sunrise

We watched the sunrise toady, standing together, facing east.

But we were inside the boiler room, and looking at the digital display off of the solar array.

Outside the thermometer is down to -35, and the sky is clear.

The digits flip from volts to amps to Kws. The numbers keep on ticking up. 

We can picture the brightness trimming the horizon, and spilling over to illuminate the bluffs.  

The frozen crystalline world sparkles golden in the first light.

The numbers tick up faster and faster as the earth spins the sun into full view, 

the light activates the cells in the panels and they feed their charge into shared wires, 

that amalgamate at the combiner box and shunt the current through a tech cable across the yard, 

and into the house where 140V is changed to 60V to feed the battery bank.

 

 From the batteries, the power in inverted to 120 V for use around the house.

We can live the high life now:

we can surf the web, listen to music, light up our life, vacuum, 

even run power saws all off of the passive power of the sun. 

There are more than 5 hours of direct sunlight, during this time the batteries can take in more power than they would if we had our 2000 watt generator running for that whole time.

Warm light pours in through the windows. 

Still, we go out every day to get some actual solar rays on a narrow strip of exposed skin.