Chapter 113...Taking An Inverter Apart and Replacing Parts & A New Bull

Off Grid...Chapter 113 June 1- Today was a mix of a day. First I had to take Niki to the vet. She hasn't been able to hold down any food in a few days..the poor little pug. I even gave her pepto by using a straw. Mike was having a fit but hey, how else was I going to get it into her mouth, lol? It did work well. I think she ate something outside that she wasn't supposed to, so typical of her. Turns out she is OK and the vet gave me some medicine for her for a few days Then Mike and I drove around and met and caught up with some of our old neighbors from our last farm. It was a good day..but no work got done. June 2- It is a sunny day which means it's time to do laundry..until my washer broke I am really upset about this washer. I specifically picked it after researching for quite some time. It was supposed to be perfect and very energy efficient for our needs. Well it has been a piece of junk since day one. I will never get another front loader again...at least not a GE. Mike and I can get pretty dirty...and this washer has never been able to clean our clothes. On top of that the timed washes lie. If I set it for the 38 minute wash it takes 1 hour So much for using less electricity and water. Ok..enough of my rant. We were going to run it to the ground but now it won't even drain out the water. So it's off to Lowe's to get a new..old fashioned top loader with an agitator BTW, if anyone wants a 3 year old front loader and dryer it's collecting dust, lol. June3- Today we took out the old washer and dryer and installed the new washer. I don't have a dryer now but at least our clothes will get clean. The rest of the day was a clean up round. June 5- Today we worked on the ditch line..I know it's getting old but we will get it done this summer Back in the rocks. And we did pretty good. June 6- Mike wants to add an extra eave on the perimeter of our roof to protect the house from the weather. He also wants to have a metal piece made up to protect the new eave and the house. Today we went to the farm supply to order the new metal. We have to do the eaves and the metal before we can put the new shingles on. When we got back home we found a delivery. Our new inverter boards are here. Looks like Mike has some work to do. I will just be near him for moral support Here is the old inverter box with nothing inside. This is what it should look like. Here are the new parts I am so glad Mike can do this kind of work. Just looking at this makes me confuses me, lol. One of the boards. Mike starting to put the circuit boards into the case. Another board to put in. Mike putting it together. All three replacement boards are in Almost done. Putting the top back on. And screwing it back into place. And it's all done. Mike made it look so easy Next Mike takes the fixed inverter out to hook it up to our Jeep battery to test it. It's a good thing we did this today. Mike found out that our terminal end on the Jeep battery was cracked. See...some things do happen for a reason. We will have to pick one up next time we are out. And Mike using the volt meter to test the repaired inverter. Whew..it all looks good. Now we just have to send back the old parts to the company..who, by the way have great customer service. June 12- We woke up today and Mike says to me "we have a new bull". No way...when did that happen? Sure enough we have a new light colored bull. But we find out he's not ours...uh oh He belongs to our back neighbor and he came through the fence..not good. Thankfully we don;t have any bulls in here or there could be some fighting. It's bad enough he got to our girls It turns into a very different day than planned. The cow people, Howard, Eric, and Ivalee show up to get this bull out. After a couple of hours of calling the girls, because the bull will follow, Eric gets the bull almost to the top of the ridge by the hole in the fence. Then something spooks the bull and he runs all the way back down the hill Mike has been out trying to help them and I stayed out of the way so I wouldn't spook the bull into doing something they don't want him to. I head down too the barn to see what's happening. Everyone is down there including our back neighbor with a cattle truck. They got the bull inside the barn locked up with 2 of the girls. While getting him into the barn he went a little crazy and bent the steel fence on the front of the barn They finally got the bull loaded up and our neighbor said "I'm getting too old for this". That's it for today. I will leave you with some garden pictures. My favorite. I love my little garden Soon you won't be able to see any dirt Here is my orphan garden. I didn't have room in my garden for all the zucchini and squash plants and I didn't want to throw them away. They are looking pretty good. Lisa