Odds and Ends

Japan has experienced multiple typhoons over the past few weeks. It has been difficult to get anything done around the house. We managed to finish lining the septic system drain area with railroad ties. Erika collected a few bags of Cosmos seeds from around the neighborhood. She sprinkled the area with the seeds and hopefully we’ll have some colorful flowers in our yard next year.

 

We managed to dig a trench from the workshop to the house. The trench is for running electricity to the workshop.

All this work made Lucky tired.

We’ll have 20 amps and 30 amps available for my tools and lights. A power line is also going to my future observatory. I had to install an access door in the ceiling of the bathroom in order to reach the back of the circuit breaker panel. The door allows access to route wires from the panel to the outside of the house without disturbing any of the finished walls. I was shocked “pardon the pun” to see how the wires were routed above the ceiling. I couldn’t find a single wire clamp. This would never pass inspection in the U.S., but this is Japan, and this is how it’s done. I’ll tidy the wire installation up as most of what is hidden from view will be visible after the house is remodeled. It’s kind of scary to think of the wiring practices that I have uncovered. I found a junction of 12 gauge wires wrapped in electrical tape. They wires had wire nuts, but no junction box. A few of the wires were just hanging in the air without any support. I don’t like these kinds of surprises. Surprises equal more work!

A couple of weekends ago, we managed to squeeze in a small community “get together” with a few families at our home. The families provided the food and we provided the place to barbeque. The kids had fun running around. We toasted some marshmallows and took at peek at the moon with my giant binoculars. They signed the guestbook and we called it a night. This will probably be the last barbeque for the year as the nighttime temperatures are quickly dropping. It was 4 degrees (Celsius) last night.    George