Sky Timelapse with Solar Production

I thought it was interesting to see the weather timelapse with the same day's graph of solar production. Brianna told me to post it:

Time Lapses are Cool

From our new BloomSky personal weather station:

Bloomsky Weather Station

BloomSky is a weather forecasting startup that debuted on Kickstarter in 2014. Their shtick is "hyper local" weather forecasting, using a multitude of small, personal-size weather stations, rather than big expensive Doppler radars.

The weather station records temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, UV exposure, and precipitation, as well as taking photos of the sky at 5-minute intervals. The photos are combined into a timelapse at the end of the day.

In order to expand their network outside of San Francisco, BloomSky is offered free weather stations to people willing to host and provide internet access to the weather station. I signed up, and received mine yesterday (I paid $20 to cover shipping).

Per the agreement I signed, I have to keep the weather station working and publicly available on BloomSky's network for 6 months after delivery, and then it's mine free and clear.

I set up a guest wifi network just for the weather station. The included solar panel means I have a lot of flexibility on where I install the weather station, but I may wind up just running power to it for reliability.

I'll do a more permanent install this weekend. The goal is to keep it where it can't be seen from the sidewalk to avoid any potential hassles with the HOA.

And that's the view from the app! Once the weather station is permanently installed, the deck railing should no longer be visible, and I'm hoping we'll be able to see the soccer fields on the other side of the fence.

If you're interested in seeing what the weather is like at our house, here's the iPhone App and the Android App - we're the "Cherry Creek, Parker" weather station in Parker, Colorado!

Blizzard

We got a heck of a snow dump over night.

Hot Tub Cover is Working

The hot tub is 100 degrees Fahrenheit right now. Pretty pleased with the updated cover!

Consequences of all that Snow

The vast majority of the snow that fell last night has already melted. Cherry Creek is at the highest I've seen it, even putting a walkway bridge underwater. The photo above shows the beaver dam - I wouldn't mind if the dam got washed away.

Not quite sure what I've going to do with this branch. In the short term, I pulled it down and laid it alongside the fence. That neighbor is a little old lady who lives alone, so I'm not going to bother her about it.

I'll probably borrow my father-in-law's chainsaw again in a few weeks (or months) and make firewood out of the branch.

More Snow

Well, I feel pretty smart about being too lazy to procrastinating on wisely waiting to turn on the sprinkler system, de-winterize the swamp cooler and putting summer tires on my car.

Crazy Colorado: We're Well into Spring Now

Snow Storm

While it is nothing like what New England is getting, Denver got hit with a significant amount of snow this weekend. Brianna and I didn't have anything scheduled, so we pretty much just forted up inside our house - I'm pretty sure we only left to grab the mail and feed the freaking chickens.

That stupid little shelter I knocked together for the chickens' water tank is still doing its job admirably.

Got a pretty crazy snow formation on top of the vent for the range hood.

Link did not enjoy his first snow angel (Please don't call child services on us - he's fine (I swear)).

A Little Bit of Snow

Welp, we got some more snow last night:

Freaking Chickens

Freaking chickens needing a freaking water refill when it's freaking NEGATIVE SIX DEGREES outside.

At least the freaking shelter I knocked together last month is doing its job.

(freaking chickens)

More Things that Happen While Brian is at Work

It snowed last night. It looked very pretty in the morning, but I did not have time to shovel the driveway before I left for work (have I mentioned I love having a garage to park in?).

Turns out Brianna (AKA Superwoman) shoveled later this morning!

Also, she managed to take a picture of Link in full stretch:

Look at those skinny long legs!!!

Humidity

The outdoor thermometer says the temperature is one degree Fahrenheit this morning.

I forgot to adjust the whole-house humidifier (not the evaporative cooler) to account for the low outside temperature. As a result, the humidifier was set at 45% relative humidity, but the Nest Thermostat only measured 33% relative humidity.

The rest of the water was on the windows:

***Update, later that night***

Wow. The water dripped down the windows, hit the metal frame, and froze - sometimes trapping the window blinds in ice:

Winter is Coming

Today was the first actual snowfall of the year.

Sven and I insulated the attic nine days ago. I feel pretty good about the timing on that one.

Tammy the #@%&ing Tortoise

We set Tammy the tortoise out in the backyard yesterday to enjoy some sunshine before we head into the winter season. Despite Tammy being lost in the backyard twice before, I felt pretty confident: Tammy has been going to a favorite place in the backyard lately (by the woodshed), and I had an alarm on my phone to find her before sunset.

...

You know where this is going: she wasn't in her normal spot, and we couldn't find her.

After looking for an hour - raking through leaves, tramping through garden beds, digging through firewood - we called it a night. Tammy had survived nights out in the backyard before.

Today, unfortunately, was colder than forecast and entirely cloudy. Tammy wasn't likely to come out of her hiding spot if there was no sun to enjoy. At 2pm, temperatures started to fall again and the forecast called for overnight freezing, so I left work early to go home and find the #@%&ing tortoise.

I spent a good twenty minutes going over the yard again (with daylight this time) even going so far as to sweep up most of the leaves. No luck. With everywhere else explored, the only option left was that Tammy was somewhere under the deck that I couldn't see through the lattice.

Tammy was, of course, in the most difficult spot to get to: the corner of the foundation, highlighted with a flashlight in the photo above (I took the photo after Tammy was safely inside).

I nearly couldn't reach that corner - too little time spent at the gym during the last six months.

As I carried Tammy inside, flurries of itty-bitty snowflakes fell from the heavens, and I muttered to the tortoise "you're lucky Brianna loves you." Then I put her under her heat lamp to warm up.

Sprinkler System Winterized

Brian is away, so... it is time for me to hire out jobs. :-)

Brian and I were talking about having our sprinkler system blown down. He was on NextDoor (like a Facebook for neighbors with no videos) and one of our neighbors has been in the commercial lawn care business for 17+ years and was recommended by another neighbor. He was about the same price as the unknown flyer person, so I think a reasonable fee.  

He arrived on-time with his large compressor.  Look how pretty the leaves are... it feels like fall.

He got the compressor started, turned the water off.

And assembled a drain on the line when the vacuum is broken.  The bucket is to catch the water when it drains down the line.

Attached the air hose.

Then he started to blow out each zone.

Brian told me about an app called Hyperlapse.  It is for long timelapse videos... has some cool stabilization technology built in.  

This is one zone finishing and one complete zone cycle.   I think the original video was 4 minutes down to ~30seconds.   It is fun to play with the speed of these. 

Then he cleaned up. The process didn't take very long, 30 minutes from him pulling up to him cleaned up and leaving. 

I am very happy with how professional and quick he was. He also was very happy to talk me through all the ins and outs of sprinkler mainentence, compressors, how our sprinkler system compares to other residential and commercial ones. I liked him a lot. His name is Steve.  (Brian would you please find his # again...?)

Hail Damage to Car

Brianna's car was in the wrong place at the wrong time (the company parking lot, during work hours) yesterday, and got caught in a hail storm.

Here's what the parking lot looked like afterwards:

First Snow of the Season

It was really light snowfall (you can kinda see it against the grey fence on the left) but it was in fact snowing this morning.

I drained the water supply line to the evaporative cooler last night, after seeing it might dip down to freezing.

It's supposed to bounce back up to the 80s by next week, but I think I need to figure out how to winterize the house (and especially the sprinkler system) in the coming weeks and months.

Rain

It's been raining a lot lately.

This is the path I normally take when I walk during lunch. I took a different route today.

Thunderstorms

Lots of thunderstorms over the last couple of days. Yesterday we had hail the size of a quarter. Makes me glad we can park both cars in a garage!