Bobbi's Hudson Family Updates

It's a blustery Sunday and we're enjoying the heat from our new wood stove. Like our solar panels, there's a 30% tax credit on energy efficient home heating items, so we decided to finally replace our ancient, drafty wood stove. We bought the same Blaze King again and the model is nearly the same after 35 years! I guess it must be tried and true. Dave is out stacking our last load of wood, delivered by a friend yesterday. The kids wanted to help, but the wind and rain got the best of them. They're troopers, but the nice warm house is more inviting today. Winter is definitely here.

We are SO excited to have our new 11 kW solar system! The install was complete a few weeks ago, but we finally have our new digital Puget Sound Energy meter and we're able to feed electricity back onto the grid!

 

Our 54 panel array was installed by Sunergy Systems of Seattle. They did the work from start to finish (no sub-contractors and they handled all the permits and electric company interactions.) We are extremely pleased with the outcome and look forward to producing close to 100% of our power usage from our system.

 

It wasn't cheap, but the 30% tax credit helps (can be carried over for 3 years) and the buy-back from our electric company, since we're plugged back into the grid, will further offset the cost. Our winter electricity usage will outpace our production, but summer should yield a check from the electric company every month! If you'd like more details, don't hesitate to ask us. Check out the photos to view the whole PV system.

It rained a ton today, but that didn't stop us from heading to the Skokomish River area to go mushroom hunting. Unfortunately we didn't find many, but enough for dinner tonight. It was WET, but we were happy to see a few die-hards camping on the Forest Service land. We plan to head back in a couple weeks in hopes of finding more mushrooms at our favorite spot. It looks like we were just too early. Check out the photos in the camping with Trish & mushrooming album for what we did find.

 

It feels like fall & the produce is definitely at it's peek. We're up to our eyeballs in just about everything. Yesterday I made a ton of spaghetti sauce and baked bread. It took pretty much all day, but I know we'll enjoy the fruits of my labor for many weeks to come. (I froze 18 cups of sauce & 5 loafs of bread.) It is a lot of work, but I enjoy being able to put good food on the table, & luckily the kids enjoy it too. And at the end of the day, after Dave put the kids to bed, I was able to finally finish The World is Flat a verbose, but pretty amazing book. Tomorrow I need to tackle the sauce apples. The Asian pears will have to wait until next weekend. The Italian prunes and Bartlett pears will be close behind, and by then the tomatoes will require major attention again. Salsa anyone?

We've been getting out on the water a lot, and even did some "boat camping" to Jarrell Cove State Park on Harstine Island last weekend. The kids loved camping, of course, and we spent both days fishing (unsuccessfully) from the boat. I even got in some kayaking with friends while Dave and another friend took the kids fishing. The whole business of reaching our camping destination by boat was so easy. We had a great time and can't wait to do it again.

 

The day after we returned Hazel said she felt like her body was "going up and down." Clearly she's getting her sea legs. Today we hit the water again and Hazel was really into fishing, for a while. Maybe if we actually caught something we could eat. :-) Rowan just loves the boat and wants "more boat" all the time. His favorite part is helping to drive and, when Dave isn't driving, constantly flipping all the knobs and switches and pulling out the key. We really have to keep a close watch when he's behind the wheel of anything these days!

It's been forever since I've updated the blog. SOOO much has happened & time at the computer has been very limited. But a long story short- we're all well & the kids of course continue to grow beyond belief. I've added some photos & will continue to add more to try to give you all "the best of the best". I'll also try my best to not get so behind again!