Power crazed

One of the hardest things to get used to is that the truck has a very finite supply of electricity, currently one fairly knackered old battery. I'm so used to being able to simply switch on whatever I like, and the power will flow. Despite having pretty much nothing other than LED lights, a netbook and water pump, the poor old battery pretty much gave up the ghost today and had to be resuscitated by running the engine for an hour.
Not the best solution long term, so we're biting the bullet and investing in some serious batteries, and a couple of solar panels which will, we hope, keep things going over the summer, until we add a small wind turbine.

I'm learning fast, that I can't be nearly as cavalier with electricity use as I've been used to, and simply leaving the laptop running whenever I am about is a habit I'll have to kick, which isn't a bad thing. That said, the question of how to connect to the internet seems to have been solved, with a 3g dongle, which gives broadband at about the speed that we had in the house. Am also experimenting with making a little parabolic receiver for the wireless, so that the currently out of range wireless in the farmhouse comes within reach.