KW-50 When the Wind Blows

When breaking things turns into a me problem

If you remember When the Wind Blows from your childhood, the Raymond Briggs story of a sweet old couple and the atomic bomb, then congratulations, you are both old and probably disturbed.

when I put the pigs back into their winter home, I deliberately cut off a corner of their otherwise rectangular garden, so that I could reinstate it later, and they would have some access to not-muddy ground. They got their grassy corner back this week. It will be 100% mud by the end of next week, and honestly, I#m not convinced they care, but it makes me feel good.

This week, the wind blowing, both as a metaphor for the End of Times and the actual movement of air, has been significant. Storm Darragh didn’t whip this end of Germany into the destructive frenzy that is did in the UK, but we did get quite some breezes!

I can’t say that this week was particularly interesting or successful at the Barracks.

I made a frame for three solar panels, and mounted them firmly to it with plenty of wire and some good fisherman’s knots, just as Darragh blew into town. I was convinced that the whole thing would be carried away like a trampoline in the night - it did have something of the form of a spinnaker - but apparently I did something more or less right, and it was exactly where I left it the next day.

Problem was, the sun has not shone all that much this week. Nary a single saveable photon has hit the solar sails and made it into the battery. Or at least, that is what I thought until I did some testing and some writing to EcoFlow customer support (who get a 10/10 for being helpful), and it turns out that my Delta 2 Max only supports the connection of one solar panel at a time. I have no idea how it knows that there are three connected in series, but apparently it does, and I need a Delta Pro 3, which sounds much more expensive. Something for another day, I think.

Last week, I believe I added a photo of the portable, foldable solar panel o the right. The big ones on the big frame are rather bigger. Shame I can only use one of them at a time. Urgh!

This week, the weather looks like it is still going to hold windy and chilly, but not snowy, so I shall:

• Rake up the remainder of the leaves

• Finish tidying the paths - which mostly means clearing the gutters of baby weeds

• Chop a lot more wood. Indoor supplies are getting low

• Prune the small beech hedge, and maybe cut back the great big bushes in front of the Big House. I rather fancy planting a beech hedge around 50% of the perimeter of the Barracks. Next year. I’ll look into acquiring the several thousand beech trees required a the smallest (preferably zero) cost now though.

And I think I might drink a cup of tea or six.

In fact, I shall go and have one now.

I hope you are all doing excellently, taking care of each other, and being generally awesome

With much Pirate Love

Your Pirate Ben

xoxo