Monday Sep 22 we met Gerrit's son's wife's parents (got all that?) in Pontevedra, Spain, directly north from us about an hour. They are on a walking tour of part of the Camino de Santiago. Other than getting a little lost getting there we had a great time. It was fun to see them on the other side of the world here. It was also a mutual grandson's birthday that day, so we sent him a short video of four of his grandparents together in Spain.
Getting the broken solar panels replaced was like the Keystone Kops. They were supposed to be delivered Monday or Tuesday Sep 22 or 23, and true to form late on Tuesday we were told "sorry, maybe tomorrow or later this week". Gerrit blew his stack at that point and demanded that they be here on Wednesday. He was fed up with these months of stalling. They scrambled around, found two different substitute types and lit a fire under the delivery service to get one pair here on Wednesday. Our installer Nuno arrived early on Wednesday with the other type, so suddenly we were awash in panels and he was able to finish the installation. As of 5 PM on Wednesday we were soaking up 2.7 kilowatts from the sun, powering the entire house and pool on solar, the batteries were two-thirds charged, and our grid power consumption was zero. What a kick! We are about to get the phone app to see the real time data. Gerrit feels an obsession coming on.
Thursday Sep 25: it's been a full day now that we've had our new solar panels operating. Nuno was here adding the final touches and explaining the system to Gerrit. We now have the phone and laptop app which shows us every detail of the whole system in operation. We can monitor every imaginable parameter and watch real time graphs and power flow diagrams. Today was clear, end of September, and between 9:00 and noon the batteries went from fully discharged to fully charged while the panels powered the entire house and pool at the same time. We'll run exclusively on solar power until sunset, and the batteries will easily take us through the night. Fully off the grid! This won't always be true once the dark short days set in, but even then the solar will contribute and reduce our grid reliance.
Friday Sep 26 we celebrated our not being tied to the house and also getting the solar panels installed by taking a scenic drive. Our friend
Maayan told Pat about a beautiful drive in the country to the town of
Soajo along the
Lima river, and she was right. It is located in the
Peneda Gerês National Park. Here is the Lima River on the way there.
There is an excellent restaurant in Soajo called Videira which features cachena, the local variety of longhorn beef. It was fantastic, tender and flavorful, with the light pink color of pork when medium rare. And it's a good thing that a previous patron named Patrícia Pereira had more presence of mind than we did. Our lunch looked exactly like this, honest. Also pictured is some pre-steak on the hoof, and evidence of a local grammarian correcting the abbreviated town name on the entrance sign.
Soajo is famous for its granite granaries or espigueiros, used for drying corn since as early as 1782. Their elevated construction and mushroom-shaped leg baffles repel rodents, and thin slats in the granite walls provide air circulation.
There is also a beautiful stream with pools nearby, suitable for swimming if you bring your swimsuit (and can tolerate the cold). Listen to the soothing trickle in the video.
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These are apparently known as Naked Lady Lilies. Gerrit was disappointed.
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And a field of wild autumn crocuses.
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We found wandering bands of horses and sheep along the road. A large dog was tending to the sheep all by himself, and he didn't care for us slowing down to take a look. You can see his tail in the photo here as he chased us away.
And here's what you get when you buy a whole chicken at the supermarket. It is, well, a whole chicken. That pouch there contains fresh blood, there's a packet of innards, and the feet are stuffed into the body cavity. It's the best chicken we've ever had though: flavorful, tender, and delicious. We slow roast the whole thing (after removing the head, neck, and feet) at 150 C (300 F) for three hours. There's a supermarket spice packet we use called
segredos aves, or "secret birds" (we think that must mean "secret recipe for poultry"), which is really easy and good.
(As usual, you can click on any photo to enlarge it, scroll through them all, and click outside a photo when you're done. Also, you can click on the bold underlined phrases to play the audio.)
