Puttering about the house

21 May, 2020; Vail, AZ

They're baaaccckkk . . . . 

Walked out my front door and chanced upon this fellow - he's twice the size of the one I saw last summer (and that one was the biggest toad I'd ever seen!).  Not afraid of me at all.  I was glad Phoebe was inside as they can be quite poisonous to dogs.

Sonoran Desert Toad - largest toad in America.  This fellow was probably 6 inches.

The summer heat has been interupting my morning tea on the patio.

I like to watch the sun rise in the morning, but as soon as it's up, it shines directly onto the patio and is soon unbearably hot.  So, I bought a sun shade and installed it.  It works really well - and now that I know it will work, the next one (this one should last a few years before the sun degrades the plastics) will be a custom fit and maybe even work with a remote!  This one winds manually and the stick is really too short - I have to stand on a footstool and still it's over my head.

Getting ready to install

I temporarily put a couple nails and a rope 'cradle' in the beam so that I could install the shade by myself.  It worked out pretty well.

I hope I don't disturb this nest.  It's a Gila Woodpecker nest.

Shades the patio pretty well - the next iteration may have a shade on the front too.

The Van Conversion drags on!

Discovered a defect when I tested my new Inergy Apex solar generator (lithium battery, solar charge controller, inverter, 12 v and 110 outlets all included in one lightweight 25 pound box) - everything works EXCEPT the solar input connection.  The most important thing!!!  Inergy customer service appears to be excellent though - after some troubleshooting, they sent me a box and the Apex is now on it's way back to the factory for repair - under warranty.  Unfortunately, I won't have it when I drive to Colorado next week for the interior conversion work to be done.  Not a huge deal but it would have been nice to have for the trip.

Since it's a battery, all sorts of shipping restrictions apply; I had to drain the battery to below 10.3, get special hazardous materials shipping instructions, stickers and a special FedEx pickup.

Well, the good thing is that it took days and days for this battery to discharge - I had everything I could think of plugged into it!

Ready for pickup!