Posts Tagged ‘wiring’
End Near
On the last day of the year 2023, I was considering looking back through the images in my blog library to review what happened in our lives in the last 12 months. I couldn’t finish a scan through the images because the pictures stopped loading for some unknown reason.
That’s similar to my attempt to complete the installation of our new WiFi repeater cabling yesterday. I couldn’t finish because icy conditions kept me off the roof.
In the morning the heavy frost made the shingles way too slippery so I concentrated on the indoor work. Later in the day, a freezing mist started to fall on top of the frost that hadn’t dissipated. This morning there is a fraction of an inch of snow on top of the icy substrate.
Yesterday, I spent some contorted hours in the attic, balancing in a crouch on angled trusses to route a length of ethernet cable from one side to another. I drilled holes to give mice another couple of potential access points where the cable passes through wall and ceiling boards.
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I plugged the camera in to test my new connections and verified everything worked. The portion remaining involves drilling through the log wall at the peak of the loft ceiling to bring the cable from the repeater inside. Then I need to seal around that cable to prevent mice and bats from taking this new opening as an invitation to come live with us.
Today, I may putter about devising the mount for the camera down at the barn if the roof of the house remains overly hazardous.
I’m hoping the project doesn’t end up waiting until spring like the plan appears to have for digging up the electric supply wires to the barn.
I hope the theme of ‘not finishing’ doesn’t define the year ending today. Without the benefit of reviewing the year in my blog images, this is what comes to mind about the odd-numbered year, 2023:
We spent much of the winter months focused on Cyndie’s convalescence from her ankle reconstruction the previous November. She was functional enough to travel to Puerto Rico in April. In May, we adopted Asher. I did my annual bike trip in June. We made it up to the lake as much as possible through summer. As fall approached, we got the shoulders of the driveway professionally graded and then did the raking and grass seed planting ourselves. Finally, Cyndie opted to go for one more surgery on her ankle and had the metal hardware removed now that the bones had healed.
This morning a meteorologist on the radio announced this December has been the warmest since measurements started being recorded in the 1870s.
We have obviously reached the end of 2023 but I doubt we’ve seen the end of the warming climate’s effects.
Like we always do, I expect we’ll cope one day at a time and respond to whatever 2024 brings with as much love as we can muster.
Celebrate safely tonight all you wild and crazy people! Happy last day of 2023!
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Finishing Something
Far be it for me to stay on one project all the way to fruition. Instead of finishing the fence we started on Friday, I let the weather move my focus to something else. Luckily, the change of direction let me toward the completion of wiring AC power to the chicken coop.
Like so many other occasions, after accomplishing the hardest part of the job – like getting the wire buried between the coop and barn– I have a tendency to lose momentum. That initial dose of job-satisfaction can be enough that my sense of urgency to complete tasks dissipates.
Just when the end of a tunnel is in sight, I discover a side route that hijacks my attention.
This day, I headed back down the primary path in the tunnel of electrifying the coop.
First, I removed the panel of the circuit breaker box and made connections to a GFI breaker.
Next, I set about getting the electrical box mounted in the coop. This only required two extra trips back to the shop for tools, hardware, and a modification to the box.
Things were progressing slower than I wanted, but without any insurmountable problems. The one big interruption I needed to work around was the unplanned arrival of a chicken.
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It was late enough in the day that I assumed I wouldn’t be a bother to the chickens while I worked, but our Buff Orpington proved me wrong. She puttered around in the nest box right beneath where I was working, so I just kept at it, hoping she wouldn’t be bothered by me.
After she started to stress out a bit, I took the hint and agreed to take a break, closing things up enough to give her all the privacy I thought she might need.
For whatever unknown reason, that wasn’t enough. After watching the last quarter of the Vikings game, I came back to take my project across the finish line, only to find the hen still in the nest box. Really.
Not to be deterred, I assembled a few objects into a barrier for her so I could forge ahead with my work. It is the first time I ever listened to a chicken lay an egg.
Before the day was over, the coop outlet was live, everything was buttoned up, and all tools were put away.
Yes, finished. That’s a special level of satisfaction.
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Adding Electricity
Despite the sweltering heat and humidity bathing our first day of autumn, freezing temperatures are not too far off, so work has begun to add electricity to the chicken coop. With an outlet available, we will have the option to provide a waterer that won’t freeze and maybe a light or heat lamp, depending on the situation.
On my third attempt to drill through the floor and miss a stud or screw, we were able to pull wire up for an outlet box. Then we trenched.
The chickens seemed to take great interest in our progress. Maybe they sense this is for them?
We are over halfway to the barn circuit breaker box this morning, so I’m optimistic I can get it done by winter.
Maybe I have some skills in procrastination. Time will tell.
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Relative Something 