Turbine #1

Yet another day of overcast skies. Spent the morning hiking out to my mini grand canyon to figure out the eventual path to freedom I hope to concoct. Pretty mushy down in the canyon but I found a spot to build a bridge to get across the mire. Hope to eventually create a minor road to bike or walk in order to get to the store 2.5 miles away when my road is washed out.

Finally got to work on my first wind turbine. Step 1 was to sand and give the parts a good coat of Krylon. Drilled and tapped a plate from a commercial set of blades to mount to the hub of one of my treadmill motors. I bought this set of six blades almost 2 years ago and it feels great to put them to work after all this time. Mounted the motor to the tail beam I had welded 2 months ago. Held the sucker up to the wind and it really took off ( watch you fingers! ). The blades and hub seem well balanced so tomorrow I will cut and install the tail, wire it up and give it a test run on one of my turbine mounts.

Light rain at 2:45PM for about an hour then partly cloudy with some SUN late in the afternoon... Bright skies most of the day even with the clouds - so my solar panels are keeping me charged up. Still a good chance of rain the next 3 days so I must take it as it comes. Kind of looking forward to at least another half inch of rain so I can watch my water tank overflow....Road still too mucky to drive out so will continue to search for a viable walk/bike path. I could really use a new block of ice tomorrow.