Apologies for the dearth of electronic communications this week. On top of all my other hand problems, I slammed my finger (left hand, thankfully) in a car door this week, making typing not so easy.

So the storm that many of you saw blow through California over the weekend hit us just as we had stripped our house almost bare to repaper and prepare for stucco. There were gale force winds that blew off some of the little remaining paper that we thought could be salvaged. The wind was so fierce one night that it kept us both up all night. I honestly thought a big piece of something might come through the window at any moment.

I had to work at schools Tues. and Wed., but by Thurs. we were ready to attack the house again. In two days, we got most of the paper back up and more than half stucco netting up. We should finish this weekend and hopefully be having a lath inspection next week. Yay!

Here’s an update from Brad on the solar stuff.

The first five columns to support the solar panels are poured. I need to put together a test in order to determine how far the back row needs to be from the front row so that we can properly adjust the angle of  the solar panels. Once this is done, we will pour the next five columns and install the first six solar panels.

Here is what a dried and peeled column looks like.

December 21^st is the solstice and the day I need to measure the shadows in order to properly position our two rows of solar panels. I just realized that I need to measure in the morning, afternoon and evening because the sun is making an arc to the south this time of year.