We had several days of meetings with the camp staff, tidying up a few loose ends, and planning the next steps-for this location and our next several jobs.
One really cool thing has been this beautiful full harvest moon at night. Once the moon clears the tree tops, it’s lit up like daylight and it’s simply magical out. It’s also the start of Elk mating season, so the early mornings and throughout the night, the empty camp-which we once again have to ourselves-has been echoing with the sounds of bull elk up on the ridge bugling and grunting.
If you’ve never heard the strange call of a bull elk trumpeting out in the still forest night, you’re missing an almost other-worldly experience.
Here’s a picture of the moon coming up through the trees. It’s so much better in person. 🤷♂️
One of the loose ends we had to tie up was removing a bunch of old lead acid batteries from one of the previously installed mini solar systems that was on site.
At ten years old, these batteries were pretty much toast.
As if messing with old nasty acid covered batteries wasn’t enough-rodents had gotten into the battery storage area, and did what rodents do best-destroy everything in sight, and urinate and defacate on everything as well. 👎
Having unfortunately delt with this too many times in the past, and knowing that the spaces rodents have taken over are a serious health hazard, we dressed up for the occasion.
Surprise! The glamorous life of off-grid solar installers isn’t actually so glamorous!😄😄
Here’s the old 48 volt battery setup being removed. These are Rolls flooded lead acid batteries-once the best option available for battery backup installations. Times have changed for sure!
It’s amazing how much damage the battery acid does to the concrete.
And the years of corrosive gasses take their toll on the surrounding building framing as well.
Now the camp staff will clean this room up, rebuild the inside and seal it off from the vermin, and it will become a nice storage room.