I got my first dedicated Home Assistant devices today, some KAUF energy-monitoring smart electrical sockets. They’ll eventually handle shedding non-essential electrical loads if we ever get so many appliances that we’re at risk of stressing out solar plant. I was installing one down at the studio today; I was routing wire along the floor when I suddenly saw stars. An LED floodlight I had on a shelf had fallen on my head (I probably pulled on its cord accidentally) and now I have a lump on my head and a headache. I did plug the floodlight into the KAUF socket. Setup was really simple, and now I can light up the solar panels from the house, over 100 yards away.
While I was nursing my throbbing head, I heard HA yelling for Luna the Big Dog™. Luna’s usually quite obedient, so when the yelling went on a bit I realized that something had gone wrong. “Something” is almost always when some kind of prey presents itself, so I dropped my ice pack and jogged outside.
I’ve reported before about the feral pig problem on the island. They tear up the land, poop everywhere, and spread rapid ‘ōh’a death. We’ve put in miles of fencing (well, hundreds of yards) and thought we had the pig problem under control but lately we’ve seen some new pig damage. They’re resourceful and clever about getting past the fencing, but HA had the upper gate open onto the gulch, which we can’t really fence off. Luna had apparently spooked a pig and taken off after it. I could hear the squealing of what sounded like three or four pigs in the distance. I jogged down the road, and found Luna in the gulch down the hill at our neighbors.
The gulch is too wild for me to enter at dusk while wearing only shorts and rubbah slippahs, so I could only watch helplessly as Luna finished off the squealing pig. Apparently, there was only one. Only when the pig stopped moving would she listen to any commands, and she came sheepishly back to the road covered in sticky vines and blood. She was otherwise uninjured.
—2p