Solar is finally completed!

As the title states, after a long wait, lots of red tape and a few dollars, the solar panels are finally hooked up and running. All 5.04 Kw. We had a great time watching the meter run backwards the first couple of days, but then the utility came and replaced it with a digital meter. Like digital slot machines this took away some of the fun and excitement, but the end result is still the same. It's been up and running for about 12 days and here are the statistics courtesy of the inverter box:
30 Kwh of electricity produced today
398 Kwh produced so far
676 lbs of CO2 saved

What would you do to celebrate? We brewed our first beer. With some help from my friend Chloe who is an experienced brewer and a fantastic local brew store (Brewer's Connection in Tempe) we now have 5 gallons of hefeweizen in the primary fermenter. Between that and the 5 gallons of honey mead bubbling in the closet, we should be in good spirits for awhile. :)

The ever-popular banana ice cream

I feel I should repost the banana "Ice cream" recipe for those of you that have either not seen it or for some reason have not gotten around to trying it because maybe you're skeptical that a one-ingredient recipe could be so awesome. Let me assuage your anxiety. It is that awesome. It's vegan to boot so you can serve it to your friends that are always insisting that tofu-based pies are as good as the real thing.

Directions:
Freeze some bananas. If you froze them in the peels let them thaw out just enough that you can easily slice the peels off. (15-20 minutes) Cut into slices. Put in the food processor until it gets to be the consistency of fancy ice-cream. Eat.
For a way more complex version: add a teaspoon of peanut butter in the food processor with the banana slices and then when it's done add chocolate sauce. As my new favorite feedback booth guy at the end of a recent Antiques Roadshow says.... "Champion!"

I realize a picture should be here, but I ate it before I thought to take a picture. Besides, you all know what ice-cream looks like.

More Solar

Looks like Phoenix is scheduled for rain for the entire week. This could have some say in whether or not our solar gets installed. This also means no global sun oven meals, I really can't say enough good things about that product. It heats to 325-350 in basically the same amount of time our indoor oven does. If I really pay attention to moving it with the sun every 30-60 minutes, it will get up to at least 375. I'm not sure how much of a difference ambient temperature makes, but in the summer it will be 60 degrees hotter outside than it is now. While it's not cheap (around $225) it's nice to know that it's made in America with non-sweatshop labor and that a portion of the proceeds go towards providing solar ovens to people that need them in parts of the world with less money.

Mikey- Our utility (APS) is paying $15,120 towards our 5.2 KwH system. If I remember correctly, it's not just a straight $3,000 per kwh, it increases as your system size increases. (I think it was $12,500 for a 4.8 kwh system) Arizona has a crappy buy back policy. They will buy any unused electricity from you at the end of the month at wholesale costs, should you need more than you produce in a given month you buy it from them retail. Alternatively, you can let your unused production roll over to the next month (and every year in April the slate gets wiped clean, so it's a bit of a use it or lose it). The latter is the route we've signed up for.

The solar countdown...

Well, for those of you wondering about the significant lack of posts, I've been extra busy. :) I have 30 kinds of tomatoes started, 10 pepper varieties and two eggplants. Way more than I'll have room for, but it's hard to stop myself. The bigger news is that we're getting solar panels. When I first looked into it I thought it would be I pay for them, they come out and install them and it was all done. I wish. There are many layers of approvals that need to be gotten (the solar company does most of this, but there's still a lot of waiting between each stage of the process) We had to get two 35 foot palm trees removed, which were going to make it too shady (probably two more will have to be pulled out before it's all done) there will have to be significant trenching in the backyard because of how our house is set-up, then more people have to sign off on things.

It seems like a lot of steps just to get solar power, but when it's all done, it should be 110% of our total power usage and because of all the rebates, credits and incentives, it will be about 85% off the sticker price, so we just couldn't refuse. There are nine days until they start installing the actual panels, which is stage one of the home stretch. I'm crossing my fingers that everything goes well.

Pictures to come!

Fall planting

For the past couple of weeks I had been working on getting the fall crops in. Our average first frost in Phoenix is usually the first or second week in December so after the ridiculous summer heat, there's a brief season kind of like spring, as well as the root vegetable crops that overwinter with the frosts.

Spinach, Beets and Lettuce Sprouting

As usual I have more things I want to plant than space to plant them. This year we're growing three kinds of peas including a native type, six kinds of beets (my favorite!), several kinds of disgusting radishes (my husband's favorite), lots of different kinds of lettuces, some onions, lots of herbs, broccoli, carrots and a few experimental cold-tolerant tomatoes as well as some huge cherry tomatoes that over-summered. New this year are cabbages (for kraut), leeks, parsnips, turnips and kohlrabi. I've never had turnips or kohlrabi (to my knowledge) and I know the rule is not to plant things you don't like, but I'm afraid I wouldn't ordinarily like them, but I seem to like eating anything I grow, so maybe it's a better way to get me to like something that might otherwise be revolting.

This sounds like a lot more than it is, some of these varieties only get allocated a square foot or two. Our total vegetable gardening space is only about 250-300 square feet, not including the fruit trees.

Here's one of the garden beds about 10 days ago and again yesterday:






I know it's a bit crowded in there. I know when I'm planting that those tiny seeds a probably a little close but I just can't stop myself. Those plants will just have to get a new sense of personal space. I also decided that flowers aren't a total waste of garden space and put in a few. Here's a better shot of a great little snapdragon.



I hope you all are enjoying your fall gardens (if you live in a place that can grow them) or some time off getting ready for the seed catalogs to arrive!

Happy Halloween and birthday. New babies are here!

The weather started to warm up from that harsh cold front just in time to have the doors and windows open on Halloween. This begins the time of year when I am thankful for where I live. The highs are in the mid to upper 80's for the next 7 days and it's perfect out. No panting or shivering animals anywhere. Although we do have 20 new babies that just hatched last night and this morning and would prefer it was closer to 100 degrees. Here they are, Happy Birthday and Halloween to our most recent batch of Coturnix quail babies. Most of these little guys will be sold to help pay for feed and other things I need around the tiny farm. This brings the total of birds hatched here in 2009 to 158.



We celebrated with a batch of pumpkin pancakes, made from a native pumpkin (Mayo Blusher Squash) I picked back in July and just now got around to cooking. MMmm pumpkin eating season has begun!

Grinding corn and mesquite flour

A week or so ago I got out the dried ears of flour corn and the dried honey mesquite bean pods to make flour. You can grind corn with just about anything (grain mill, coffee grinder etc) but mesquite is much trickier. You'll mess up most appliances and mills if you try to grind the pods in them. Once a year a hammer mill is brought from Tucson to Phoenix and you can grind your mesquite and carob pods for a nominal fee but I decided to do it the old fashioned way.
When I was a kid my parents had this metate as yard decoration. When I grew up and got a house, I brought it here for practical use. Here's me grinding some corn:


I had a miserable flour corn crop and my two small mesquite trees were only planted last fall, I still got a cup or so of each kind of flour. I'm really looking forward to next year or maybe 5 years from now when I get lots. There are plenty of mesquite trees to harvest from in the area, but most of those are not the right kind of mesquite and the flour tastes a tiny bit skunky after the initial sweet flavor. The flour made from honey mesquite basically tastes like you ground up some sugary mesquite bbq flavored chips and mixed them with your flour. MMMMMMM!


Tomorrow, a generous member of the rare fruit growers club has offered to give me some dragonfruit cuttings.....