Mary, our manager, and Duncan our farm manager have done some travelling today to find out whether or not sugar cane will be a viable crop for our farm. They made a fairly long journey to sugar cane country to find out what varieties of sugar cane are available and to find out whether or not the market is close enough to us. The good news was that sugar cane is a profitable crop. The Sony sugar factory in our region is a good customer for sugar cane and helps growers by picking up the cut crop. The bad news is that we are a bit too far away from the 'sugar belt' to be considered a good bet. It looks like we may have to modify our 'get rich' sustainability plans. Duncan did mention an alternative use for the sugar cane in the wine making industry but we aren't really sure how that would work out. We haven't ruled it out but it looks like a bit of a long shot. I really admire the pair of them. They didn't return until very late this evening and I can't imagine the journey being very pleasant.
We've been trying to get to the bottom of a mystery with the solar power system on our classrooms over the last couple of weeks. It has been very frustrating but I think we may be closer to solving the problem after today's observations. We had been worried that the very cloudy weather has been interfering with the charging process or that one of the charge controllers on the major part of the system is faulty. We've been 'resting' the system for about the last week to give all of the batteries a chance to charge properly. As we haven't had this kind of problem for some time it seemed like the best thing to do. Today I noticed that the charge indicator had crept up to the green light level for the first time in ages by ten o'clock this morning and was becoming more hopeful that it would charge fully by this afternoon. I was disappointed to notice the light had slipped back down to orange by the end of school. A very quick investigation identified the problem. Two outside light switches left on, (but not actually lighting any bulbs as far as I could see). As soon as they were switched off the indicator flipped to green again. Looks like it could be an electrical engineering day tomorrow.
I've been thinking a lot about my son Tom and daughter Ellie in the course of today. They both have exams at university this week and I'm feeling a bit anxious for them as you do. Ellie's taking end of first year medicine exams and Tom has a combination of an English exam and a performance piece for his music course. I can't believe how quickly the academic year has passed. Judi and I would appreciate the prayers of the praying community for the two of them.
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