Good Morning! (Sort of)

I just managed to get about 85 minutes of sleep. I had dreams the storm was over. 

It's not. 

Well, not really. 

It's still dumping rain here, it's still dark, and it's quite breezy, although the gusts seem to have abated some. One other development is that the phone lines have finally dropped somewhere, and I have no internet. Thank goodness I paid my cellphone bill. :)

Continuing Saga of Iselle

I'm currently enjoying a break in the wind. I'm sure it'll be back though. But we are getting a fair amount of rain. I'm lucky to be off-grid and still have power. If you believe the news reporter twitter feeds, it sounds like most of this island as well as Maui is in the dark. At least on this section of the grid, it's power related and not pole related, as the DSL is still working.

Had a few nervous moments with the wind earlier. I was even halfway to grabbing Lucy as I yelled a few key expletives at one point. 

But all is better, at least for now. 

It looks like the storm is kind of stalling out just east of South Point, which means the winds are slowing down, but it's also moving slower. So this event will take a bit longer than originally planned. 

The biggest impact this will have is one of rainfall. Granted, we're no strangers to rain on this hill, but from a bigger perspective, this could be a very very big deal. One twitter person posted a graph of the current flow of the Wailuku river. The record flow was (WAS) somewhere above 5,000 cfm. Currently the river is at THREE times that amount. 

The lasting impact of this storm could very well be unbelievable. 

Rain is stopping. Wind coming. More later. 

Still here and dry!

I doubt anyone on the mainland who would read this is still up, but just in case, here's the update. The center of the storm has finally arrived on the island. It appears that the mountains have started pushing the storm a little south, and it's weakening. Supposedly. I've got some wind and rain at the moment, but nothing too worrisome yet. As I'm now approaching my bedtime, I'm pretty tired and just want to sleep this off. But I figure I'll stick it out for another hour or two before I sound the all clear, so to speak. 

More later. 

Hmmmm....

Oddities abound. 

Right now, the frogs are chirping, the rain has stopped, the river is raging, and according to the radar, we should be getting pounded by the storm. 

At any rate, all is well, the yurt is holding up, and I'm exhausted from all this prep and nervous waiting. 

Hooray!

A Little Wiggle

The storm is still pretty mellow, although I got my first wiggle on the tension cable that's holding my roof down. There's been some flappy flappy action around the windows, but nothing too startling yet.

Wiggle:

During a break in the rain:

I can't see my house from here: 

Lastly, there must be a ton of rain on the mountain, because I can hear the stream below going nuts. 

Warming Up

The rain and wind have arrived in earnest now. Kalewa is most likely on the last flight to Oahu leaving in 10 minutes, so kiko, Lucy, and I are hanging out in the yurt pretending we can hear the TV.  Right now, the weather is not much more than a typical rainstorm with a bit of wind. So far so good. Also, the wind hasn't really tested my roof yet, so that's also good.

Also, per Gary, we're now at 1.2" of rain for the day.

So here's a current video, even though the weather just lulled a bit.

All Set

Prep is done. Off to help the neighbors. 

The rain is starting to be a bit more persistent. 

As of noon, we've had 0.57 inches of rain since midnight. More updates on the way (thx, Gary). 

And how's this for spooky?

And So it Begins

If the meteorologists are correct, this looks as though it's going to be the real deal. 

I'm just about all wrapped up with my preparations, and after that, it'll just be a lot of thumb-twiddling intermixed with (hopefully rare) moments of panic. 

For those of you who are like me, and have never experienced a storm like this before, it's been interesting this morning.  I woke up at 4:30, and it was overcast. Since then, we've had showers, followed by a bit of breeze, then sunshine.  And it's been through that cycle 2-1/2 times now. Nothing severe, nothing crazy, just wandering edges of the storm, I guess. 

See? Now this round of rain has stopped and I can head back out for one last pass around the yurt. 

Iselle and Julio, Sitting in a Tree....

Ugh. Guess what? It's hurricane season! Yay! Iselle will be here tomorrow, with Julio on her heels. Today has been the calm between the storms. 

More later on developments. 

Yay! Preparations!

Check out this awesome map:

Yup. That looks comforting. :-/

Nonetheless, I'm sure the yurt is up to the challenge, but just in case, I'm packing up some breakables, sealing up some electronics, and making sure my raincoat is handy. 

Fingers crossed, folks. This is gonna be a close one. 

Perhaps I Spoke Too Soon...?

...or perhaps not. It's too early to tell. But we did finally get some wind, and the rain is starting to spit.

If the little blue chair blows over, that's when I'll start to worry

Anyway, it's exciting!  I was actually starting to get angry that all my prep was for naught.  Finally at least a little redemption.  

Also, the cement worked really well in keeping the roof on.  There was a bit of creaking and straining as the low pressure passing over tried to lift the roof off, but unlike the cinderblocks of the last storm, the roof didn't even budge this time.  Woohoo!!

Here's the connection to the roof:

 And here's the cement in plastic (in case of leaks, either from within or without):

Anyway, nothing fancy, but it certainly got the job done.  

And now, as I'm wrapping this up, the wind has all but stopped, and the rain is starting to fall in earnest.  And to make things more fun, I just heard the first distant roll of thunder.

I'll leave you with some random pleasantness:

Hawaii

Shhhh

Mmmhmm

Hidden

Awesomeness

The Power of the Blog Compels You!!

Wow!  Just like that, the storm kicks to the north, away from Hilo.

Well.....sorta.

It seems now, by some fluke of nature, that the storm center and all the wind has moved north, but the rain/thunderstorm part is still right on track to arrive here.  So, while the blog has saved us again, I think the universe is going to test my "Rain? We can handle rain." attitude.

Still, here's what sunrise looked like:

While that storm is certainly brewing, it's hard to believe that it's not going to just be another day, perhaps with a little rain around lunch.

Although if you follow #Flossie on twitter, you can see the same sorts of dramatic overstatement that is also on the local television news, only with fewer commercials.

Anyway, it appears this is another non-event for us.  If anything changes, I'll let you know.

Batten Down the Hatches

Long time, no post.  I know. And I know no one is even looking here anymore, so no one is reading.  But that's ok.  My purposes will be served simply by posting this, and thus (if my posting affect on weather stays true to form) Flossie will flop.

That's right, another exciting weather event.  Tropical storm Flossie is on her way here, due to arrive tomorrow morning.  Maximum sustained winds are currently at 60 mph, but every indicator says that wind speeds will drop significantly by the time she gets here.  They're also predicting 15 inches of rain, and that's no problem.  We're used to rain here.  Kona side might have some flash flooding/landslide issues, but we here on the Hilo side are all set with rain.

For me personally, it's the wind that's the scary part.  Wind + tent = trouble.

The last time we had a hurricane in the neighborhood (just after I moved here) it veered off and only brought some moderate wind.  But it was enough to threaten to lift the roof off of the yurt.  I had three cinder blocks tied to the center ring of the roof, and some gusts were still strong enough to just barely lift them off of the ground.  This time, my plan is to use bags of cement to hold it down. If that doesn't do the job, then I guess I'll have more to worry about than just no roof - the neighborhood will be in shambles.  Already the neighbors are apologizing for trees that might fall on things off of their property - honestly!  It's weird....

Good thing FEMA is ... whatever.

Also, to help keep the wind from blowing the walls off of the yurt, I did some basic maintenance type stuff: tightening sagging walls, resetting windows, etc.  I also dropped the window covers for the first time ever.  Wow, that makes it dark inside! And it's very odd to not be able to see outside.

Anyway, none of that matters now, as I've written this and posted this, and the storm will be another non-event.  I'll post updates as things progress, and as I've taken tomorrow off (so I can be here to hold my roof down), I'll have plenty of time to do so.

On a final unrelated note, the potato rake has been resurrected, and is now better than ever!!

Tsunami!

I can never enjoy a crappy movie in peace.....sheesh.

So it appears there's the possibility of a tidal wave interfering with my zombie watching. *Probably for the best*

Here's a site with tons of ads on the right side: Crappy website

Here's something a little more scary: wow

Good news is we're all safe.

Updates soon.

Tonight's Best Worst (Really Worst) Movie

Rise of the Zombies
(A SyFy Original)

Holy crap. I'm 10 minutes in and it's nearly unbearable.

EDIT: Full cast has been revealed: Blind Guy from Star Trek, My Name is Earl's brother, the weird on from 3rd Rock from the Sun, and Machete star with some equally B-List ladies I don't recognize.

Also there are commercials.

Next Edit: Zombies have learned to swim. Awesome.

Next edit: lost the plot a bit with the tsunami and all, but we just had an emergency zombie roadside c-section, followed by a little infant baby zombie.

My guess is its first word would have been "braaiiiinsssss".

Weekend Project #308 - Hydroelectric Power (Part 2)

Here's the latest update:

It's time to mix electricity and water!!!  Good times!

Not our wiring, but close

We got the wiring sorted out, and a new charge controller for the setup, and away we went.  System hooked

up, pipes in place, and raring to charge up some batteries!!!   Here's what happened:

Very very cool.  400+ watts.

Sadly, between the leaks and the low-ish stream level, it'd only run like this for about half an hour, and then start sucking air and drop to less than 50 watts.  Usually closer to 30.  Unacceptable.

Our next step was to line the box with plastic to eliminate any in-box leaks.  That initially worked great, except my poor box structural design couldn't handle it, and the front popped open.  

My bad.

I put the thing back together, added some extra support to the front of the box, and continued testing.  

Know what happened then?

The back popped open.  And part of the bottom fell out. (picture not included because of shame.)

The next day, it was kind of drizzly - oddly opposite our current weather - and I decided to give it another go.  I yanked all of the plastic out, I shored up the back and bottom, added a lot of structural support, and put in all new plastic.  All of that brought the in-box leaks down to almost zero.  That work, plus our one day of light rain, had the thing running at about 350 watts for over an hour.

It finally started to drop off, so I figured that it would run out sooner or later, but that it wouldn't hurt to leave it running overnight.  The next morning I saw that it had been putting out between 200 and 300 watts all night long.  It covered all of our asleep time loads (fridges, modem, and routers, plus whatever other light odds and ends), the power to run our power system/controllers (50± watts) and still put another 30 amp hours into the batteries.  I was stoked!

That day, despite the rain being gone, the hydro generated 6 KWh of power, averaging 250 watts for 24 hours.  A person can't ask for more than that. (Well...a person could, and will, once rainy season starts.)

The rainy day was on a Tuesday.  I heard from Gary the Neighbor that we got about an inch of rain that day.  The 6 KWh day was Wednesday.  The hydro continued to continually produce power until 10:30 am on Saturday.  The lesson from this is that it doesn't take much rain at all to bump the stream up to production level.

Of course, we haven't had any rain worth speaking of since, but you know Hilo....it's only a matter of time.  Although in the interim, we've had several of what I'm now calling "Angry Weather Days" - not because the weather is angry, but because it makes me angry.  If there are heavy clouds giving no sun and no rain....that's an angry weather day.

In the meantime, I'd say this box design (just the shape, not the construction) has proved itself, and it's time to start plans for a permanent structure.

And when that starts, I'll let you know.  Until then....

Weekend Project #308 - Hydroelectric Power

(The second part of my new ancient elements series: Earth, Wind, Fire and Water - How to Have Fun, Save the Planet, And Usually Not Mortally Wound Yourself in the Process)

Hydroelectric Power (Part 1)

**Not the farm system**

I know my last Weekend Project post was a bit dry, pretty rambling, and more than a little bit too long.  So I'm going to try and keep this one a little less wordy, and a little more fun.

For those of you who don't know, the farm is basically off of the grid.  The only utility we're hooked to is the internet.  Right now, all of our electricity is generated by solar panels.  This often works great, but as we're just outside of the rainiest city in the U.S., there are days (and weeks and months) where we don't get a heap of power off of the panels.

Therefore. we're now working on a pico hydro system.  Kalewa bought a turbine from ES&D that operates under high flow/low head conditions.  After that arrived, we were ready to go.  The plan was/is to build a temporary box to test the system for location, function, etc. and once that proves itself, we'll build a permanent box to house the system.

Of course, I had to start by drawing up some high tech plans.

That's right...  blueprints, baby!

After that, it was time to scrounge up a bunch of scrap wood and get the thing built!

Cross-section of my masterpiece

Oh yeah....  I'm thinking we won't even have to build a permanent box at this point!!

Then we ran the pipe, set it up, and let the water flow!

Ok.....    As you can see, it's a bit leaky.  Great Stuff to the rescue!  We shut it down, sealed it up, and ran it again.

Looks just like the plans!!

After 20 minutes of letting the Great Stuff set, we opened it up again, and it ran great!!

Stay tuned for Part 2, where we get to the great part of actually mixing electricity and water (always safe) and have fun with wiring!

Tonight's Best Worst Movie

(to see how this new mobile blogging app does)

Logan's Run

If you haven't seen it, you're probably smarter than me. But FYI, it's horribly awesome.

Weekend Project #247 - Biochar

(Part 1 of my new ancient elements series: Earth, Wind, Fire and Water - How to Have Fun, Save the Planet, And Usually Not Mortally Wound Yourself in the Process)


How to (Sort of) Make Biochar (Fire, fire, FIRE!)

Careful! This could happen to your potato rake!

Intro:

First of all, you may be asking yourself the usual question that comes along with every post I write: "What the hell is he talking about?!?"  Good question.  As in most cases, I really don't know either.  But, for those of you who are (like me) not yet familiar with biochar, here's the skinny: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biochar

Holy crap!  There's a lot of science in that article!  You should totally skip that. I'm certainly more comfortable with wikipedia articles that are more along the lines of anything on this list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_really,_really,_really_stupid_article_ideas_that_you_really,_really,_really_should_not_create (I really like #13, #38 and #39)

Seriously though, here's the way it works:

A Death in the Family

I know it's been forever since I last posted and I especially hate the idea that this is what I have to come back with, but sadly we lost one of our own last week.

It is with great sadness that I report that Luana (aka Lulu, aka Lu, aka Red Leader) unexpectedly passed away on Thursday September 6 at around 11:30 pm.  She'd been having seizures for several weeks and the medication wasn't helping much.  She had her last one around noon on the 6th, and never really came out of it.

She was a dear sweetheart, ornery and stubborn, gentle and energetic, and loved by everyone whose chickens hadn't been killed by her.

She will be missed.