The rain continues, and to keep everything powered we have to do what we have to. Running the generator is not ideal, but it is what we have to do right now. In the future we can build better systems.
Our solar generator, we use the Bluetti AC200Max:
A smaller version:
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Lea van der Eems
Apartado 001144
EC Zona Industrial Castelo Branco
6001 – 901 Castelo Branco
Portugal
Music: Epidemic Sound
New here? My name is Lea and I live with my partner Maarten, our toddler Puck and baby Bo on our land in Central Portugal. We left the rat race in the Netherlands in 2018 and moved south in our old campervan. Two years ago we bought land in Portugal that had been abandoned for several decades. After lots of hard work we now live in a beautiful yurt and keep ourselves busy growing our own vegetables as well as producing olive oil, wine and honey on a small scale. This channel documents all the different jobs we have to do, and sometimes some nice footage of this beautiful country we now call home.
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Chapters:
0:00 Rainy morning (again), what I’ve been reading
4:05 Running the generator
5:46 Rainy walk
13:37 Other options for our electric system
17:24 Firewood and laundry
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Can I ask if anyone is interested in giving a big goofy dog a good home? Area Castelo Branco, but I'm willing to bring it anywhere in Europe and even the UK (with the help of Malcata animal association). I walk him and another dog, but only once a day. If I have to leave, and I will have to at some point, then the dogs will once again be in a cage 24/7. This one is 1,5 years old, chipped, not sterilised yet, a few essential vaccinations, a real sweet, young, big idiot of a dog. Sorry to take this space in your comment section, Lea. If it bugs you, I will remove the comment, it's just that I'd love to see him go to a loving home.
Love the rain in portugal…Alot of water in the flood zone… you may need a Roman bridge over near the Well
After the dryness of the summer the rain has made it beautifully green all around.
so nice😇😇😇🌼
Dat het lezen van “ distopische” boeken niet te doen is nu herken ik !!! Met alles wat gaande is , dacht ik brave new world te herlezen ( las ik decenia geleden op mn achttiende) moest het na het eerste hoofdstuk al opgeven omdat ik me fysiek onwel voelde…echt maf…
Hi again! Here in central Spain we´ve had the same. Non stop rain. I haven´t used the generator so much since we moved in as on top of the rain there´s no wind, so our wind turbine just sits there. Yesterday we had a flash flood that washed away part of the access road we had gravelled a year ago. I know we need the rain but this is getting ridiculous! 😕😕
Is this amount of rain becoming more common in the colder months? Have you considered micro hydro power generation? Understanding this is a seasonal use. There are low head systems. You did address this. When you start construction on the house and have the digger fixed the water battery will probably be best solution.
I just finished reading “The Nightingale”, by Kirstin Hanna. If you like books about the French experience during WWII.
She has a wide range of themes in her 20 published novels.
I felt that since you speak English so well, you may want to do a web search for a second hand copy.
Happy reading!🧑🎄🇺🇸 Kathleen
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
by Richard Bach
I have to recommend "Buddenbrooks" by Thomas Mann. He prefers to write tragedy and "Buddenbrooks" is a masterpiece.
Hi Lea. Thanks for sharing your reading My current book is Woman Watching, Louise de Kiriline Lawrence and the Songbirds of Pimisi Bay. I'm not far into it, but I love the mix of author's experience, biography, and birds! I do so hope the rain lets up soon. Your yurt is lovely but it must feel so tiny when it rains for so long. I have a suggestion- can you dry clothes in the polytunnel? I dry clothes in our tiny greenhouse sometimes We are having such a wet summer here in Auckland, NZ, that my husband's favoured footwear on our walks are 'gumboots' .
👍
Thanks for mentioning the Dutch books! I enjoy your style. (Marijke in the U.S.)
Hi Lea, where I live the annual rainfall is 60 inches a year. No I don't like it. Reading is great as a form of escapism, nothing wrong with a bit of escapism, a great writer taking us to other places. Fantastic.
I find devices make our brains not want to read.
Here are two book titles that I think you may like. They are both 100 or so pages so a relatively quick read, but enjoyable: Burning Patience and Balzac, and the little Chinese seamstress..any books by Kim Thúy–Ru, Ma Hope you will get pleasure from these.
Everything is soooo green! Hey send some of that rain over to California!! Bo is beautiful. Great to hear you have time to read! Homestead looks great I would walk too!!
Je kunt bij de dumpstore (oei, dat zeg ik nu wel .. maar kom je nog wel eens in NL want anders moet je die in Portugal zoeken natuurlijk) prima 2e-hands legerbroeken kopen. Die zijn 3-laags gelamineerd en blijven hartstikke droog, juist ook als je door nat gras stiefelt. Kosten ook geen drol. Alleen hopen dat iemand iets in jouw maat heeft 'gedumpt' natuurlijk.
Running a generator is perfectly fine on some days, every off-gridder knows that :). On the longer term, one thing you might consider in for such bad weather is running a generator on sunflower oil or waste vegetable oil and using exhaust heat to heat an outside insulated storage hot water tank (by welding a pipe to the exhaust) for either hot water or home heating (or both). This way you get bot the heat and electricity when the weather is bad and don't have to deal with wood stove as much. And if you can make you own sunflower oil, you can be pretty much self-sufficient.
This walks are amazing but today no grapes 😂😂😂
You can put a clothes rack on a pulley to hang in roof area
Are your boots the brand HiTech? They're nice btw, I need to go hiking but its too cold most days…My clothes washer broke a while ago, so I started hand washing until i got my wringer washer , very nostalgic and fun but still a little laborious…As far as my books suggestions, "This Naked Mind" by Annie Grace , and " Atomic Habits" by James Clear. ..both very good and in the self improvement genre if you're interested 🤓✌️
17:08 3/10 for quality cat content.
You should be planting some fast growing firewood trees. It's also a passive cash crop for the future.
G.ad youare keeping active with the terrible weather. I miss tiny clothes!
It has been chaotic. So many people lost everything, some dead, with floods and water that rose in minutes and made walls get down, floods all over, cars gone in the floods, houses and a roman bridge came down, a national street in Alentejo, broke down, a huge hole appeared in a national road, here close, near Lisbon, a lower region, almost at sea level, it was catastrophic.and new alerts are coming each hour. Experts say we will have a cold rainy winter. It won't be a pleasure to be under such storms. It's worsening every year, with cold winters and hot summers. Wish you all the best..
We're having that same struggle here right now too…no sun for 6 out of 7 days…but we're having snow instead of rain…thinking I'd rather be having rain…but would I…I'm sure it's more of a struggle than I'm thinking cause I'm thinking what a struggle snow is right now
It is always surprising how much wood the stove uses. Also fascinating how much of a difference in heating power there is between different species.
Oh my gosh Bo is adorable
Wow lots of water looks amazing but I bet you can’t wait for it to ease off
Thank you for sharing 😁
What happened to your daughter? Where is she? She has not been seen for a very long time. I hope she is well.
So how do you find the quality of Stanley Generator? I was so into the sunday in the morning release on you tube. I messes with being a patreon. How is the back hoe. aka digger! hope you enjoy your new hiking boots.
Every winter I count myself lucky that at some point I decided to buy some wellies. Especially this one.
I am impressed that you go outside. I would be hibernating all day long!
Rainy weather is a huge challenge isn't it, you definitely need to escape inside books.
I listen to a lot of audio books we download free from our library as then I can do things at the same time but a paper book is great to sit down & relax & fall asleep with.
I don't know if you'd be interested but I read a lot of thrillers, mysteries, detective stuff etc but also other genres. The thrillers/mysteries seem to catch my attention most, particularly Peter James, Patricia Cornwell – she's into forensic detection, Val McDermid, Lisa Jewell, Elly Griffiths, Lisa Gardner, Tim Weaver, Joy Ellis & lots more. Keep looking, you can read exerpts on the Internet to see if you'd like the stories or not, got a lot very cheap on Ebay if there's an equivalent for you.
Perfect weather to see, where you want to redirect your water.
People could buy quality expensive shoes in the hope that they will be comfortable and long lasting. But if your feet are killing you after 10 minutes, it doesn't matter how much they cost you won't wear them. I have had that happen with at least two pairs of hiking boots.
Bo is such a cute little helper 👌💯🤗
One of the highest points in Denmark is called "Himmelbjerget" or Sky-Mountain. It is around 170m over sea level. My house in in 250m and top of my land is in 304m,, you can bet you, I am calling it a mountain 🙂
Bo is the most realistic youtube baby I know. He knows what to do when the camera is on. He is such an adorable youtube influencer. I love him so much
Man, does bou ever look like u lia
It may be gloomy at present…but all that lovely water is filling your ponds and sinking into the ground for next year😀😀😀
It must be warmer in your yurt than in our house…you had no socks on!😀😀😀 what does Martin do in this wet weather I wonder?
How about a windmill for energy?
Have you heard off Chinese diesel heaters?
A huge Water tank would be better than any water system that existed on that land previously.
You are a woman after my own heart. Last week I got a brand new pair of really comfy leather shoes at Goodwill go $8:47. I checked the price on line. $79.99!! Score😊
Reading is a good form of self care. You can't care for other people if you're not taking care of yourself
I love the video, Bo is so adorable and pretty little kitten.