Our high-tech wind turbine and the solar tracker work together, and that's good. Because some days we have wind and no sun, and other days we have sun and no wind. On really glorious days we have both. That's when we turn on all sorts of energy-sucking rigs: the washing machine, the vacuum cleaner, the crock pot, the little hot water heater. We have a new dehydrator, for drying apples. But we can only use it on sunny and windy days, when our energy production is high. And we have a second freezer now, for freezing all that fresh apple cider -- about fifty gallons. It's an old freezer and even though it works well it adds to our energy load.
If we have a string of cloudy and windless days, the batteries that store all the energy lose their charge. Down, down, down they slide, while we turn off lights and computers. We do have a back-up for times when the batteries get too low: a ten thousand watt propane generator sits on a concrete pad behind the battery shed. The generator goes on automatically when the system calls for it. We don't let it run for very long though, since it uses up propane. We hear its motor kick on, even in the middle of the night, and one of us goes out to the shed and re-sets everything. By then the generator has kicked up the charge in the batteries at least enough to keep them going for a while.
A string of six propane tanks, strung together by copper gas lines, sits in the former outhouse, a shed next to the shed that houses the batteries and all the fancy blinking lights for the whole business. There's no measuring device for the propane tanks, an odd gap in all this technology. The only way you can tell how much propane is left in those tanks is to look for a line of condensation along the outside of the tanks. It should tell you where the level of your propane is. But you need to be looking for that condensation on a wet day. Because on a dry day you can't see it.
Yesterday we ran out of propane. But that was okay because Greg had an extra tank, which he attached to the end of the string of tanks, thus giving us a little lee-way until he could go into town to get the tanks re-filled. But then the stove ran out of propane too. The stove has been very much in use for blanching beans and chard etc, and canning grape jam and apple sauce etc. So then Greg took the one full tank back off the string of tanks in the shed and replaced the empty tank at the stove. So now, no propane back up for the generator until Saturday, when he can go into town. But he can certainly carry on with the apple tarts and apple jelly and apple chutney.
There is no sun expected here until Sunday, and today is Wednesday. According to the weather reports it'll be mostly rain between now and then. If the charge on the batteries goes too low we'll just watch everything go off. Then there will be no running water or flushing toilet or freezer keeping everything from the garden frozen or computers bringing us the world at our fingertips or lights. For the next few days we are living at the mercy of the wind.
These are hardly dire conditions, though. After all, we do have a back-up back-up system: an outhouse, and oil lamps, and an old well we can drop a bucket into, and little rainy-day projects that don't require electricity, like re-gluing broken plates and organizing closets. We do have books.
Many times I have tried to capture the beauty of Old Man's Beard. At least this gives you some idea of it. 
A home for somebody, in an old apple tree. This tree does not give many apples, but it provides other benefits.
The apple trees provide a good place for insects to live, too. And they, in turn, are a food source for birds, who make striking patterns on the bark.
A fresh spring sky today. Lots of wind and sun, and story-book clouds.
A little spring snow deters him not at all.
A junco perches within the safety of the garden.
Snow gilds the queen anne's lace.
A lovely spring garden.
Junco has flown into the oak tree, everyone's favourite place to sit.
The wind is fierce today, and cold. Environment Canada is clocking it at 55 km/hr with gusts to 70 km/hr at nearby Baccaro Point. It reminds me of the wild winds that March blew in on, only eighteen days ago. 
But here's how the cove shore looked a couple of days ago.
I know you cannot see these sheep out on the point, at least without a magnifying glass. But there are about twenty of them out there, eating their favourite food, kelp.
Another view of the point and the cove, and the old skiff.
We'll need to wait until the water and wind subside a bit before we can safely investigate.
The traps are either already loaded onto the boats, or about to be. A lobster license entitles the holder to set 250 traps. All those traps will be set next Monday, beginning at 7:00 a.m., if the weather is okay. The word from Environment Canada is that it will be windy.
Randy Van Buskirk is helping load his brother Cody's boat. I suppose Cody will return the favour later on.
The traps are very big and they are very heavy. Each one has a concrete weight inside that keeps it from moving around too much when it is sitting out there on the ocean floor.
It is a big project to slide the traps off the stern and into the water. They go off the stern one after the other, mostly in strings of several tied together. The boat is moving over the place where the traps will be set, and the traps are sliding off the back. This is all happening far out in the North Atlantic, at the beginning of December.
The day the lobster boats go out with their traps is a dangerous day. So much is going on and there's so much weight and mass to deal with. There's a lot of skill involved, and even then things can go wrong.
A view of Skipper's new boat, H. Sinclair, which is named for his dad, Harry Van Buskirk. Randy's new blue traps are stacked on the dock to the left, ready to be loaded onto Sea Arrow.
Locomotion, the red boat on the left, is already loaded. That's Cody and Randy's dad Roger's boat.
Another view of Au Cobra taken from Chopper I as we sailed away toward home.
Looking north I could see Sandy Point Lighthouse in the distance, as well as some houses near it on the mainland. The sun was just shining on them. I love the look of the sky in this picture. 
Looking south I saw a lobster boat tied up at Mark and Patsy's camp.
Later, off she went. Probably going on a carrot run. You can never have too many.
The tide was very high.
A lovely little mushroom of some sort, loving this weather .
Rose hips against a skeleton forest.
The skeleton forest in all its glory.
About a dozen sheep were out on the point eating kelp. They love it when a storm pulls kelp from the ocean floor and pours it out along the cobble beach.
We've been seeing an owl lately, out in broad daylight, cruising the bog -- a barred owl, I think.
It comes up close to the house, closer than you might expect it to.
It spent the afternoon swooping back and forth.
Then it rested and gazed all about with its owlish eyes. Lyndon thinks it's scoping out the hens.
Skipper says we can be grateful that she is a Rosborough hull, renowned for its strength. In which case we are grateful to Skipper for finding Chopper I for us in the first place. We are also grateful that our neighbours Skipper and Jim both came racing over in their skiffs to Greg's rescue, and that our neighbour Robin helped later that night-- in darkness and continued strong winds -- when the tide was high enough for Chopper to get towed over to Skipper's dock.
Greg added three cups of blueberries to the first batch of applesauce.
This applesauce maker is a brilliant invention, as you can see.
Jars of blueberry applesauce.
Unadorned applesauce, incredibly good. Also, apple butter is in the crockpot ...
...then there's this apple tart with apricot glaze.
The hens thought maybe we would invite them in for applesauce.
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