Oh, so you want solar! 🌞

|

It’s truly amazing how you can click on a few Youtube videos about a topic you are interested in, and quickly the number of advertisers selling you products in a frantic fashion. Lately I’ve gotten interested in learning more of the ins and outs of off-grid solar systems, not the tiny little 12-volt system like I have my truck or the whole-house grid-tied suburbanite systems that the advertisers are hawking left and right.

The truth is I want to understand modern solar technology, and not wokeness. Everybody wants to sell you being woke, glossy plastic packages. I understand basic things like power and current and stored versus used energy. I am familiar with a lot of electronics but I don’t necessarily fully grasp the modern off-grid solar technology, specifically the latest technology. Even if I don’t build my off-grid place tomorrow, I want to know what options are out there as I really don’t want some woke house out in suburbs.

While the marketers and the hawkers of all things plastic don’t want you to know, wokeness is a mental disease put forward by industry to sell more socially-conscious products. But solar energy is real, and it’s a powerful tool to power a homestead, when implemented correctly. You don’t have to live the suburban lifestyle in the big houses with the electrically-mowed lawns and grid-tied solar panels on roof that are totally divorced from reality.

Creek

|

We need water. To feed our thirst. To keep the crops alive. To keep the cows hydrated.

Tuesday June 21, 2005 — Common Earth

Three Leaves Let it Be 🌿

|

That’s an awful bigoted slogan in my book. While one should pay attention to anything that follows the rule of three – be it the fire gong in an office building or three leaved plants, not all three leaved plants are harmful. Box alder and virignia creeper is common along river banks and partial sun exposure ecosystems in Upstate NY but it is harmless – it’s not Urishol bearing poison ivy.

I am terribly allergic to Urishol. This sap gives me blisters that can easily explode on my skin, pop and be an itchy, goo filled mess. One my face I’ve had my eyes swell shut and it’s hard to breathe. Often poison ivy hangs out close to immature box alder and Virginia Creeper as they like similar ecosystems and in some forms can look alike. But I don’t fear or stay away from Virginia Creeper and all three leaved plants, I just look carefully to ensure no poison ivy and be on my way.