The day before the Winter Solstice, we went to town to finish up Christmas errands. We browsed the private secondhand store, previously known to us casually as “Ralph’s,” currently named Talia’s Treasures (see Museum of Lost Desires). I found three indoor/outdoor, LED motion sensing lights at a bargain price!
One of the new motion sensor lights, mounted on the smoke house above the dooryard (Photo: Mark A. Zeiger).
A few years ago we rigged a solar powered motion sensing light in the dooryard to illuminate our movements after dark. We found it very useful, but eventually, it malfunctioned. I’m not skilled at splicing the kind of wire the system uses, and have never managed to repair the unit. Now, we have a new, even better set up to replace it.
These lights use batteries, so they’re independent of each other. The motion sensor senses light and heat as well, which should prevent them from lighting up whenever the wind flaps a branch around them. They’ll only come on when it’s dark, too.
We installed the first one where the old motion sensing light had been, on the wall of the smoke house directly across from the cabin’s door. Its sensor picks us up when we open the inner cabin door, providing light before we even step through it. Its field covers the whole passage way along the cabin, so any warm body passing through will be well lit.
We need to prioritize our list of other places that “need” one of these lights. We seem to have a lot of uses for them, but we only have those two others to mount.
These units don’t quite fit our rustic decor. They look more like something you’d find on the set of a Star Wars movie. Even so, they’ll prove a valuable asset here on the “homestead,” particularly during the dark winter months.