Mark and I make the perfect couple; I break things. He fixes things. Sometimes I even buy things pre-broken to ensure my sweet husband has enough to do.

More seriously, since Mark stole my Christmas lights to illuminate the chicken coop (more eggs!), I decided to try out some of those new-fangled solar lights that are on the market nowadays. I didn't quite think through the fact that the reason I like lights around the solstice is because the days are very short and often quite cloudy, which puts a kink in the recharge plan. After the first evening of pretty lights, my string of bulbs barely glowed in succeeding days.

Mark figured the problem might not actually be the season but the ultra-cheap battery. So he took out a few screws, changed over to a higher quality rechargeable, and suddenly my evenings were once again colorful and merry.

Thanks, honey! And, yes, I know --- this string looks like it would be an even better fit for the chicken coop. (No need for a timer.) But you can't have it --- it's mine!

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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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