I'm surprised to be on the porch hearing rushing water. I tend to think of up here as high and mostly dry, but not this time of year. Yesterday was such a soaking rain, very annoying at the time as I did chores and drove out from town. Now there are two little creeks here. That's a sound I've missed..

Pity that all the water is going to waste. I discovered the reason the large cistern is not filling up is simply because the pipe into it is not connected to the feeder pipe in the spring. It seems like a complete shambles really, with layer upon layer of pipes, all broken. I will have to wait until the water is down to dig and find out what's going on, and fix it.

In the last of the evening light today I got the house's two battery banks finally combined into one bank. I had planned this out long ago, and bought one long cable I'd need, so was surprised to find I needed two long cables. Had to slide batteries around like a big sokoban puzzle, and swap several cables to make it work. While I was away I'd charged up the bank that had gone unused most of the winter. So they were near equalized and the combination seems to have gone ok. I got through the lean part of the year with only half the batteries; there never seemed to be a good time to combine them. It remains to be seen if the solar panels can keep my increased capacity filled.

I hope this was only an early taste of spring. Would be nice to have some more icy weather so I can put off dealing with refrigeration a little while longer. I have my eye on a 12v/propane fridge.