Tag Archive | solar power

Chocolate Mousse

Jun23

Probably I’ve expressed gratitude for chocolate before. Why wouldn’t I have? Today I’m grateful for chocolate mousse, in particular in these no-bake ‘bars.’ I made them last night for Boyz Lunch today, and they were quite well received. Some graham crackers, butter, sugar and a pinch of salt for the ‘crust,’ so to speak, and a essentially a bunch of whipping cream and chocolate chips for the mousse, with a splash of vanilla and some espresso powder. Heavenly. I’m grateful that chocolate is still readily available, that for the time being, this luxury bean is still able to be cultivated in warmer, wetter parts of the world, and transported far from its native climes. I don’t expect this will always be the case.

I was also grateful for a cool, cloudy day, or they’d have been even messier to eat than they were. We finished lunch just in time before the predicted deluge, which dumped about a fraction of a tenth of an inch of rain over a few minutes before moving on. We are all grateful for even a splash of rain at this point, and the humidity got up to a whopping 49% while the sun shone, for awhile. In a remarkable turn of events, at bedtime the temperature is two points away from the humidity, at 58ยบ and 56% respectively. The remaining mousse bars are safely stored in the fridge and the freezer for later, and much later. I’m grateful for a fridge and freezer, and the solar electricity to power them.

I’m grateful to crawl into a cozy bed after a day of natural beauty and fellowship in this peaceful little pocket of the planet, on this one precious day that will never come again.

Propane

Nov28

I was going to write about gratitude for propane, a natural gas/petroleum derivative that I hate having to use to live on solar power but have relied on for thirty years to fuel my backup generator during cloudy stretches in winter. I’ve also been using it for my cooking stove, and for about fifteen years for my refrigerator, until I bought a high-efficiency Sunfrost. This winter I have to use the generator almost every night to keep the batteries charged until morning; they are on their last legs, but the new batteries on order have been delayed for months because of ubiquitous supply chain issues. Now they won’t arrive til “after the first of the year.” That could mean May, as far as I know. So I am grateful for propane, which is currently giving the sun a big assist in electrifying my house, enabling the refrigerator, freezer, water pump, lights, TV, radio, etc., to function in the manner to which I have become accustomed. And I’m grateful to have been getting my power mostly from the sun for the past thirty years.

So, I was going to research propane and write about it. But when I opened Photos to search for a relevant image, for some random cosmic reason this one showed up, mama Raven and her baby brother Stellar shortly after he arrived here almost fourteen years ago. And that melted my heart and rendered me useless for the rest of the night. I am so grateful to have had these two remarkable, beautiful, brilliant dogs as my companions for the most recent quarter of my life; I’m grateful that I recognized and celebrated that gratitude almost every day of their presence in it.