Starting a new chapter of sorts.

It's Christmas Day.

We have family in town for the holiday. Crys' Dad and Brother, our Niece and sis. Some today, some tomorrow but all for the next week or so. It makes for a nice, slightly crowded, happy, visity holiday.

We've had snow twice in the last 4 days. Luckily, so far, the breaks in the weather have let folks drive in and arrive safely. Tomorrow I'll go up to pick up niece and sis in Denver. At 7 PM. The weather stations say it'll be clear and good for that trip. I sure hope so. It'll be nice to see them.

This morning I was up at 5 shoveling snow. It's kind of a lot of area to cover, but I do enjoy the process. First a path to the solar building, then the 24 solar panels, then the back, side and front decks (900 square feet) then the path to the creek, the path along the creek and the sitting area by the fire ring. After that I shovel out the chicken yard and a path to it. I follow that with a nice hot cuppa joe.

Sometimes it's one of us that shovels, sometimes it's another. Today it was me. Crys made a great coffee cake for breakfast with her dad and brother. Auntie and Unk got ahold of us to wish us a happy Christmas. We adore them. Don't get better family than that. Crys' mom called and that was nice too. Now Dad has taken off to Colorado Springs for a couple days and Daniel and we are chilling and listening to Christmas music. I'm on call for work, but what else is new? :D

The new chapter in the title refers to a risk and expense we've decided to pursue. Today I signed up for the associate level solar installer certification program offered by Solar Energy International in Paonia, Colorado. It is two online classes and a certification test. Following that I'll pursue one of 3 full level certifications. Battery based solar, grid tied solar or developing world solar. I'm leaning toward the developing world battery based solar certification, that would let us travel in retirement and be of use to people. Updates as conditions warrant. If nothing else, I'll understand our own solar better and be able to make it work at top capacity.

BTW, the solar mom and dad help Crys and I put up last July was cranking out over 70 amps to the battery bank this morning. That's pretty much ideal.