Good Morning!!!! 47F @ 4:00 AM, Partly cloudy. High 66F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph.
Picked up another 0.4" of rain yesterday, the first tenth in the wee hours of the morning, the rest delivered with thundering booms and lightning, with a little pea sized hail thrown in for good measure. It seems more like March than April, and we're most of the way to May.
There's no place like home, Helos.
Thank you for your service, Wagtail.
Maybe an orphanage could be part of the maintenance upgrades for your church, Drew?
I found my little birdbath at a statuary shop that shared a parking lot with a giant store that sells adult "playthings". There's been at least one shooting in that lot, so I made my visit as short as possible. Maybe today I'll find time to put the solar fountain in it.
I'm afraid it's gonna be a doozy of a fire season, Ted, and not just in California. The 10-day here doesn't show any more rain, but what's come down in the past few weeks will spur a lot of growth that'll act as tinder for this summer's sparks, whether they be man made or from nature. Sad to see Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas already getting a head start. CalFire out her finally got a big budget increase; I just hope there are enough firefighters and equipment to go around. Good looking fence. Hope your new neighbors turn out to be good people.
I'm pretty sure the glass shops here can fabricate aluminum frames for screening windows and sliding glass doors, David. Maybe you can find one in Hawaii, too?
Got a reply from a Subaru transplant guru yesterday suggesting I trace the fuel pump and associated wiring, so I started with the fuel pump. Half way between the pump and the relay I found a pair of spade terminals, and when I pulled on them, they came apart way too easily. That could well be the cause of the intermittent engine dying problem. I don't remember how they got there, but I used that stretch of wire to pull another heavier gauge wire in its place. The van still doesn't start as easily as it should, but once it got going, I left it to idle for a half hour and it at least it didn't die. I also found a trouble shooting procedure in an on line copy of the Subaru factory shop manual, so I'll start working through that today.
The second pair of Lowa Renegade GTX Mid Hiking Boots, in 9 Wide, showed up yesterday. The first pair were in 8.5 wide and were both too short and too narrow, and this pair is longer, but still too narrow. The old pair of Lowa boots that fell apart were 8.5 wide, so I give up on Lowa and will send this most recent pair back for a refund. Think I'll look at what Merrell has to offer; at least their shoes still seem to fit when they're marked 8.5 wide. Hopefully their boots do, too.
Also delivered was a new portable SSD I'll use to back up one of the laptops. It's one of the newer 16" MacBook Pros, and the upgrade to Apples Monterey operating system porked the SSD in it over the size that would fit on the old backup drive. That upgrade was over 12 Gb in size, and took more than a day to download over the satellite connection. I don't notice any difference in how it works or what it does, and now I'm wondering why I bothered.
I'm in a bad spot with the solar power system, even if I win in small claims. The contractor that put it in is refusing to honor the warranty, and has done so from day one. None of the local installers I talked to prior to ending up with the one I did knew anything about integrating a generator and battery backup; they just slap up grid tied solar panels. I have one left to try, but they're pretty new on the scene and it's not lookin' good. Worst case, I end up in superior court and sue for the cost of a replacement system, but that'll mean bringing in an attorney and for sure drag this out into the summer when I need backup power the most. What a mess.
TGIF, gang!
,afternoon planning on nap 
