Monday 10/21- If you remember from the last blog, yesterday we flew back to Costa Rica after our 3-week trip to MN. I took today off of work to rest and unpack. It's funny how even though we just packed these suitcases (multiple times) within the last week, we have already forgotten about some of the things we brought back down and it was like Christmas for us as we were going through everything again.
Before it got to be too late in the morning, we also had to go do Ramie’s favorite errand: grocery shopping. We had no almost food in the house since we ate down nearly everything we had before we left. We weren’t going to go all the way to San Isidro today, but even just shopping here in town took us about an hour. Then it was time to pick up Skye. At first when we walked up to the fence, I don't think she recognized us, she just stood at the fence and barked, just like the other dogs were. Paola let Skye out, along with a couple of the other dogs, and in typical Skye fashion, she was curious but hesitant to come close. Once Ramie got down to her level and she gave him a couple of sniffs, she knew exactly who we were and started yipping and crying with excitement. We have never seen her jump so high!
She literally jumped to Ramie’s head height, and high enough that he could catch her to hold her without even bending over. She was definitely extremely excited to see us. We talked with Paola for a little bit to get the update of how the last few weeks went, and when we were done with that, we asked Skye if she was ready to go for a ride. Her answer was obvious when she bolted to the truck and waited by the door. Her new best friend, Amber, followed Skye and it looked like she wanted to come with us too. Paola had to come get her puppy so that we could load Skye and all of her stuff into the truck. When we got home we unloaded all the groceries and Skye's stuff, then proceeded to organize the rest of the house and put everything away. Skye must have been exhausted because she slept the whole rest of the afternoon.
 |
| Look at that smile! |
 |
| Skye never goes in her kennel to sleep during the day. She must have really needed the rest! |
Tuesday 10/22- After only one day of "rest", I had to return to my normal work schedule, well, almost. Today I did sleep in a little bit, but not really even enough for work to notice that I didn’t start at my normal time.
Ramie spent most of the day working on little odds and ends things around the house, installing and using some of the things that we had brought back for the house. The first thing on his agenda, though, was to tame the yard. After three weeks of no maintenance, it looks like the jungle has taken over. He started by weed whacking the lower property, then moved on to trimming and chopping the overgrown plants with the machete, then pruning the others that weren’t quite so unruly. Eventually he moved to the upper yard, and that went a little more quickly since we did have that cut once while we were gone. Skye must have still been exhausted because she, once again, slept most of the day, instead of exploring the yard like and “helping dad” like she normally does. Ramie also started planning the next steps to getting the system solar online, up and running. Now that we have all of the parts and pieces to finish this project, that would soon be on his agenda.
Wednesday 10/23- Ramie started the day by going into town to gather more parts and pieces needed to install the solar, things that they actually did have here and we didn’t have to bring back from the US, simple things like wire. When he got home with his parts he was able to finish connecting all of the cables for the solar panels together, and then all of the work on the roof should be finished. Ramie was itching to flip the switch and start producing solar power, but we weren’t quite there yet. He would have to wait a little while longer because he needed to wait for a day that I wasn’t working to complete the final step. He would have to turn off the electricity to the entire house and wire the actual circuits between the old electrical panel and the new solar electrical panel.
Thursday 10/24- Today while I was working I had to call Ramie to come to the rescue, but not for me or even for Skye. While I was at my computer and he was out putzing in the yard, a hummingbird flew into the house and couldn’t figure out how to get back out. It headed straight to the upper windows that are about 16’ high and have permanent screens that don't open, and wouldn’t come down to fly out one of the big open doors or windows. Ramie quickly got his ladder and the butterfly net that Tracy gave us years ago to help the poor little guy.
He gently trapped it in the corner of the window and was able to grab it and carry it out of the house. We often see hummingbirds around our yard, but this is the first time we ever got one in the house. They are such an interesting and beautiful bird and it was very cool to be able to see one up close.
Later in the afternoon Tracy and Geoff invited us over for coffee and to catch up. We spent a few hours there talking all about how the trip and the wedding went, and showed them some pictures.
Friday 10/25- Around noon I decided that was enough work for this week and shut down my computer. After I told him I was finished, Ramie didn't waste any time and quickly got to work to get a couple “critical” circuits wired and installed in the new smart panel for the solar. After a couple of hours of work he had the first 2 circuits of a total of 12 wired and ready to go. Finally, he was ready to flip the switch to start producing solar!!
And that's when he ran into issues. Of course, things aren’t working quite right, that’s just the kind of luck that we have around here. What was wrong? There was an error code displaying on the inverter, but we had no idea what it meant. He got the code and jumped online to do “Ramie’s Research” and find out what this meant. It definitely had to do with the solar input, and from what he found online, it was due to a bad connection or similar issue. So, after thinking all of the roof work was done, back up on the roof he went to start investigating each and every connection between the 6 panels. He was perplexed, everything looked good; the only thing left to investigate were the connectors to the breaker that was between the panels and the inverter. He disconnected the solar cables from the main solar circuit breaker, and he heard something hit the floor. He searched around for what fell and finally found a small piece of metal, but it didn’t look familiar to him. He figured that he had better remove the breaker assembly and check each connection inside, and, sure enough, another small piece fell out from the inside of the connector. This was a cheap Chinese made solar breaker that he bought on Amazon and it appears that it lived up to its cheap quality. This is why Ramie typically doesn't like cheap stuff, and don't ask me why he thought this was an appropriate thing to go cheap on! Fortunately, he had extra connectors, so he disassembled the unit, made new wires and connectors, and then reinstalled it and reconnected all of the solar cables. When he turned everything back on, the error went away! Well, that wasn't too bad to fix, it just took time. The system was now online and we were producing power to charge the batteries. It will be exciting to see how this performs.
Saturday 10/26- In the morning I did some little stuff around the house, put away some of the things that we brought back with us that still hadn’t been taken care of, and then by 8:30 I was working on the blog. We haven’t touched the blog since we went back to MN, and completely missed posting one while we were there. We were due to post one the day after Taylor’s wedding, you can imagine that we just weren’t prepared to do that (you read all about it, I hope you can understand why we weren't prepared)… but we did share a few pictures that day, so hopefully that was enough to keep your interest while we were busy. Ramie had turned off the power to the house again around 10am so he could work on wiring the remaining circuits into the smart panel. This was going to (hopefully) be a productive day for him. Since there was no power, I worked on the blog until the battery on my computer died. Ramie finished up at a little after 3pm, and that is when all of our battery backups for the internet finally died too. Once he restored the power to the house, it was time for me to make dinner and then kick back and watch some TV before bed.
Sunday 10/27- Yep, you guessed it, today Ramie would be working on more solar and house stuff. While the installation of the solar hardware was completed, now he had to figure out how to use the app, set up the schedule, and customize all of the things that go along with running the system efficiently. Fortunately he wouldn't have to turn off power to the house again! So far it seemed to be working pretty well, but there is always fine tuning and finessing to be done. I like that, now, when we have a power blip or outage, we still have power to the critial circuits that we wired into the smart panel, not to mention that those circuits will not use any “grid power” during the day, and perhaps even during the night when things are running off the battery power, as long as it’s been sunny enough to charge the battery. Time will tell just how well this is going to turn out for us...
Monday 10/28- While we were back in Minnesota, our dentist here in Costa Rica reached out to us to let us know we were due for our 6-month cleaning. Not that it's exciting or anything but that is what we did today after I was done working. I’m very glad to report that I have no issues with broken or cracked old fillings this time, and of course Ramie never seems to have any new teeth-related issues. With nice clean teeth, we decided to go mess them up and eat at the Mexican place that we went to for my birthday since it is only a couple doors down from the dentist office.
Tuesday 10/29- Last week Ramie went to the store that we hired to make our new couch to check it out and to make the final payment, but he didn't bring it home because we had no place to put it until we sold the current couch. Today Ramie sold the couch, but the buyer couldn’t pick it up until Friday. I decided that enough was enough and I was done waiting for the new, hopefully more comfortable couch. I wanted it now! For the next few days, we would just move the old couch into our guestroom. It took up the entire room and we could barely get out the door after getting the couch in, but it's not like we use that room for anything most of the time anyway. Ramie thought about reaching out to Randall to have him pick up the new couch and deliver it, but before he did that, he took some quick measurements and decided that he would try to fit it in the back of our truck. He would have to make a couple trips if this worked because both pieces wouldn't fit in the truck at the same time, but the place isn’t far and he opted to pick it up himself instead of waiting for Randall to be available. With help from the guy at the furniture store, they were able to get each piece loaded into the back of our truck, and once Ramie got them home, I helped him unload them and get them into the living room. Before we were able to finish, we had to take a quick break from re-assembling our living room for a meeting with the company that we both work for during tax season to talk about our plan for this year. That meeting only lasted about an hour, and then Ramie got to work connecting the two pieces of our couch together using the kit that he brought back from the US, so that they didn't slide apart when we sit on them. I am excited to test the new couch this evening while we relax and watch some TV, I hope it's a lot more comfy than the old one!
Wednesday 10/30- After returning from our trip, Ramie skipped last week's turtle walks to finish resting up, but this morning he was back at it. He had a nice welcome back, as they found a nest with 111 eggs. After that, he had a meeting scheduled to go check on the progress made at Karen & Dennis's house and report back to them with how it's going.
Thursday 10/31- Over the last few days we realized that we needed more supplies and groceries than we bought here in Uvita, so we decided that we’d have to make a shopping trip to San Isidro. The main thing that we needed was to restock our freezer with meat. We buy most of our meat in San Isidro at the restaurant supply store, as it is typically the best quality for the best relative price. Of course, since we were all the way over there, we had a whole list of other things to buy too. As you know, Walmart is always one of our main stops for groceries, so that was a must, but, in addition to the basics, we bought something a little bit different here today too…
What did you do on Halloween? Why, we bought a Christmas tree & decorations.
Our first year here, up at the little rental casita, we didn't have a tree; both because we hadn’t really thought about it yet and because there was no space for one, but we did have one string of lights to hang on the railing.
The second year we were here we were in our house and we made a Christmas tree out of driftwood and decorated it with things we found on the beach, bird feathers, and other things that we found in nature.
Our third year here we didn't have a tree but we did have a few more strands of Christmas lights that we hung up on the patio.
This year, we decided to bite the bullet and buy an actual artificial tree and all the decorations that go with it. It was kind of fun shopping for this stuff, but the selection here is very limited compared to the aisles and aisles of decorations you would find in the US. I would say this tree reminds me of the cheap ones you used to be able to buy in the 80’s, and now only find at Goodwill for $3. After we gathered up all of the decorations that we thought we needed at Walmart and each store we went to after that, we decided we had enough to fill our pathetic tree, called it a day and headed home.
The Official Casa Costa Breeze end of October rainfall total was 8.67 inches
(Thank you Tracy for keeping track of this for us while we were in MN).
Pura Vida!
Comments
Post a Comment