ArizonaRanch

 Over the past year or so, our batteries for the solar power system have been deteriorating.  This winter, I replaced just one of the eight 6 volt lead-acid batteries, in the hopes that it would improve operation until I could apply a fix in the spring. It worked for a while, but then other batteries in the string began losing their capacity to the point of the system going down nearly every day for a few hours before the sun rises each morning. I decided to bite the bullet and install a whole new string of batteries. On researching, it appeared that it would make sense to replace the old lead-acid battery technology with newer Lithium Iron Phosphate technology.  Not only are the new batteries considerably more compact and lightweight for a given capacity, they should also last much longer and require little maintenance. I decided the replace the eight batteries comprising the 48 volt, 200 amp hour lead acid string with two Lithium Iron battery packs of 100 amp hours each...

    With a cold front approaching, I decided to run up to the Ranch to winterize the water pipes before the sustained 20-degree days hit us later in the week. I rinsed out our 200 gallon water tank that we use to haul water from the standpipe in Seligman to our Ranch.  After loading up the tank in the truck, I headed for Seligman. There had been reports that the standpipe in town had been modernized to accept debit cards for thew water that is drawn.  But upon arrival to the standpipe, I found that people were inserting quarters, and found a note on the control that said the new system was "still not working". Luckily, I had a fist full of quarters in the truck that I save for carwashes, and things of that nature. When it was my turn, I used the quarters, and filled up the 200 gallon tank.  It cost about 20 cents per gallon, so $2.50 to fill the tank. I hauled the water up the hill and parked on a small slope near the LittleHouse to help get all of the water out...

 Sometime in mid to late August, our ViaSat Satellite Internet service went down at the Ranch.  The service had been sufficing for us for many years, although the data limits and touchy adjustments were sometimes a pain.  Phone calls placed on this service (through the wifi connection on our phones) experienced terrible delays, to where we had to pause after each phrase and wait for the other person to talk.  It was almost like the MARS Radio System that I used to call home from Okinawa when I was in the service, where we had to say, "Over", when it was the other person's turn to talk. We decided to update our system to newer technology. We still don't have anywhere near good service from the cellular companies.  The nearest point we can pick up any signal at all is out in the middle of the meadow, where we can sometimes get 1-bar of service (about -120dbm signal as measured with my phone), very weak. Our new system is the Starlink Satellite service.  Becau...

 While I was up at the Ranch installing our new internet link, I used the Seek App on my phone to help identify some of the insects and a snake I came across.  Easiest to identify was the Grand Canyon Black Tarantula that was walking along our lane. I always called this a bombadier beetle, but the Seek App says it is a Pinacate Beetle . There were quite a few grasshoppers on this trip.  The most common was the Red Shanked Grasshopper . There were many butterflys, but most of them were too hard to get a snapshot close-up.  I did catch this Variegated Fritillary Butterfly on my phone camera. Finally, this Gopher Snake was sunning in the lane.  He was thin, and only about 12 inches long.  He looked young to me.

 I went up to the Ranch at the beginning of October to install out new internet link. While there, I tried out the Seek App on my Android phone.  It is used to identify plants and animals when you snap a picture of them. It was pretty good at getting me in the right ballpark at identifying the various plants and animals on my hike, but I had to resort to internet searches to narrow most of them down further. The first plant I tried to ID was this golden weed.  It ended up looking like Broom Snakeweed . Along the road was an easy to identify Rough Cocklebur . A Golden Crownbeard was also found along the road at the bottom of our lane. I had always referred to this next plant as "stick-bushes".  The Seek App says they are Pale Desert Thorn .  They are pretty thick at the lower end of our meadow.  During winter and dry times, these are just bare sticks... Seek says these plants growing in our lane are Pale Evening Primrose . One of the common trees on our ra...

After a very long wait (with disease, inflation, and supply problems affecting the nation), we finally were able to put together a trip to install the tongue and groove ceiling at the Little House.   We had put this off during the pandemic, because supplies were very hard to get.  Then when lumber was available, the cost had more than doubled from pre-pandemic times.  Finally, after waiting it out, the prices of the 8-foot tongue and groove pine boards at the home center had dropped from nearly $15 per board to a little over $8 per board. I searched the store's online site for a location that had a large enough supply.  After seemingly found a store nearby, I put in an online order for them to pick a little over 100 boards from the 150 they said were in stock. Shortly later, we received an email telling us that the order had been cancelled, because they actually anly had 30-something in stock, and most of them were damaged in some way. So we went to another nearby st...

 We had a pretty good winter storm come through at the Ranch in late February.  Here are some photos from our security cameras after the snowfall.

 I went up in January to do battery maintenance at the cabin.  I found that the first battery in the string is failing.  I think I will try to replace just this single battery for now.  I know that's not the preferred path to take, but we are saving for a new set of Lithium batteries to replace our 8 year old lead acid battery bank.  So we'll see if a single replacement will give us some improvement. This picture shows the battery voltages for each of the 8 6-volt batteries.  The top number in each figure is the voltage after a full charge cycle, and the figure at the bottom is the voltage after a discharge that brought the bank below the low voltage threshold.  Notice on the upper right hand battery that the voltages are significantly lower than the other seven batteries.  That is the battery that needs replaced.

  TV Antenna Cable Install by rdpecken on Jul.08, 2020, under Communications For the past few years, we have had an external beam TV antenna mounted on a post outside of the cabin. Pointed at Kingman, roughly 60 miles away, we receive most of the TV channels available from there. Prior to this, we had DirecTV installed, but gave that up as we recognized that we really didn’t watch many of the channels that were on there. Each trip to the Ranch would find us crawling on our backs, poking the antenna cable up through a small hole in the floor. Then when we left for the Valley, we again had to crawl under the cabin to remove the cable. If we left the cable laying on the ground, it would have been susceptible to cattle stepping on it, and rodents chewing on it. So on the last trip up in June, we installed some underground PVC conduit from the antenna location to the LittleHouse. After running some RG-6 cable through the conduit, we terminated both ends with Typ...

  New Security Cameras by rdpecken on Jun.02, 2020, under Communications Some time in the past year, our grey-market Hikvision security cameras stopped sending emails to us when they detected motion. We traced this problem down to virtually all major email providers requiring a new method to send emails in order to improve security of their email system.   Front Porch Because these were grey-market cameras, we could not update the firmware in them to implement the new security protocols. So, for $75, we bought two new security cameras that supported the new cctv protocols. They work fine so far, but we need to play with the settings a bit to get them to only send pictures when there is serious movement, rather than any minor change.   West Side We also found that the WiFi router we have had up there for many years is starting to flake out, so we have a new router to install on our next trip, as well. It’s not a problem for the cameras, but the WiF...