Michael,

It’s almost time to crack that bottle of champagne against our solar garage, sing the Beetle’s Sunshine tune and toast the power of the sun!

A few months after Mrs rakkity & I moved to Colorado, we started thinking about installing solar panels. Might as well put that 385 days/year (or whatever it is) of sunshine to work, we thought.

Our house roof faces east and west, which is far from optimal, but our garage roof faces nearly directly south, which is perfect. So we got bids from 3 companies. One of them, Simple Solar Systems, came in with the best offer. The second best was less than 5% behind, and their arrangement of panels didn’t look optimum to me. The 3rd best told us we could only use 6 panels because of shadowing, but both of the other companies said 10 would work.

On November 23, I climbed a ladder up to the garage roof at 8 am and 9 am just to see how much shadowing there really was. I marked the outlines of the sunlit areas with masking tape and compared my picture of that area with Simple Solar’s drawing, and found that my 9am masking tape border matched their drawings perfectly. Company #2 had panels with the wrong orientation, and they’d have been shadowed a little at 9 am in winter, so we eliminated them. Company #3 was way off, way wrong, and would get no money from us, though I know other people who have gotten good panel systems from them.

After our HOA gave its (automatic) approval to the panel installation plan, Simple Solar ordered the PV panels from California. Finally in January, SS was ready to come install them. A snowstorm delayed them one day, but the next day at 8 am they were up on the garage hammering away, and were ready for the panels to arrive. Snowstorms in California delayed the panels a couple of days, but they arrived yesterday, and by late afternoon they were all installed. The electrical connections and control panels are all there, but they need one more day to get the Boulder inspector to permit them turn the system on.

I shot some pictures of the electrical meter running forward. Maybe next week I’ll be able to show some pictures of the meter running backwards!

–rakkity

Tricia Kibbe

I just returned from an incredible journey to Chartres, France. It was the first trip of my new tour company called Seeking the Sacred. I was privileged to be a part of an amazing circle of 17 women from around the US and Britain. My circle sisters and I spent 7 days experiencing the sights, sounds, tastes and mysteries of a beautiful medieval town and its Cathedral, which this year celebrated it’s 1000 year anniversary. Dana Reynolds who facilitated the circle gave us this poem for one of our meditations and I wanted to share it with all of you.

The Sacrament of Letting Go

Slowly
she celebrated the sacrament of
Letting Go…

First she surrendered her Green
then the Orange, Yellow, and Red.
Finally she let go of her Brown.
Shedding her last leaf
she stood empty and silent, stripped bare.
Leaning against the sky she began her vigil of trust.

Shedding her last leaf
she watched its journey to the ground.
She stood in silence
wearing the color of emptiness,
her branches wondering:
How do you give shade, with so much gone?

And then, the sacrament of waiting began
The sunrise and sunset watched with
tenderness, clothing her with silhouettes
they kept her hope alive.
They helped her understand that
her vulnerability
her dependence and need
her emptiness
her readiness to receive
were giving her a new kind of beauty.
Every morning and every evening
she stood in silence and celebrated
the sacrament of waiting.

poem from “Seasons of Your Heart”
Macrina Wiederkehr, OSB