More owl

 As we were finishing dinner, the crows and blue jays started a major ruckus deep in the back yard. I figured it had to be a perched owl, so grabbed my camera and went to investigate. Sure enough, this beauty was trying to grab a few more hours of sleep. I think it's a juvenile barred owl. I heard it calling the night before.













Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

removing H2O, not just Rn?

Image
 We did a 3-month test which showed 204 Bequerel/cubic metre of radon in our basement. The threshold for leisurely mitigation is 200. Argh!  And apparently, when selling a house, you must disclose any information you have about radon. So we got a radon mitigation system installed.  Carefree Properties professional installation It depressurizes under the foundation slab, and blows the radon-laden air it collects out the side of the house. A possible  side effect is sub-slab humidity will also get blown out, and stop rising through cracks into our basement. 'Way too early to tell, but this data from the crawlspace humidity sensor is encouraging: The crawlspace humidity dropped slightly when the radon system started, but rose higher than the baseline earlier in the day after I turned off the crawlspace dehumidifier.  But it isn't still rising.  The dehumidifer costs about $250 per year to run, and our experience is the equipment breaks every 2-3 years. The fan...
Read more

Almost a PV catastrophe

Image
 We recently has PV solar panels installed on the roof.The day we turned them on was cloudy, and they produced almost nothing. 18 cents worth of electricity. The next day was very sunny and resulted in about 75% of their designed power production midday and about $6 worth of energy, which is very good for a short day in December.  Then we had two good sized snowstorms just before Christmas, and the resulting accumulation on the panels shut down production to almost nothing. Here's the week centred on Christmas Day.  So what happened on December 27th to restore production? Mid-morning, the sun and warmth was finally uncovering the panels from their snowy blanket. In the late morning after taking this picture, while I was checking the oil prior to our road trip, an angel came to me in a dream and suggested moving the car back from the house.  Just before 2:00PM, while doomscrolling on the couch,  I heard a loud rumble and felt the house shake a bit. Going outside,...
Read more

New birdNET case requires math

Image
  Instead of using an RPi3, I decided to stay with the RPi4 for birdNET, in anticipation of it also hosting a camera and media player for when there are people outside socializing.  Pi4's really need active cooling. This is an old CPU cooler fan running off 5 volts instead of the rated 12v. It is quite quiet as a result. I might raise that voltage. The CPU is reporting 50C, and previously I had it down to around 40-45C with the case open. Or maybe drill more holes to improve air flow through the case. The reducing shroud to fit the fan on the case is made from a yogurt container and my ghetto 3dprinter (aka hot glue gun) welded the three pieces together. Had to remember how to project a section of a cone onto 2D!
Read more