Yesterday was the Equinox. The length of the day and night are equal, and only on the Equinox does the sun rise in the East and set in the West. Virtually nobody knows this! From here on, until the next Equinox on March 21, the sun will not shine in our house, bar for the last couple of hours of the day when it skims the South facing windows that are not under the back veranda. The accuracy with which I have managed to achieve this never ceases to bring a smile to my face, so I thought I would share with you a photo I took inside the kitchen on the 20th of September, the last day any sun comes through our clerestory windows. That thin sliver of sunlight on the wall is it. From today, the sun angle is too steep to fit between the eave on the window and the window sill. We don’t need any more heating, the season is changing and even if it’s 13°C outside, it’s 22ºC inside in the morning, without the AGA running. We’ve now had a whole week of continuous sunshine, and our water is boiling hot, and the last thing I need right now is to waste precious firewood to create excess hot water. I used water straight out the hot tap yesterday to make a new batch of beer, didn’t need to burn any gas to sterilise anything. You DO have to be careful though, you can easily scald yourself when not using a tempering valve, but we are all well trained here….
I’ve been asked how well our new LED lights work, so I took a night photo of the kitchen to share. Yes, there is flash added here, but really only to reduce contrast, and obviously the lights don’t light up what’s under the table but otherwise it gives you a pretty good idea of how well this works. The hanging “chinaman’s hat” fittings are great because they reduce the distance the light has to travel, and it’s right above the three working spaces we have, the sink, the stoves, and the table.
I’m very proud of my kitchen, it’s everything I’ve always wanted now the AGA’s going!
Damn the Matrix 