brief update :: Ford TC33 tractor

1.21.2012 – Saturday

While my attempts to understand the electrochemistry of cold batteries are stalled until spring, when warmer temperatures will give me a true comparator, there is another mystery at the cabin: The Ford-New Holland TC33 compact tractor.

The sturdily built 33hp 3-cylinder diesel tractor suffers from one small defect… it doesn’t start. Well, sometimes it does. Sometimes it doesn’t. Less than ideal when it is relied upon for snow removal. While we love spending time at the cabin, we’d prefer not to get snowed in until the spring. The tractor has proved to be a valuable asset to our activities at the cabin, but lately the privilege of ownership has been less than pleasant. Recently some $1000 dollars was sunk into replacing a gear that engaged the PTO – it was never “properly adjusted from the manufacturer” and over time it was ground down into an impressive bit of malformed metal. Right now it resides on the workbench in the garage – I’ll have to snap a picture sometime. Oh, and this happened just a tad after the warranty was up. Nothing like paying extra money to fix something that was more or less broken on the day of purchase.

So that brings me to the issue at hand. The starter will not “go” when called upon to turn over the engine. The starter was replaced… twice, without fixing the problem. Fuses were inspected and one was cleaned up and replaced. Now a few relays are under investigation. It could just be one of the safety switches acting up – in order for the tractor to start you must, A) sit in the seat or have the brake engaged, B) have the PTO off, C) have the tractor in neutral. We’ll see… maybe.

When functional it’s a great tractor. For now it seems to be working alright. It’s all back together and fully functional – though it sounds like the Ol’ man managed to strip a bolt somewhere under the hood, in such a manner that it can’t be easily fixed, while in the process of attempting to check the relies/fuses.  I guess the bolt threads through some plastic and holds the lid on a fusebox or some-such.

Overall, things are well at the off grid cabin. My wife and I recently spent some time at the cabin and visited Marquette for a day. The Ol’ man and mother have been spending some time at the place, and it sounds like this winter might be the winter someone finally has a successful coyote hunt.

brief update :: musing on winter and batteries

12.22.2011 – Thursday

It seems that everything moves slower in the cold. It would appear that batteries are not exempt from this generalization. Recently I’ve observed that the battery capacity has diminished from the faceplate rating 1540Ah in summer to a meager 500Ah or so now that it is below freezing outside (the batteries are around 35-40°F). The reason for this drop in capacity has yet to be determined, but it would appear that the cold is responsible. I find it a bit surprising to see that much of a drop, but I suppose it is possible. It looks like I’ll have to wait until summer when temperatures get to around 70-80°F before I make progress on this topic. Once I get to the bottom of this I’ll write a post on it and cover the some of the more issues that I often get questioned on about the cabin. Until then, here is a link to a thread at NAWS  where I’ve been spending some time.

On the upside, I may have strengthened my argument for having an oversized battery bank relative to the size of the PV array since typical use is 150-250Ah a day. So much for a two day reserve however.

UPDATE (1/8/2012): I’m putting the Victron BMV 600s to good use this winter. By next winter I hope to know exactly how the batteries perform in the cold. Right now it appears that the batteries are indeed suffering a loss in capacity due to the cold, and are operating somewhere between 50-75% of the faceplate (80°F) Ah rating. I’m still collecting data in an effort to get to the bottom of this, but when it is around 32°F the batteries should still have 375-500Ah until 50% SOC (down from 770Ah at 80°F). For now I’m using Volts as a reference for when to recharge (the Victron measures to 0.01 V accuracy versus the 0.1V of the Xantrex control panel). Some time this summer I’ll share what I’ve been working on, including three really awesome battery capacity graphs and two charts (information sources will be included).

battery bank awareness

11.17.2011 – Thursday

My tale of trouble shooting an errant battery monitor readout. Is the PV charger bulk and float voltage set too low? Is the electrolyte not mixing under charge current? Is the battery monitor being tricked into thinking the batteries are fully charged when they are not? Are the batteries going bad after just 2 years?

…I’m up for the Michigan gun deer season and it seemed like a good time to check the health of the batteries. Here’s the data I have to work with:

• Last time to 100% SOC (source: battery monitor): 5 days ago
• At that time the MS3000 was charging in absorption mode
• Specific gravity readings from 3 cells (42°F): 1.180, 1.180, 1.180
• Temperature corrected SG readings: 1.165
• SOC (source: SG readings): 47% est.
• SOC (source: battery monitor): 83.7%
• Voltage (source: battery monitor): 11.78 V
• Load at above voltage: 250-300W

Here’s what stands out in my mind as odd: 11.8V, 83.7% SOC from battery monitor, 1.165 corrected SG.

• 11.8V @ 42°F should be ~ 65% SOC (according to past measurements)
• 83.7% SOC should be ~1.240 SG (temp. corrected), 12V
• 1.165 SG should be ~ 47% SOC

Hmm… something isn’t right here. Five possible explanations come to mind:

• I have acid stratification due from the low charge current from the solar (charge rate typically is <3% battery bank capacity)
• I entered the wrong charge efficiency factor (CEF) on the battery monitor
• The Voltage is not high enough on the PV charge controller, when the PV controller goes to float the battery monitor syncs to 100% SOC
• The batteries have less capacity than stated
• The battery monitor is being tricked into thinking the system is on float and syncs to 100% SOC when the system is actually at 70%, 80%… any value less than 100%.

Some tests to rule each out:

• Acid stratification/battery capacity: equalize and discharge batteries about 15-30% (normally 200-400A), test SG and see if it makes sense. If it makes sense then acid stratification was the problem. If not, we lost battery capacity.
• CEF is tricky. Drift from an overly optimistic CEF set point could account for the errant reading. In other words, if the battery monitor thinks it takes 105A to put 100A into the batteries when it actually requires 110A to put 100A into the batteries then slowly over time a stated 100% SOC will actually be 96%, 95%, 94%… decreasing with time/charge cycles. However, this can only occur if the batteries never return to full charge. The battery monitor syncs to 100% when a charge controller enters float.
• Charge controller voltage set too low: test battery SG when charge controller indicates full charge (after the batteries reach indicated full charge under PV power).
• Incorrectly syncing to 100%: record the time when the battery monitor reads 100% SOC. Then record each hour the charge current being put into the battery bank. From these data, estimate the total number of additional amps required to reach 100% SOC and calculate the percent SOC the battery monitor was off by. Hopefully it agrees with the SG reading.

The short term plan:

As a quick check of battery monitor accuracy, I’m going to have the ol’ man check a few things while I’m gone. Using some quick math; 50% of our battery bank at the 24h discharge rate should be 770A; or about 150A / 10% SOC. So… when taking winter temperatures into account, this comes to about 130A / 10% SOC (worst case scenario). This is a rough estimation; the should be capacity to 50% will vary under really light and especially under really heavy loads due to characteristics (internal resistance) inherent to all FLA batteries. The quick check will be based on past data recorded on 1-12-2011 which was as follows:

12.1V, 300W AC load, 85% SOC, 41°F battery temp.

11.9V, 300W AC load, 60% SOC, 36°F battery temp.

The long term plan:

I knocked down the charge efficiency factor (CEF) to 90%, down from 95% to [possibly] more accurately reflect internal battery losses during charging (102-110% charge current is required to charge a FLA to full). I also checked the C60 PV charge controller set points for bulk and float to make sure they match the MS3000. The C60 is set 14.5V bulk, 13.5V float, and has a temperature sensor to correct for the cold. Also, as a precaution I restored the factory default of 1.25 for the Peukert exponent (was 1.15).

The final change I made was to set Vc to 15.0V. This setting, along with It (Tail Current), is used to determine when the batteries are at full charge. In order for the Victron to assume the batteries are at full charge under my new settings the batteries have to have a current of less than 0.5% of the 1540Ah battery bank and the voltage needs to be above 15V. This should prevent the Victron from being fooled into thinking the batteries are fully charged on a cloudy day; on an overcast day the PV may only trickle charge at 13.3V at 5A – and just like that the Victron assumes the batteries are under a float charge and declares 100% SOC. But not any more. By changing the Vc to a voltage only attainable under equalization, I can guarantee that a false high SOC cannot happen. I can still end up with a false low SOC.

11.18.2011 – Friday

I made some progress. The Honda EU3000 generator has gotten a workout today and the system still isn’t back to 100% SOC. Based off of the charge current over time I can estimate that the system was about 400-500A below what the Victron stated. This is roughly a 25-35% difference. My SG reading gave an SOC 47% while the Victron claimed 83.7% SOC. This is close enough for me to rule out acid stratification and loss of battery capacity. With that figured out I can now focus on CEF and the PV charger set points. The plan now is to:

1. Equalize the batteries
2. The Victron will automatically reset to 100% SOC
3. Draw off 100-200A
4. Allow the PV panels to fully recharge the batteries
5. Observe and adjust either the CEF of the Victron battery monitor to match the charge efficiency of the batteries, or the bulk and float set points of the Xantrex C60 charge controller. Worst case scenario now is that the Victron will fall out of sync and drift downward to 98%, 97%, 95%… and so on when the system is fully charged. This is easily remedied by holding two buttons on the Victron to manually sync – an option preferable to thinking you’re at 85% SOC when you’re actually below 50%.

12V LED lights :: cabin install

10.15.2011 – Saturday

Before I make this out to sound like a simple install (it took about an hour), keep in mind that earlier this year four cables (ethernet x2 and trench log x2) were buried between the cabin and the garage. Along with burial, each line had to be run through the wall of both structures, and in the garage the wire had to be run up the wall and anchored in the attic. Also, since that time, the ol’ man installed two junction boxes, one at each end of the trench log.

I began by joining the 18 gauge interior 12V wire with the trench log in the cabin basement and then sending a loop of wire over to the main distribution panel. The loop of wire will eventually be cut and  a digital timer will be installed near the main AC distribution panel. The end of the 12V interior wire was then sent over and up into the half wall between the entrance way and the kitchen. The Sonicrafter made plunge cutting in a light switch almost too easy. The switch was mounted on the entrance way side of the half wall and is hidden in the coat rack.

Moving to the other side of the wall. Once the outline of the fixture back was traced on the wall I punched a hole with a cordless drill and then used a cordless skill saw to cut out a spot for the light. With the wire strung and switch installed the last step in the cabin was to wire the light in. I finished the mounting and wiring while the ol’ man cleaned up some saw dust.

With the cabin wiring complete I moved to the garage. In the attic I wired in another junction box and completed the circuit. I reinserted the 10A fuse that protects our 12V power lines and then headed for the cabin. The light was already on. Everything works.

A final parting shot of the entrance way showing the Xantrex control panel with the circular Victron BMV 600 battery monitor next to it, the new 12V light fixture in the kitchen, and the hidden 12V light switch in the coat rack.

battery checkup mid-2011

I’ve heard a lot of different things about when to equalize and when to add water. Currently I’m of the thought that equalization is only necessary if the specific gravity of each cell varies by 0.007 g/ml or more from the average and that watering is needed when the electrolyte falls below the “manufacturer specified level” – but never, never, never let the electrolyte fall below the level that exposes the battery plates to air or be prepared to suffer the consequences of capacity robbing chemical processes and shortened battery life.

Aside from checking the specific gravity of each cell I also added between 1200 and 1300 mL of deionized water to 14 batteries or 42 cells; about 30 ml/cell. This is the first watering since the batteries were purchased. At our current pattern of use (120-130 days use/year of 150-350 Ah per day) it seems prudent to measure S.G. and check battery water level twice a year. After all, this our first watering since the battery purchase almost exactly 2 years ago. Our 6V 220 Ah golf cart FLA batteries are labeled as being produced on 8/09.

*chart format updated 11/7/2012

A quick explanation of my chart:

1. Specific gravity is measured and recorded along with battery temperature
2. The spreadsheet then fingers out the measured average S.G.
3. The spreadsheet then figures out the temperature corrected S.G.
4. Below the measured values are the deviation from average of each cell (S.G. and temp)
5. The spreadsheet is also set up to highlight cells that may be getting too far from normal (brown)

And as far the chart goes – I really only care about the deviance from mean of the cells – the rest of the measurements are more or less trivial or simply fun to know. I could probably just stop at measuring the cells and forgoe all of my calculations. Perhaps as the batteries age and slowly lose capacity this will be reflected in my measurements and calculations. At some point, when the battery SOC drops below 70% I’d like to get a S.G. and compare the true battery SOC to the BMV 600s stated SOC. I attempted to compare my 7-31-11 readings this way but I had difficulty because the “full charge” state of batteries appears to vary or flux too much and my reading was taken too close to a full charge (96.3% SOC). For instance, I’ve found charts claiming the 100% charge is anywhere between 1.277 and 1.270 g/ml S.G. and I’ve measured it to a temperature corrected 1.280 g/ml.

battery monitor revelations

With the new found ability to accurately monitor the state of our battery bank, let’s take a look at how well the Xantrex Control Panel stacks up against the Victron BMV 600s. I could simply state the Victron is better, but I thought it would be best to run a simple test. I turned off the solar charger and other loads… OK, I forgot to turn of an LED light and the motion sensing LED spotlight in the garage so all my BMV 600s readings are in err by 0.5 A (higher than they would be if the lights were off).

A reading with the inverter simply “idling” with load sense off.

Now with a moderate load.

And finally with as much stuff turned on as I could find.

Ok fine: The Xantrex meter wasn’t all that far off after all… sort of. By taking a look at the Battery Status Amp value and comparing it against the BMV 600s value it appears that the Xantrex monitor thinks it is using about 3 more amps than it really is. This discrepancy could simply be because the BMV 600s is smarter and automatically recalibrates this parameter from time to time (I turned off all the loads in order to zero this setting (“I”) on the BMV-600s and it did it for me – I thought that was pretty cool).

But this is what doesn’t make any sense. Going off the Xantrex panel alone:

• under a heavy load: 11.7 V x 216 A = is 2527 DC Watts.
• under a moderate load: 12.4 V x 63 A = 781 DC Watts.
• under no load: 12.8 V x 7 = 90 DC Watts.

Either our inverter can magically make energy out of thin air and Xantrex has just solved the world’s energy crisis and is simply choosing only to apply this technology to their inverter line as some part of a conspiracy with the government and Big Coal, or the more likely scenario; the Watt readout on the Xantrex monitor isn’t good for beans.

From now on we will gauge battery bank status by Amps and Amp Hours. Never again will we look at the Inverter Output Watts readout.

Cabin :: tour #2

With a successful battery monitor and auxiliary lines install without any substantial set backs there was ample time to take a walk around the forty and enjoy the forest (despite the deer flies). The cabin porch however, is the place to be, thanks to it’s unexplained lack of bugs that eat human. A few theories for this phenomenon arise from either the pond creating an excellent spot for dragon fly maturation, the recent tree thinning allowing for good air movement in the under story, and/or a rebound in the bat population. But none-the-less, here is what I found when I ventured off of the porch… in my bug bitten wanderings about the land.

wild life :: coyotes and fawn

We went through the trail cameras tonight. There may be a few here or there about the land. The exact number and placement escapes me – as long as the ol’ man knows where they are. On one of them there happened to be an exciting event captured on the morning of July 17, 2011. In brief, two coyotes (there may have been more but only two appear in the pictures) manage to take down a young fawn.

battery monitor installation

7.28.2011-Thursday

Dad and I arrived at the cabin around 4:30 p.m. Don’t think us lazy or slow to get going, we were walking around the EAA grounds in Oshkosh, WI at 7:30 a.m. this morning. And for the aviation geeks out there, we got to tour the cockpit and rear fuselage of the only airworthy B-29 Super Fortress left in the world. Exhibits opened at 9 a.m. and we were in line a few minutes before nine. The second group to tour the plane, that was me and the ol’ man. So, after waking up a little past 5 a.m. and spending 4-1/2 hours on the road we arrived at the cabin. 4:30 p.m.

On the way in to the cabin, on the back roads, I saw this spider from the cab of the truck and we had to snap a picture before moving on. I got lucky and caught a stunning high resolution image of this big girl. She has a beautiful web with a single long strand going up to a half curled leaf with a fly spun up for a late night meal.

All right, enough – on to the battery monitor installation. The gist of it is this: a Victron BMV 600s battery monitor is being installed in the cabin and linked via ethernet to a shunt (with onboard computer chip) that is to be placed on the negative main line in the garage. In order to link the monitor and the shunt a trench is being put in between cabin and garage. We will be placing two ethernet lines and two electrical lines so we can add 12V lights to the cabin in the future. The second ethernet is for redundancy – to ensure that this is the last trench we dig between the two structures. I have a wild idea for one of the 12V lines, that may gain support from the ol’ man, to hang a railroad lantern or boat lantern (something with colored glass –  a combination of blue, green, red, etc…) and put a 12V LED bulb in it to make the most epic nightlight ever. DC means no inverter between bulb and battery, thus a super high efficiency illuminated novelty.

The first order of business was to install all the hardware that we could before tomorrow morning. Why the deadline? Because tomorrow we have reserved a trencher from the local hardware store (local means a 45 minute drive). I went to work right away on installing the shunt. Originally I figured it would be a simple matter. I would simply bolt one end of the shunt to the bar, shim it a little so I could secure it to the wall, and then attach the main lines to the other end. Hmm… It never works out that way. First off, there is no room to bolt directly. Secondly the bolts are not long enough to make it through my double copper bus bar. In hindsight, I really didn’t need to stack two copper bars to make a single functioning bus bar. In order to form a bridge between shunt and main negative lines I had to dig into the off grid parts drawer. In the drawer are remnants of other installations: spare wires, swedge tool, latex gloves, dielectric grease, spare muffin fans, and… ah ha! some spare copper lugs. And there was the answer, some old 4/0 heavy copper lugs. I hammered one flat and drilled out a second hole. After making a shim out of a thin scrap of wood, I was ready to install the shunt.

 

Soon I was able to test the monitor. Everything was now up and running. Proof of concept.

Next there was some less glamorous, and less photo worthy work to be done. Two ethernet lines were run up the wall, through the garage attic, then down the wall again. Why the madness? We have buried gas and electric lines already in place that we cannot cross, so we have to get the lines over to a place where we can run them out the garage wall and then run underground to the cabin without the risk of crossing other buried lines. Two 14-3 trench log cables were also run down from the attic through the wall to be buried between buildings. At a future date a junction box will be installed in the attic and the 14-3 trench log wire will be wired in to provide a 12V power supply to the cabin.

As the night was coming to an end I decided to plug in a short cat5e cable to the double ethernet outlet I just wired in to the wall. I had already inspected all of the components for the install earlier – about a week ago. But of course, I missed something. And at 6:40 p.m. tonight I had to figure out how to get an 8-pin ethernet cable to work with a 6-pin connector.

7.29.2011-Friday

We picked up the trencher, a gas powered walk behind with a four foot bar and a set of rubber V-tracks, at 7:45 a.m. from the hardware store. While the ol’ man took care of the renting part I wandered back to the telephone and electrical department. Four dollars later I had 10 nice new 6-pin connectors in hand. After a bit of getting used to, the trencher worked wonderfully. The first 15 or so feet from the garage was a beast. I couldn’t trench more than a few inches before having to raise the bar our of the ground so a rock could be manually removed. After a while it was determined that the easiest thing to to do was to let the trencher chew on a rock for a while in the hopes of loosening it for removal. While the ol’ man worked a large rock loose, I turned around and started to trench from the cabin with the intention of meeting  in the middle. For some reason I cruised through half the distance in a few minutes and only managed to hit 3 or 4 rocks. Not too bad. In the beginning it looked like this might take 2 hours, but we finished in just 45 minutes. On the clock, we loaded up the trencher and hauled it back to avoid paying a “full day” rental fee instead of our intended “half day”.

The project went very smoothly. It was easy to convert an 8 pin ethernet cable down to 6 pin with the right tools. During planning, one option originally considered was to buy ethernet cables to length and do the install. However, we eventually went with the buy-bulk-cut-to-length approach because that means I get to buy a new tool (and it was cheaper). I received my official ethernet cable training via a quick internet search that sent me to a video tutorial at CableSupply.com on how to assemble ethernet cables.

Here is a custom cable: 8 pin to 6 pin.

The complete project inventory for battery monitor has been uploaded and the I’ve also updated two previous posts to reflect the current set up: off-grid system :: diagrams and off-grid system :: overview. The total project ran a little over $400, but of that $95 was to rent a trencher and $67 was for two runs of wire not related to the battery monitor. The monitor only cost $158.10 shipped and included everything needed for the install (providing it is mounted within 25 feet of the batteries). The components needed to install the monitor in the cabin, in other words, the cost to run a wire from the garage to the cabin: roughly $160.

Programming the Victron BMV 600s – once I had finished the install, I read through the operation manual. I programmed the following settings:

• Charge Efficiency Factor (CEF): 95% (How much energy gets from the charger to the battery, losses are commonly due to internal resistance from the battery or wire losses – this will be automatically calibrated by the monitor so what I entered is more or less a starting point)
• Tail Current (It): 0.5% which is 7.7 Amps (I used this instead of the recommended 4% by watching how many amps the MS3000 charge controller puts into the batteries while on “float” – this setting needs to be greater than the minimum current at which the charger maintains the battery, or stops charging).
• Synchronizing: I waited until batteries were on float from the solar panels (< 1 A current from charger) and then held down the “+” and “-” button for 3 seconds to zero the monitor at full charge. After doing this I realized that this doesn’t really do anything – the meter automatically synchronizes every time the batteries reach full charge.
• ZERO: this was set when all loads were removed from the system in order to calibrate the meter (teaches the meter what zero current looks like).
• Battery Capacity* (Cb): 1540 Ah
• Charged Voltage* (Vc): 13.3 V (float is just under 13.5 V)
• Charge Detection Time* (Tcd): 4 min (after 4 min above Vc programmed value AND below Tail Current batteries are considered “charged” – this is important because the monitor resynchronizes automatically each time the batteries are fully charged)
• Peukert’s exponent*: 1.15 (this is a calculated value that describes how, when a battery is discharged faster, its Ah capacity decreases. From the Victron manual, “The higher the Peukert exponent the faster the battery size shrinks with increasing discharge rate”).

*Vc, Cb, Tcd, It, and Peukert’s exponent had to be set manually, all other parameters can automatically adjust over time. There are many more parameters that can be manually set, but I have determined these five to be the most important for our particular set up.

Overall, I found the Victron BMV 600s manual very informative. That said, I’m going to shamelessly copy from it as I go over the features that make this battery monitor the new killer app for the cabin.

3.1 Monitoring menu

In normal operating mode the BMV-600 can display the values of selected important parameters of your DC system. Use the + and – selection keys to select the desired parameter.

V

Battery voltage: this readout is useful to make a rough estimation of the battery’s state-of-charge. A 12 V battery is considered empty when it cannot maintain a voltage of 10.5 V under load conditions. Excessive voltage drops for a charged battery when under heavy load can also indicate that the battery capacity is insufficient.

I

Current: this represents the actual current flowing in to or out of the battery. A discharge current is indicated as a negative value (current flowing out of the battery). If for example a DC to AC inverter draws 5 A from the battery, it will be displayed as –5.0 A.

CE

Consumed Energy: this displays the amount of Ah consumed from the battery. A fully charged battery sets this readout to 0.0 Ah (synchronized system). If a current of 12 A is drawn from the battery for a period of 3hours, this readout will show –36.0 Ah.

SOC

State-of-charge: this is the best way to monitor the actual state of the battery. This readout represents the current amount of energy left in the battery. A fully charged battery will be indicated by a value of 100.0%. A fully discharged battery will be indicated by a value of 0.0%.

TTG

Time-to-go: this is an estimation of how long the battery can support the present load; until it needs recharging.

And when we were all finished I almost forgot about the 12V LED lights! The way this monitor works is by acting as a gate keeper to all ins and outs to the batteries. The LED lights were wired to the bus bar. Since I want this monitor to be as accurate as possible I did a quick rewiring so that one end of the shunt is connected to the negative bus bar and the other is connected to the negative ends of the 12V LED light power line, MS3000 main line, and C60 solar charger line.

7.30.2011-Saturday

So… last night I was zeroing the meter so when it displays 0 V or 0 A it is accurate. Unfortunately I manually synchronized instead. I did this when the batteries were around 87% SOC so now the meter read 100% SOC instead of the actual 87% SOC. So it wasn’t until later today when the sun fully charged the batteries that the meter was once again synchronized – this time automatically.

The Victron BMV 600s does exactly what I want it to do. I would however like it to display how many DC watts are being used or put into the battery bank. I’m most familiar with the units of Watts so I was a little disappointed not to see this on the monitor (though to be fair, I was aware of this at the time of purchase). As for the daily operation of the battery meter: I like to leave the monitor on “SOC” and see how much is left in the batteries at a glance. Then when running appliances overnight I look at the “TTG” and see how long the system can run under the current load (will we make it till morning?). When the solar panels are producing energy it is nice to glance at the “I” (current / Amps) and determine if there is an excess in energy that the batteries can’t take that we could use in the cabin. As the meter gets more use we’ll get a better sense of how accurate it is. As of now, it looks like the meter is going to be the most useful addition to our system yet.

Cabin :: high water

5.1.2011 – Sunday

Dad and I arrived around noon on Friday and stayed through mid-morning Sunday. The weekend trip didn’t have any ambitious goals or projects in the works. Some tractor work was done, mostly trail improvement or minor adjustments here or there to uneven ground to provide access to groups of maple trees that we plan to tap in the upcoming years. And of coarse I had my camera gear with.

Upon our arrival to the cabin (I should say my arrival, the ol’ man lives up here for 1/3 of the total days in a year) the first thing noticed was olfactory: the leek is out in force. Some of the maple ridges in the area are completely covered with leek, which smells strongly of onion. As a caution, it can be used in soup, and local wisdom states that the taste and olfactory side effects may be noted by you or your significant other for up to three days.

Also spreading green throughout the forest are numerous species of mosses.

Since I was looking into insurance (getting married and moving to a new town can really play merry hob with this), I asked the ol’ man if our panels were insured – cause, ya know, a tree could fall on them or something like that. Sure enough, we pull into the drive and find a wind-felled maple. The top fifteen feet could have easily reached the panels. Good thing it missed. I can only imagine my dad trying to explain to the insurance company that our panels got mauled by a tree less than a week after buying a policy to cover them. Nonetheless, we feel a bit better knowing our panels are covered.

Dad spent a good part of Friday raking the lawn. One perk of living in the woods is that you can simply rake the leaves until you’re no longer standing on the lawn. No need to make piles or transport them somewhere else.

This four wheeler trail sneaks off the corner of our driveway and connects to the old clearing where the old cabin used to stand. Taking a right at the brush pile leads to “The Slope” – a formidable barrier to all things with wheels (at least on the way up; and especially in winter and spring).

The slope received considerable attention this weekend. Making use of the 33HP Ford and the correct application of loader and back blade, the gully that used to make up the trail was coaxed into a somewhat level roadway. I also worked hard to widen the trail, and achieve a grade that would encourage the water to run down the side of the trail instead of down the center. Not sure how well I achieved the latter. I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see.

Frost. It’s still here.

In the shadow of the hill, insulated by some spruce and balsam trees, there is a basin of frozen earth on top of which water has collected to form a thick, viscous, layer of clay. At the bottom of the slope, more specifically, the bottom of the “second step” as well call it, a pseudo-sink hole has formed. Dad and I often refer to the slope trail as being divided into two steps. The bottom step has long been the most difficult to ascend, partly due to traction and partly due to the grade. Between the steps there is a 20 foot or so portion of trail that is level (at least by our standards). The level section between the steps serves as a place to gain momentum (slam down the throttle, lean forward, and think tractive thoughts). As you can imagine, the degree of tractive thoughts needed to ascend with a trailer vary widely from season to season. It’s not uncommon to call on the aid of a second four wheeler and a tow strap to complete the ascent (which works better when the ol’ man remembers to put his four wheeler into four wheel drive). Back to the pseudo-sink hole: In my effort to decrease the severity of the slope of the first step I cut into the top of the first step with the loader and pushed the excess earth down to the bottom of the slope. Moving soft clay on top of already soft clay, while it seamed attractive at the time, made it impossible to ascend the hill with the tractor. A foot or more of clay is not an impassable obstacle for a four wheel drive compact tractor, but when that clay is on top of a layer of frost reinforced clay there is effectively zero traction. The treads, designed to be self cleaning of mud and dirt, guarantee that the tires will excavate enough clay to get down to the frost. After a day to dry I was able to fix up the top step very well and widen the bottom step. As the picture below shows, the built up clay at the bottom of the second step alleviated the deep gully with an impassible clay sink hole. It looks smooth and shiny as a result of a last ditch effort to repair my ruts by back smoothing with the bucket.

And a quick note: hills and uneven terrain can be extremely dangerous and it is important to consider the surroundings and familiarity with the power equipment. I had at my disposal low range, a seat belt, ROPS bar, rear differential lock, and plenty of practice making previously functional trails impassable.

I made a few wide field of view images of and around the pond. Each of these panoramas is composed of 2 or 3 separate images. For reference, the pond is typically about 60×90 feet. With the water 24 to 36 inches above the usual water line, the pond has grown roughly 15 feet in all directions.

To the left of the balsam is un-thinned forest. The right has been managed.

With high water, sunny skies, and the shadow of winter retreating, the animals are returning. The first hint that the forest was beginning to rewaken was evident upon arrival. I thought I could faintly detect tree frogs calling. A little later I found a shallow wetland on State land to the Southwest of the old cabin clearing.

The frogs were too far into the marsh for hiking boots. When night fell, the chorus was enough to make quick work of the cabin windows and dominate all other ambient noises. Now they were much closer to the cabin. The high waters of the pond had attracted dozens of Spring Peepers (Hyla crucifer) to descend from the trees and shrubs to take refuge in its grassy banks.

I travel prepared for my hobbies. I had my Canon XSi 12.2MP camera with a 12mm Kenko extension tube mounted between a 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 image stabilized lens and the camera body. I also had a 130 lumen LED Princeton Tec Apex headlamp and a 500 lumen LED Sunwayman handheld flashlight at the ready. While the headlamp was helpful, the handheld flashlight really got the task done; allowing me to throw light from the side to enhance the textures of skin and control reflections. I found two spotted salamanders (Ambystoma maculatum) and photographed one of them.

Macro photography was not the only game in town (or woods). In the forest, and on the water, there were plenty of larger and more wary animals. There are of coarse several species of duck and a handful of geese on the flowage. This lone loon really caught my eye, and had me scrambling to get out of the truck. Once I had overcome the impediment of automatic door locks I was able to get a few decent pictures of our rare guest.

White tail deer are also a common sight. Just off of the gravel roads near the cabin, these fellas were reluctant to give up a spot in the forest where some food was to be found. Eventually they would notice me noticing them and trot off until they felt hidden and unnoticed again. Here is one noticing me noticing her.