IN NEED OF A REPAIR
Recently, a very good friend and I were talking, and I was telling him about how I was going to get a generator for the homestead. I thought having one would be a good backup plan in case all else fails.
As we were talking, he told me the generator he has, that he has used for his company, had quit working. It would start and run fine...but he said if a load is plugged into it, it will kill the generator circuit. Then he told me I could have it if I could get it to work.
*Slightly used, but what a powerful beauty!
After picking it up and getting it back to the homestead, I gave it an initial inspection and then attempted to start it....it fired right up on the first pull! However, I then plugged in a small light to it and the generator circuit breaker blew. The motor kept running, but the power bank was dead.
A CLOSER EXAMINATION
Since the motor itself kept running, and the circuit breaker was what blew, I decided to take a closer look at everything relating to this electric circuit. That is when I discovered a couple things...
*A busted cover thats supposed to protect all the electric wiring.
*The main ground wire for the whole system was loose and the wire was just spinning around the hold down bolt.
In the picture above if you look closely at the two ground wire pictures, you'll notice the wire in two different places compared to the frame. That is how loose the wire was, it would spin freely. I took the bolt out and sanded all the contacts surfaces to ensure a good ground path. I put it all back together and gave it another pull...
AND IT WORKED!!!...Well, kind of. The bottom two outlets still would blow the circuit if something was plugged in, however if I used the top two outlets it worked as intended!!! I dug into the ratnest of wiring behind the broken cover I showed earlier and discovered that the top and bottom outlets are powered by two different lines from the 240V circuit. So, the problem with the bottom half of the outlets could be the circuit breaker itself, the 240V outlet, or one if the 120V outlets itself.
A little further diagnosis is needed, but for now the generator on just the one leg makes enough power to run our entire homestead!!!💪💪💪
A NEW CASTLE-FORT/DOGHOUSE FOR OUR BEST FRIENDS
We love our animals as much as we love the humans, plants, and all the wild animals...plus our puppies fulfill a couple very important roles on the homestead.
First, Simba...He is our Dìonadair, the primary defense mechanism for our homestead(especially at night)...he is also easily becoming my best friend. And can only imagine the outcome if his fierce loyalty to me or my son was needed in any situation.
Then there's our sweet(but also onery as hell) Onree...She is my son's pup and our current only occupying princess on the homestead.😂🤣 She is just as fiercely protective of us as Simba is...just in a pint size container.
For these, and a million other reasons, I have been wanting to build them an awesome doghouse to take the place the simple barrels we have been using. Enter my neighbor, the sawmill guy. He has been working up some massive cedar trees into rafters for barns. And he has lots of off-falls that he normally burns.
But I plan to use them to build our best friends a doghouse that is also a cool fort! So, to begin I build a simple frame to hold the floor and screw some repurposed plywood onto it.
*This plywood originally was used to build stone acrches on a clients house.
Now was the cool part, as I added the bottoms of the cedar trees to the outside to make it look like a fort.
*Looking like a tough, badass fort, isn't it?💪😁
In the end, I will also add a small staircase to the roof to allow Simba to have an amazing lookout spot for guarding our place. And Anatolian Shepherds naturally seek a high lookout, so I think he'll love this feature.
A CRAZY DISCOVERY AT THE HOMESTEAD
Did you know that there are plants that are non photosynthetic? Every plant that I've ever seen in my life has had some part of it that is green, and as used to transform sunlight into energy for the plant. Whether it is the leaves, or in stems or stalk, some part is always green.
However, the other day during a walk on one of our paths, I discovered a most interesting life form. It looked like a plant, with a flower.... But it was completely white, almost translucent and see through. There was not a bit of color of any type to the entirety of the plant.
*Crazy looking isn't it?
It is what's known as an Indian Pipe plant, or a ghost plant. It lives by feeding off of dead plants. And does not need the sun at all to be completely healthy!
*As simple as it is beautiful.😍