiment.

Domestic disorder

In my absence the solar panels have been installed. Don't they look great? I thought the old weathervane on the barn roof would be obscured by the panels, so was glad to see that it is still visible.

Inside the house, the kitchen has been completely gutted (the stove is the only thing in it now) and we are surrounded by dust and boxes full of kitchen clobber. I know it'll be worth it in the end, but it feels hard to lead a normal life at the moment. Maybe I should have stayed away for another week...

Heavy metalwork

There have been a few false dawns with progress on the greenhouse (mainly because its height required additional equipment in order for us to be able to work safely). Today things went better, though. Here is the 10.30am view:
By one o'clock we were up to here:
And by 7.00pm it was all looking rather beautiful:

It was very hard work. More so for Mike who spent a lot of time climbing up and down the scaffolding platform. There was a lot of hauling on ropes and manoeuvring the ribs of the greenhouse around. All in hot sunshine, so there was rather a lot of sweating going on too (it really stings when it gets in your eyes, yuk). Although I think it was probably even hotter on the barn roof, where the solar panel guys were working for much of the day.

Production lines and Paul Simon

Here's the first stage in our attempt to produce electricity from the sun - these are the solar panel frames that have been put up on the roof of the big barn over the last two days. You may notice that the barn roof is wet. I think that is the god of the weather you can hear in the background, sniggering at our temerity.


This time last year I was saying "This time next year..." a lot and imagining picking our own vegetables and putting them by for the winter. The produce that we're getting from the garden has really gone beyond my most optimistic hopes. I know I've put a very similar picture up only a short while ago, but I can't resist showing today's harvest here. It came at a bit of a cost as the solar panel guys had their car stereo on full blast and I had to listen to a Paul Simon album (The Rhythm of the Saints, I think) while I gathered in my crop. If I'd wanted to listen to music from other people's cars while I gardened I would have stayed in Manchester and got an allotment on a busy road instead of moving to the country.


Though I probably wouldn't have got as many tomatoes.

Getting into hot water

 While I was away the solar hot water system was installed back at home. Here is the array of evacuated tubes, perfectly placed to get the most of the sun hitting the garage roof. The tubes' heat is transferred to pipes containing a glycol/water mixture (so they don't freeze in the winter), which is then transported to the basement.

Down in the basement there is a new hot-water tank which is warmed by the pipe containing the solar-heated glycol mixture. This then feeds the old electrically-heated tank with pre-warmed water. The old tank had two heating elements inside it and one of those has now been turned off. An LCD display on the new tank reports the temperature at three different places in the new system. We'll be monitoring our electricity usage to see how much we save by pre-heating the water.

A green New Year

A few mildish days have melted much of the snow and created some fast-flowing streams. The picture to the left shows what used to be a dry path leading past the barns, while the one below shows the current state of my vegetable plots: a bit soggy! The water is running down the hill so fast that Mike is beginning to wonder whether we couldn't channel it more effectively and use it to generate some electricity during the damper months of the year.

I suppose I'd thought that once we got snow and ice, it would stay on the ground and it would continue to be bitterly cold until the Spring arrived. I wasn't really expecting to have a month of snow and ice followed by a slightly warmer spell. Mind you, this is reportedly the worst winter in Canada for 15 years, so this has probably not been a typical December.