We had a very successful Thanksgiving.

Much to be grateful for…To have our kids together in one place is a rare event. Aside from us standing together at the bedside of our new granddaughter for 30 minutes this summer, we hadn’t been together as a unit since our family vacation in January..  The whole weekend was made perfect with the timing of our first family dinner in our new home and the first visit of our wee girl to the island…or as her mother will recall it..three days of trying to wrestle the baby out of my arms…sigh..I’m in love…

On to more off grid type topics…

With the successful installation of our new inverter and the optimum functioning of our upgraded utilities we have oodles of power. Admittedly oodles is not the correct term. For you who want the technical term, Yesterday on a fairly cloudy October day we brought in 4 KWH of power to the bank. The fridge needs 800 watts for a 24 hour period.. We felt confident to plug-in our new fridge.

Our sons helped E bring the fridge down to the house. To be accurate, ours sons carried the fridge down the driveway and E held on to a corner of it for moral support. The fridge is a unique product. Specifically this one  Solar fridge. It is huge.

Part of the reason for its size is the insulation required for an off grid 24 volt fridge. Also, the internal space is double that of our other fridge. Nothing wrong with our other fridge. But with this one, I will be able to fill it with a trip to Costco and never have to go to town again this winter, which is after all, my ultimate goal in life. We sold our other fridge to island friends who have been using coolers and ice blocks.

So we plugged it in. Our new fancy expensive fridge filled with turkey leftovers and beer. And nothing. Not a shiver, not a brrr, nothing. At midnight that night, E and the boys were humming and hawing and rewiring.. our turkey and beer were moved to our neighbours fridge for safe keeping.

The next morning, still not so much as a cool draft from our new expensive fridge. So we spent the rest of the weekend with our beer in a cooler on the porch while we searched the google on what could possibly be wrong.

E, an accountant by trade has had to learn propane gas and solar panel installation among countless other skills… in order for me to live here. (Happy wife, happy life) He hadn’t yet tackled refrigeration installation..Living here you have to figure things out for yourself and if you can’t and your friends can’t, you go back to your drawing board.. I never worry because it always comes to him eventually. My job, as I saw it was to stay out of the way and hold the baby.

E took most of our family back to the ferry today. Our daughter is staying on to read and generally take a much needed break from her job in the downtown east side.. When E got back from town he tried one more thing.. one last idea.. and brrrrrrr it started.. the fridge came alive.. it is happy and chugging along content with the knowledge it will be well loved and filled to the brim.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, nothing is

simple…. living here