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House Painting cont'd

  I've scraped and painted all the exterior wall surface I can reach on foot or using a 13ft ladder. Years ago, I got climbing ropes, carabiners, webbing, etc. gear for working off the ground. I bought a couple of eye-bolts and placed one on each end of the house at the apex. I can suspend from these bolts with the rope. I learned some time ago how to fashion a climbing harness from webbing. This webbibg harness used with carabiners and the rope climb gear allow me to climb up a rope, or down, without slipping. Two large carabiners, not intended for high loads, are used as rope climbing handles. Rope can be wound around one three times, or so, increase the friction of the rope, making the climb safer. The single bolt makes a one-point contact. A two point-contact using a second bolt may make the West end easier to work. The two bolts would be placed on the same level and lower than the apex. Think ellipse with two pencils and a loop of string. A couple of holes drilled in my scrape...
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Home Assistant done

  I replaced Debian 12 Bookworm with Debian 13 Trixie. Prior to that, I had major issues installing HA. With the new install, I added Docker and the HA Docker container without problems.  There were a couple of issues iin HA once I gto it running and installing devices. The bluetooth module integration needed permissions. I searched GoogleAI and made a few changes. The Matter integration failed since the Matter Server container was not installed. Again, I queried GoogleAI and made changes, installed the Matter container. Home Assistant is running on my RPi4/Trixie. Initially I used HAOS on a second RPi4 but decided that was a waste of energy and resources. I then tried the Python installation but had major issues with age incompatible resources.
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Home Assistant issues & climbing ropes.

  I've decided to alter the Home Assistant (HA) installation. There is a way to use Python and venvs but that requires a newer version of Python. To installl a newer version of Python requires either updating the existing files (sloppy) or starting with a fresh install of Debian 13 (Trixe)., a long laborious process of rewriting scripts and services and their referencing files. Another approach uses the 'container' software package known as "Docker." This method is cleanest and wont require I rewrite existing services and scripts. The reason for the change is running two RPi's simultaneously uses up energy. I can, using Docker, install HA on my solar system RPi. This will leave the 46gb SSD open for use as a backup for the RPi SSD. The RPi should also be more energy efficient at night, with changes that have been made per GoogleAI  instructions. A couple of eye-bolts are ready for installation on the peaks of the house roof; one on the West end and one on the ...
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Home Assistant, WiZ and more

  My home network now includes ‘Home Assitant.’ Two HUE non-color lights have been added in the basement. Most recently, a WiZ color light was placed in the bathroom ceiling. Unfortunately, while HUE and WiZ are from Philips, they are not software compatible. For this I added Home Assistant software to my second RPi4b and the iOS app to my phone. I also have the capability of adding my home network router. The software is accessible from a web browser. For this, my touch screen Lenovo IdeaPad laptop would be ideal. Almost any touch pad would work. This would make access immediate and convenient. I altered the RPi4b to boot and run from a USB hard drive. SD cards, the usual format, are considered unreliable over a long period of time.
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Overflow pipe done, finally

  The pipe, as it turns out, was inclined just enough to prevent water flowing. Unfortunately a hard rain came and the tank overflowed into the basement's dirt floor. I had to lower the resting position of the pipe by carving out a bigger hole for the pipe through the block The material on the bottom had to be removed leaving only the mortor. For this I used a couple of legitimatte chisels and several impromptu chisels inluding a railrpoad spike. When done, the mortor was exposed from inside to outside and the water now flows freely. The gaping hole needs to be filled to prevent small critters and bees form entering and cold from freeing the water. I filled the hole with fiberglas insulation from both inside and outside.
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Entertainment for Halloween using the household

  Octoober 12 Some fun things I've found to do. Go into my router's programming and copy Halloween emojis into the SSID. Use the iPhone version of the HUE Essentials app to turn my front porch light's color to orange for the holiday.
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Overflow pipe addendum

  The pipe slants upward enough to allow overflow. More work on the clay block needs to be done.
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