Days Like This
L to R: Heidi, Nicole, Mike, Hunter, Chance
Rough days. We’ve all had em. And whelp, here at EM, we’ve been having em. Over the last few days, we’ve been getting real world lessons about what it means to be tied to the sun for our electricity.
Prior to the rough days, we wonderfully had a few really good days involving friends coming out to visit. We went huckleberry picking and river swimming. We had a BBQ and watched bats fly around our cabin in the early evening twilight. Mike got a hand from a friend doing some tree felling one day and I did some more huck picking with another friend. In the span of 6 days we had a total of 5 friends come to visit, some of them overnight. Some quintessential Montana summer fun was had.
And then, death. Okay, well not death, but it hasn’t been great. We discovered that after just 2 cloudy days, the batteries we run on (which are charged up by the sun) run out of juice. Our new small fridge is the culprit, as we have minimum draw otherwise. Then, when we pulled out the brand new generator we bought a couple months ago to help supplement our power situation - which we knew we’d need to use at some point when the light starts fading - it wouldn’t start. After a few hours of Mike researching how to fix it, the company decided we needed to send it back to them. So another one is on the way.
We then learned more about our solar power system and found out that we need a certain kind of charger to charge the certain kind of batteries we have, and that a straight generator to solar system machine interface is not as smooth as we thought. For that situation, after more hours of more research from Mike (thank goodness for that guy!), we ordered a specialized battery charger that is now also on its way.
Fortunately, we were able to borrow a generator from a friend of ours, which is what we’ve been using to keep us up and running the last few days, which our batteries slowly charge back up with the partly cloudy days we’ve been having. And then, to add insult to injury, our cell booster started malfunctioning, which meant I couldn’t work my remote job as per scheduled. And did I mention it looks like Mike’s new cell phone screen cracked whilst he was adhering an expensive screen protector as per the instructions it came with? Or that we have a camping retreat weekend coming up that we’re trying to get ready for in midst of all the broken down things? Or that we’re considering taking back our fridge to get a larger unit that uses the same amount of watts in order to better accommodate folks who come to stay overnight and need cold food storage options?
There’s kind of a lot going on right now. Good news is: a new geney is on the way; a battery charger that will work with our new geney and our batteries is on the way; we have a fridge that’s currently meeting our needs, even if it does draw a lot of juice; and, right this second as I’m typing, the cell booster is doing what it should be doing: boosting signal so that we have access to cell service & 4G.
One thing we’re learning through all of this is how closely we’re living on the fringe. The fringe of having enough sun power for electricity with our small solar set up, and the fringe of being able to access cell service & 4G in our remote woodsy setting. Chances are good we’ll have more days like these. Days when the learning curve is hella steep and it seems like everything is just too darn hard. Days when we go to town to grab dinner because to do anything else just seems like too much work. Days when the cell signal drops and just doesn’t get picked back up until later, for reasons unknown. Growing pains are real, friends. Ufta golly. There will be days like this.
