06-14-2026 — Flag on the play.

Howdy all. Today is “Flag Day”. As of noon, I’ve seen nothing in my news or on YouTube that mentions the holiday. But, I salute you Ole Glory. May we return to times when the world respected the U.S.A.

The temperatures are to fall to normal and cooler, starting later today as the rains arrive. The water is needed for the gardens.

I did do a harvest yesterday. From the inside garden.

On the right are what’s left from a tomato picking about a week ago. The bowl of 40 tomatoes, was from yesterday. And on the left, I got another batch of Gray Oyster Mushrooms, from the kit I have growing in the Dining room. That is the 3rd harvest. Not bad for the version of kit. That is a gallon bag.

The tomatoes and mushrooms are great ingredients for my daily breakfast omelette.

Afternoon/evening update. Looks like there was a “power play” that failed today. At around 3:13 the electric utility power did a flea-flicker and dropped the ball. Flags were thrown into the 45 mph winds. Rains peppered the ground. Lines were blurred. === Okay, enough of the metaphors for sports I don’t watch, nor understand. Big-Arse thunderstorms swept through Ohio and the heaviest portion knocked out power to at least 150,000. My house was one of them. The lights went out a couple of times as my housekeeper was finishing vacuuming, and she ended up doing a quick easy-mop type of cleaning of the bamboo floors downstairs. With the power not coming back at 3:30, I powered up my backup batteries (EcoFlow) and had lights again. Power came back at just after 6:00 pm. In the 2 ½ hours the EcoFlow was powering the house, it used around 20% of the available WattHours from the two batteries. (The 3rd one is still sitting on a dolly waiting for me to become young again, and lift the 120 pounds onto the stack - after removing the 110 pound inverter — and then putting it back).

So, 2 ½ hours using 20% of the existing batteries, would allow for about 10 hours before being forced to recharge with the generator. Butt, and I am a butt, because the temperatures outside quickly dropped from around 73 to 63, I didn’t need either AC nor heating. And, since Spectrum, the internet provider, SUCKS, and was down, I wasn’t using the TV system either. I need to set up the backup/sharing of T-Moble 5G internet with Spectrum, on a gateway, so that I can continue to have all my various SSIDs available when Spectrum sheets the bed. If I get that 3rd battery connected, and then a 4th, I could easily run the AC/Heat for that same 10 hours without worry.

On my wish list to get the 4th from EcoFlow online, or Amazon, during prime days in a week or two.

Yesterday I also set up a couple of the Amazon Smart Air Quality Monitors. https://amzn.to/44emnIp They watch the various air quality numbers indoors, as well as being able to report temperature and humidity through an Echo device. For me, I frequently am curious as to what the humidity is in my Laser or 3D printer rooms, or the Master Bedroom. So now I have the information in two rooms upstairs, and the dining room, downstairs, (where the mushrooms are).

For example, I use a portable AC in my bedroom. I try to not cool the entire upstairs, but yet, keep the temperature in my bedroom well under 65. In the middle of the night, the bedroom was at 63 (nice!!!), while the laser room was about 73. Humidity for me was about 55%, and only 43% in the laser room.

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