Snow (again)

Plenty of snow this morning - around 100mm.  Very dry.  About the same fell on the hill.

Pictures are in dropbox under feb 2013.

Largely gone by 2pm.

sharpened chainsaw

Well, more of a change the chain.  Chain too blunt to sharpen with a file.  
2 hours to strip and clean, changed air and petrol filter

1 year with (grid) electricity

With a year of 24/7 (grid) power, we have averaged 1.28kWh/day.  That's about a fifth of our usage the last time we were on grid (2009), and about 1/10 of the UK average.
Some of the saving is made through the use of solar panels, which offset the sun against our usage.  This saves about 109kWh per year, or would change our average to about 1.6kWh/day.

To put this into context, our leccy bill is about €128/year with panels and €141/year without the panels, so not really worth the bother.

The bulk of our savings have been achieved very easily.  We sold our 'designer' fridge and an upright freezer, and bought a very energy efficient fridge freezer.  Whilst our freezer space is around half what it was, it is used 100%.  The old freezer was never full, which means it ran even less efficiently.  

Whilst we don't freeze that much summer produce, it does become diminishing returns if you fill a freezer with low value produce.  And besides which, where do you put another freezer.  You can't put it in a garage as they need to be kept +10C to +35C.  And not in a bedroom as they are noisy.

Well, that's the mole sorted out then

Not sure which cat caught this little blighter, but it won't be giving us any more trouble.

That assumes that the mole hasn't been caught by Mardi sunbathing somewhere and brought it over for the kittens.  Fingers crossed it's the one in the veg beds.

Tortilla with a mole.  A good sized one too.  Small rat sized.  Much much bigger than a vole.

snow tyres

Fitted the snow tyres Continental (ContiWinterContact TS 850, €135 for 2) today on the front axle.   9mm tread.  Took the P6 (4.3mm NS, 4.4mm OS) swapped them left to right and put them on the rear.   On rear tyre is now the spare, and the other is in the garage.  (5mm ns >5mm os)
Seems the picasso eats the edges on rear tyres, and it's not adjustable.  The old rears have rounded shoulders.  Old fronts are pretty good.

Skis

It's that time of year I find the skis and wonder why I didn't clean them and wax them before I put them away.
So I've filled a rook of holes, removed all the burrs and rust and put a very  pretty layer of purple wax on them.  All we need now is snow...

A tidy garage ..

...is the sign of someone with too much free time.

Winter is rapidly approaching and early starts to go skiing mean I need to get the car in the garage.  The push bikes are the biggest pain, but a friend suggested hanging them by a wheel, which seems to work.  If I have oval wheels in spring, I'll be in trouble...