Reflections on the Tenth Week of Fall – Snowy Solar Panels

First Snow - Solar Panels

    Standing in our south yard, I squinted into the glaring sunshine that bounced off the roof. Sweat dripped off my nose while the EIS solar installation crew knelt on ladder bridges, drilled into the metal roof ridges, and attached racks that would hold solar panels.

   That day, July 19, was the first time I wondered what would happen to the solar panels when snow fell. “Will we make any electricity if snow covers the panels?”

    Richard, the crew leader, paused halfway down a ladder. “No, Janet.” His voice had a lyrical African accent. “Snow will prevent the sun from reaching the solar cells.”

    My face must have formed what Spence calls a Pulitzer-prize-winning expression because a smile crinkled Richard’s dark skin. “Now, Janet. Don’t worry. The sun will melt the snow. The snow will slip off the panels, and they will produce electricity again.”

    Richard’s assurance lasted through October when gritty rain hit my face and early November when snowflakes melted on landing.

    Then, this past Monday, I woke and peeked out the bedroom window. Less than an inch of snow covered the gardens, fields, and deck. Snow lined tree branches and capped dried wildflowers. But snow didn’t cover the dirt road.

    I walked into the great room to quiz Spence. “The road’s bare. Do you think the solar panels are bare too?”

    “No.” His eyes searched the computer screen for what happened this day in history to top his RHINO website. “Cars don’t run on the solar panels.”

    “If cars had melted the road snow, there’d be bare tracks not a bare road.”

    He tapped keys and clicked tabs. “Don’t worry.”

    “I not worrying. I’m wondering.” I walked toward the bedroom. “I’ll take my camera and check.”

    Spence’s “Just relax,” echoed down the hall. “There’s not enough light to take pictures yet.”

    Changing directions, I climbed to the loft, stretched in standing yoga poses, hustled back downstairs, and grabbed my camera.

    “Eat your breakfast.” Spence set a steaming plate on the table. “The snow will be there when you finish.”

    Glancing out the window at the cloudy sky and listening to Morning Edition on NPR, I gulped a shwarma, pear slices, and oatmeal. Then I swallowed vitamin supplements with rooibos tea, pulled on my coat, and stepped into boots.

    Man chuckles followed the camera and me out the door.

    Since my boots slipped on the snowy cement porch, I hung the camera around my neck, held onto both railings, and slow-stepped to the driveway. Snow covered the north roof of the log house and the south roof of the garage. I walked around the house and stared at its south roof.

    Covered. Snow blanketed all thirty panels. Three slits marred the smooth surface where pencil thin gaps let snow fall between panels to the roof.

    After pacing the road and the south garden for the best photo angle, I walked about admiring first snow beauty–the snow crowned Queen Anne’s lace, the snow lined spruce branches, and the snow topped bird’s nest hidden in the middle of a burning bush.

First Snow - Queen Anne's Lace

    When I stepped back inside, Spence paused his computer key tapping. “That took a long time. What did you find out?”

    I gave him a two minute summary, gathered my swim gear, and left to swim laps between 11:00 a.m. and noon at the YMCA.

    Sunshine filtered through the glass block windows and created glowing patches in the pool. I swam in and out of the warm patches and visualized the solar panels on the roof. Had the clouds cleared at Wells Wood? Did the snow melt and slip off the solar panels?

    After five sixths of a mile and a hot shower, I drove home. Houses at the corner of Route 173 and West Creek Road still had snow on their roofs. But those houses faced east not south.

    I parked in the garage, swung the wet swim bag over my shoulder, and conducted a 1:00 p.m. roof check. No snow on the south roof of the garage but the house’s north roof wore the same snow blanket that it had when I’d left. I dumped my swim bag inside, grabbed my camera, and hustled to the south side of the house.

    Sunshine sparkled off clear, electricity-generating solar panels. Ragged snow clumps stuck out of the gutter. One clump dislodged and splashed onto a foot high pyramid of snow lining the far edge of the ramp. Snow melt trickled down the drainpipe.

    Several days later, I studied the data Sunny Portal collected from our Sunny Boy inverters.

    Peak production often occurred during the 11:00 and noon time frames. Tuesday, for example, the panels generated 7 kWh in the 11:00 hour and 6.75 kWh in the noon hour. Monday, with the clouds and snow cover, the peak shifted to noon, 4.95 kWh, and 1:00, 4.40 kWh. Monday’s 11:00 hour, while I swam in and out of sunny patches in the pool, totaled 0.25 kWh. Rather than generate electricity that hour, sunshine had melted snow.

    Monday had proved Richard’s, “Now, Janet. Don’t worry,” right. The sun melted the snow. The snow slipped off the panels, and they produced electricity again.

    At least his scenario worked for less than an inch of snow. How long would it take the sun to melt two, four, or even six inches of snow off the solar panels?

    Hmmm.

    I didn’t wonder what Spence would say if I asked him to unfold his heavy extension ladder and lean it against the gutters so I could climb and sweep snow off the lower panels.

First Snow - Sunshine on the Solar Panels

 

Reflections on the Ninth Week of Fall – Topsy-Turkey Season

Watermelon and Pumpkin

    Cradling a watermelon in his arms, Spence burst through the front door Thursday. “I brought you a watermelon,” he said with the enthusiasm of an adventurer returning with the Holy Grail.

   After a spring, summer, and fall of watermelon to distract my sweet tooth from sinking into dessert, I fancied pumpkin pie, pumpkin cookies, or pumpkin cake this week before Thanksgiving. Trying not to sound disappointed, I acknowledged his find. “A watermelon.”

   He grinned, turned the melon over, and pointed to the label on the bottom. “It’s organic too.” Spence placed the watermelon in the center of the table beside the small pie pumpkin, which had been ripening off-vine for nearly a month. Stepping back out the door, he left to fetch more groceries from his truck.

   The dark green melon dwarfed the now orange pumpkin and graced the table with a summer and fall mishmash.

   This confused centerpiece may not have jolted my sensibilities if an NPR radio ad hadn’t driven me nuts all week. That darn commercial followed me whatever I did.

   Hustling to the pool—

“Trader Joe’s turkey and stuffing . . .”

    Washing the dishes—

“ . . . seasoned chips for the flavor of . . .”

    Sewing falling leaves—

“ . . . Thanksgiving in a potato chip.”

    Thanksgiving in a potato chip?

    Why waste time crunching? Scrape the feast into a blender, turn the dial to pulverize, and gulp the results. Sheesh.

    Give me a plate of steaming Wells Wood mashed potatoes, butternut squash, asparagus, purple beans, and cranberries with homegrown onions and celery cooked into the stuffing. Add a roasted free-range turkey. Top the dinner with pies from Wells Wood pumpkins and blueberries. I’ll savor the tastes, talk with family, and forget the sacrilege of turning Thanksgiving mainstays into a potato chip, which belongs at summer picnics.

    But I don’t fault the radio or Spence for my sensitivity to topsy-turvy seasons. Mid November arrived with rusty oak and tawny beech leaves clinging to understory trees. Bare branched maples and cherries stretched higher into the sky than their summer forms seemed to reach. Temperatures dropped seven degrees lower than average, and snowflakes fell only to melt on landing. Nature set the scene for Thanksgiving.

    So when I brushed my teeth at the bathroom sink and turned, my glance traveled through the bathroom doorway, across the great room, out the sliding glass door, over the deck railing, and under the branches of the white pine stand to our flock of wild turkeys.

    They bent and pecked at seeds in the mowed field by the edge of the woods.

    I put down the toothbrush, walked across the room, slid open the door, and stepped outside for a closer look.

    No turkeys. They must have heard me coming and disappeared into the woods.

    Later in the week, I washed my hands, after cleaning kitty litters, and glanced outside. The turkeys had gathered on the south field again.

    This time I didn’t chance the noise of the sliding door. I left the water running, tiptoed into the bedroom, and peered out the window.

    No turkeys.

    How could they have heard me? I walked back, turned off the water, and dried my hands. Puzzled, I glanced outside–turkeys.

    What?

    I squinted. The dark turkey shapes merged into long green needles on a low pine branch.

    Okay. This time I imagined the turkeys, but last time they bent to peck at seeds.

    A breeze tossed the branch. Bowing branches had seemed like bending turkeys. I laughed loud enough to disturb the turkeys gobbling in the woods.

   I’m mentally ready for an old fashioned Thanksgiving even if the free-range turkey isn’t roasting in the oven yet.

    Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

Falling Leaves in Summer???     Blocks for the Country Charms Raffle Quilt

Reflections on the Eighth Week of Fall – Dogs, the Election, and Characters from My Country Life

Polling Place

    Straddling the bench in the middle of the vet’s waiting room Friday afternoon, I plunked a notebook on top of the pet carrier wedged between Spence and me. I peeked at George, pouting and curled as small as possible in the far corner of the carrier, then pulled out a green pen. While we waited for a technician to draw George’s blood, get the test results, and give us enough supplies for subcutaneous fluid treatments until George’s next test, I could organize my election blog. Pen poised, I mentally reviewed scenes.

    Scene one occurred last August when I visited the Under Cover Girls, my friend Peggie’s sewing group. They make quilts for charity. I’d set my sewing machine between Peggie and Nancy, the head auditor for French Creek Township. Peggie’s innocent 9:00 a.m. question, “Do you like math,” should have warned me. While she sewed seams and snipped threads, she said that working with Nancy made auditing the township books easy and fun. By lunchtime, Peggie had brainwashed me into taking her French Creek Township auditor job.

    The following day at the tea party for two hosted by my son, scene two, Charlie laughed at my vignette of Peggie’s sewing group brainwashing. He suggested using the Under Cover Girls for detectives in an auditor mystery. Then he bounced in his chair and waved both fists. “You can hide the body in one of the cars on Bruce Swogger’s lot. It’s right across from where you’ll be working. Drive the car away to dispose of the corpse–the messy part of the story.”

    Twiddling the green pen, I shifted my weight on the vet’s bench. What thread would tie the election saga scenes together?

    “Hey, what’s the name of your dog?”

    My eyes jerked from the blank paper on the carrier, big enough for a small dog because George once rivaled Garfield the Cat in size, to a five-foot man with a Jack Russell Terrier. The man’s long white hair, scruffy gray beard, and sprightly step made him a great candidate for Santa’s head elf.

    Staring at the block game on his cell phone, Spence answered before I did. “That’s George. He’s a cat.”

    The man bent and peered through the carrier’s holes. “He looks just like a dog. A handsome dog.”

    The man’s terrier sniffed my outreached hand then edged between his master and the carrier. Tail wagging, the terrier positioned his nose by a hole and sniffed.

    George stood, stared, then put his nose close to the intruding dog nose.

    “Don’t scare the kitty, King.” The man yanked the leash to pull the terrier away. “He likes cats.”

    Spence paused his cell phone game. “I bet King’s good at chasing groundhogs.”

    “Oh, yeah. You should see him in my backyard. He tears after everything.”

    King pulled his leash, and the man followed.

    Spence moved close to me, cupped his hand behind my ear, and whispered, “He’s crazy. I’m loving him.”

    Each time I focused on the blank paper, King stood on his hind legs and stretched his front paws towards another person, pet, or worker in the waiting room. The man, as out going as his terrier, never sat. His conversations informed everyone.

    King needed a rabies shot.

    Gracie, the cocker spaniel, had bladder stones.

    Brent, a wolfhound-terrier mix, loved boarding with the other animals.

    And Paul, the Shih Tzu, needed a follow-up for his injured eye.

    A technician wearing a scrub top decorated with Dr.Seuss characters, too distracting for me to glance at her name tag, carried George off for his blood test.

    Another technician opened an exam room door and called, “King.”

    Walking with King to the exam room, the man reminded me of the woman walking into the polling place–both were the same height.

    Tuesday, we’d chatted with neighbor Barb at the registration table in the back room of Milledgeville Community Christian Church. She had questions. “How are your cats, and how do you like your solar panels?”

    The short woman, who’d come in behind us, said, “Where do you live? On West Creek where Spencer Wells and his wife Priscilla used to stay?”

    Walking to the voting machine, I left Spence explaining those were his parents. I voted, and he learned the woman had the same last name as a township supervisor candidate. I’d voted for him because Peggie had said, “When he was a supervisor, our roads were in a lot better shape.”

Sample Ballot

    Gripping the green pen with determination, I balanced the notebook on my lap and wrote election day.

    A man sat by the window, and a toy poodle settled between his feet. The man bent and petted the dog. “What’s the matter, Riley? You’re shaking.”

    I added local vs national to the paper, and the man said, “Oooooooooooh.”

    I glanced his way.

    A clear puddle oozed away from the shaking dog, and a technician called “Riley.”

    The man scooped up his poodle, walked around the puddle, and stopped at the exam room door. “I’ve got to clean up my dog’s pee.”

    The technician waved Riley’s folder. “Don’t worry. Someone will clean it for you.”

    The puddle widened, as if forming a swamp, and crept to the edge of the mat by the bench.

    Coming around the reception counter, a woman in a butterfly scrub top, again the fabric distracted me so I didn’t check her name tag, carried a roll of paper towels and a spray bottle to the puddle.

    The puddle spread under the mat.

    She ripped off a yard of towels, dropped them onto the puddle, and pushed them around with her foot. “I don’t want anyone slipping on this.” She dropped and swiped four times. Then she knelt and hand wiped the pee under the mat. Carrying a skinnier roll of towels and the unused spray bottle, she left.

    Spence looked up from his game. “Who’d think such a little dog could have so much in him?”

    I tapped the green pen on my paper. So far I had anecdotes. I needed some statistics for the blog.

    In scene sixteen, maybe seventeen, on cold Wednesday afternoon, Spence and I studied the four inch wide strip of paper tacked to the church’s back door. Eight of one hundred twenty-four voters had written in names for auditor. Four wrote “Janet Wells,” one wrote “Janet Elaine Wells, that had to be Spence’s vote, and the other three split two to one for a male and female with the “Emich” surname. None of the votes was mine. I’d manage fine without the job.

    Wind flapped the list while we checked other races. Neighbor Sandy won tax collector unopposed, Barb lost inspector of elections, and the supervisor candidate, not known for keeping the roads in good condition, won.

    A beeping U-haul truck backed to the door, and we scooted out of the way.

     A man jumped out of the passenger side and hustled to the church door with a key in his hand.

   The driver walked around the truck, opened the back, and pulled out a dolly.

Spence said, “Good timing. We just finished studying the results.”

    “We’re not going to take that list,” the key man said opening the church door. “We’re here for the voting machines.”

    Using the green pen, I wrote auditor stats on my list.

    The Seuss shirted technician brought George back in his carrier. “Are you going to wait for the results?”

    I put the pen on the carrier. “Yes. We need to figure out how many fluid bags, tubes, and needles to buy before George’s next visit.”

    She nodded and walked away. Setting the notebook beside the pen, I studied the page.

      election day

      local vs. national

      auditor stats

Sheesh. Boring. I didn’t want to break Kurt Vonnegut’s first rule for writing fiction–don’t waste the time of a stranger.

    “I lost,” Spence said staring at his phone. “But I made a new record, seventy-six thousand, eight hundred eighty-eight.”

    Spence started a new block game, George fell asleep, and I glared at the paper.

    Spence halted his finger exercise. “What’s wrong, Babe?”

    “I’m having trouble organizing my election blog. It’s boring. ”

    He chuckled. “Write about the vet’s.”

    The Seuss shirted technician brought a bag of supplies. “Give George fluids twice a week and bring him back in thirty days.”

    Driving George and Spence home, I said, “I could write about Riley and the peeing poodle. That’s more interesting than a Republican township victory versus the national Democratic win.”

    “I was kidding.” Spence reached his arm behind his seat–probably to wiggle his fingers at George. “Write about winning your first election.”

    Write about winning an election I didn’t care if I won? Hard to generate enthusiasm for that.

    Back home, Emma growled at George because he smelled like vet disinfectant, and an email from Charlie waited in my inbox.

    “So after your triumphal first novella about the dead body found in the boot of a Swogger automotive, here is your next plot… a bunch of rich investors swoop in to attempt to buy the Milledgevile Community Christian worship center and turn it into a luxury B&B. Mayhem (and bodies) ensure. Also, probably a few dead animals.”

    I opened a document labeled “blog try 1.” Threading characters through the election and our dog day at the vet’s might work. After all, characters are the threads that tie together the fabrics of my country life.

Voting Results