September 2025: The Solar Finale and the Season's Last Payday
Labor Day and the Big Solar Order
September 1 - Labor Day and the Big Solar Order:
Labor Day. Put in an exhaust fan for Bryan. We as a family celebrated the day with visiting, poppers, wings, and hanging out. Weather was beautiful today, and one of the calmer days that we've had, which was wonderful - to not have all that wind. Cindy and I also got the order placed for the additional solar that we are going to put on the trailer, as well as ordering up a 600-amp power battery.
September 2 - iMovie Homework and Roof Recon:
So I spent a good portion of the morning today watching Udemy videos, which I had purchased, on how to make use of iMovie on the Apple computer. Unfortunately, Cindy had an upset tummy, from the poppers we presume from yesterday. It looks like she will probably not want to eat those in the future, as they obviously don't agree with her stomach. I also jumped up on the roof today and figured out what items I need to purchase, as far as unistrut, hardware, and such for mounting the new solar panels on the roof, as well as what layout it will take to make them fit. I spent part of the afternoon also working on the current video that I am putting together, which is clear back into February 2024. I still have a slug of them to put together, as well as making sure to get our website pages caught up. I will need to make a more concerted effort to stay on top of that which I am putting together for remembering our travels. We will also need to do some more homework for when we leave the park here, so that we know where we are going to set up the trailer as we travel through Nevada on our way back to Arizona. By evening time, Cindy had gotten her stomach straightened out, and hopefully her day will be much better tomorrow.
Workdays and Parts on the Way
September 3 - Workday One: The 1938 Truck:
Work day number one for us. No watering today, as Ed watered yesterday. Ed and I did some more work on his 1938 truck, to create a substitute golf cart.
September 4 - Workday Two, Parts Arriving:
Work day number two for Cindy and myself. Not much to do today with the rain. We only had three rigs come in today. Helped Bryan get his new furniture put in his trailer. We are now getting more of the parts for our solar build showing up, so will hopefully be able to start putting things together for the ground array, plus 800 additional watts on the roof.
September 5 - Ground Array Wired:
With the weather clearing up this morning, I was able to wire in the ground array plug, plus rewire the four panel connections. Also got the charge controller for the roof array mounted, plus its wiring, with disconnect on the battery side, wired in. Due to the rainy evening, we stayed home instead of going over to Rick's car show. We were surprised to see that not only did our new 600-amp battery show up today, but also the four panels that we are putting up on the roof. Actually quite amazing how quickly these items arrived.
Rick's Car Show and Cedar City
September 6 - Rick's Car Show and Cindy's Winning Streak:
Today was a nice sunny day. We messed around the house for a little bit this morning before heading over to Rick's car show for the day. It was good to see Rick and Linda. Linda looks great since her kidney replacement, and Rick looked amazingly rested compared to the last time we had seen him. They had a large number of vehicles show up for the car show here in Panguitch. I do believe Rick said that there were a total of 88 entries. Cindy had her usual winning streak continue with the drawings. She managed to win a car wash up to the jail, as well as a carton of sweet nuts and an offset Traeger smoker. Well, we obviously can't carry that large of a smoker with us, so we passed that on to Rick and Linda, as well as the car wash. After the car show, we met up with Rick and the other participants from the car show that went to the Smokehouse. After dinner, we came back to the park and got together with Rick and Danielle, plus Bryan and Elizabeth, and played Yahtzee in the clubhouse till bedtime. After getting back to the house from game-playing, I put together my list of items that I still need to purchase for the solar install, as we plan to run over to Cedar City to purchase them tomorrow.
September 7 - Cedar City Run:
Made a quick trip to Cedar City and did grocery shopping, plus picked up the rest of the materials that we need to wrap up the solar on the trailer. Upon getting back, we watched some TV, plus went over to Bryan and Elizabeth's and visited.
The Solar Finale
September 8 - Unistrut on the Roof:
Spent the better part of the day putting down the unistrut on the roof, in preparation of mounting the solar panels. I also got all of the panels out of their boxes and put the mounting brackets on them.
September 9 - Panels Up:
Ed brought the sky track up and lifted the panels up to the roof for us. I got the panels mounted on top. Cindy and Bryan helped me to get the wiring fished down for connection to the batteries. I wrapped up connecting all wiring on the roof, plus all the wiring in the front wiring cabinet. Also helped Bryan get the cover on the roof of his trailer, over the new fan we installed.
September 10 - Workday One: Closing Preparations:
Put all the solar panel boxes in the dumpster to start off the day. With it being our first work day for this week, I pulled the front flower pots and took them out back, dumped them, and then put the pots behind the clubhouse. Ed and I attempted to find the ongoing leak on the van's cooling system but were unable to find anything. We also moved the concrete cisterns down below, in preparation to close the park down at the end of the season. Made cables to put across the roadway of the lower area for closing the entry over the winter.
September 11 - The 600Ah Battery Goes In:
Not much happened work-wise today. Ed and I moved stuff from the garage that is no longer required over to storage, and brought salt back for the softeners and topped them off. Ed helped me set the 600ah battery into the front of the trailer, and with things being slow, I spent the last part of the afternoon hooking it up. Today was another very windy day, making it unpleasant to be outside. Watched TV this evening, starting off with the NFL Thursday Night game, which was a terrible game, so we switched over to watching a movie until it was bedtime.
September 12 - First Light: 5kWh and Climbing:
This morning I started the day off by setting up the charge controllers so that they are able to charge all the batteries. The solar array, including the ground array, produced over 5kWh through the day. It brought the 600ah battery up from 34% to 88%, and the rest of the batteries from 40% to 100%. Overall, I am happy with how the whole system is working. We sat out this evening with Rick and Danielle visiting before bed. Chilly enough this evening that we were able to run the propane fire ring. Ed and Bryan continued work on the pickup. The afternoon was windy again, but not quite as bad as yesterday was.
September 13 - Three Days of Cloud:
The overnight power usage with the large battery as part of the battery bank did well. Based on consumption overnight, we would be able to get three days out of it if we are conservative when cloudy weather is present.
Smoked Chickens and a Generous Payday
September 14 - Smoked Chickens and a Generous Payday:
Being Sunday, the final get-together for all of us staff members was today. Beth had me smoke two whole chickens for dinner. Not having had very good luck getting chicken skin to turn out, I spent a good part of this morning watching videos to get a better idea of how to slow cook for the smoke and still keep the chicken moist and have the skin come out crispy. Was able to get them done in time, and they actually turned out, proving that doing one's homework pays off. It was a good dinner, and Ed and Beth gave all of us $750 per person as a thank you for the help this year. It was an extremely generous gift, with all that they did for all of us throughout the season. After dinner, we came home and watched the late-night football game, and then off to bed.
Winding Down the Season
September 15 - Tying Down the Batteries:
Still had a few items to wrap up on the solar install, so I spent a little bit of today getting the wires on the roof taped down. Also, I was able to get the batteries tied down, so that I won't have to worry about them tipping over or sliding around inside the front bay. We enjoyed listening to some music throughout the day. The new Milwaukee speaker has great sound, making it enjoyable to listen to music again.
September 16 - Strike Management:
Cindy took advantage of the nice day today and got all the laundry done. I got the blinky lights taken down today and rolled up, plus the extension cord put away. I also was able to get all the leftover hardware from the solar build sorted out and put into my hardware totes. Still need to spend some time getting all the items sorted out and bagged that go in the front storage compartment. Other than that, I barbecued some burgers for lunch and watched a few YouTube videos, plus listened to some music.
September 17 - Ed and Beth Head South:
Ed and Beth headed out this morning for Quartzsite, to take their trailer down for the winter. Cindy and I are on for the next two days, so it shouldn't really be that big of a deal. I was able to get the weed whacking done down below and the upper dog park mowed, plus the bug spray applied to the apartments. All folks that were to leave today got out before 11 AM, and we had one of those extend for another day. Also needed to replace the poop bags in the upper dog park, which was taken care of. So as of 2:30 PM, we have had three drive-ins and one of the scheduled folks show up - just waiting on our last guest to arrive.
September 18-30 - No Entries: (No entries in the source for the rest of the month. September 18-30 left open for your notes if they turn up later.)