That's what the HR people call it: "phased retirement". It is a process where a person, as they retire from a company, sticks around to help transition to and train a replacement, often on a part-time basis. It is a way of allowing the retiree to move out of a high-demand, intense and/or stressful job, and still contribute to the company while bringing new talent on-board. That's me. I'm working toward a phased retirement.

I've given the company notice about my desire to retire soon. I don't yet have a firm date, and can't really stop working until our house in New Jersey sells. So, the strategy is to list the house for sale starting in April. Assuming we'll have about 2 months between a contract and closing, we'll have enough time to set a retirement date and do all the things needed to stop work and retire to the cabin in Colorado. At work, knowing I'll be leaving sometime soon, my boss is going to move forward to replace me now. I'll "step aside" from my job, someone else will come in as my replacement, and we'll work side-by-side for a while. That way, I can phase out of work, working until the house closes. And, the new person can learn the job with me available as a coach and consultant.

It is a bit scary. I've been in this job for 9 years and loved it. It is the longest period I've ever had a single job assignment. I love the people, the products, and all the experiences I've had. But, it is time to move on to the next chapter in our lives. A chapter that will be captured in this blog.

And, Lynne and I have made big changes before. Within a year of getting married we moved to Germany for a little over two years. In the late 80s we moved to The Netherlands and after a few years there, we moved to France. We came back to the US in the mid 90s, and had a nice long run before moving to New Jersey in 2006. So, moving and change are not new to us and we are really excited about starting the next chapter.

Our "off the grid" cabin is a battery powered cabin. We are truly "off-the-grid" and get our electricity from the sun and wind. (We do have a backup generator.)

On sunny and/or windy days (and there are plenty of them), we get most of the electricity we need during the day directly from the solar panels and wind turbine. Any excess electricity we generate beyond what we use, is stored in batteries located in the crawlspace under the cabin. We then draw from the batteries at night, or when there is little sun or wind.

The batteries are in a plywood battery box I built. It is about 4' long, 3' wide and 2.5' high with a tight-fitting lid. It can hold up to twelve 6-volt batteries. We have a 24 volt system, so the batteries are wired in banks of 4 batteries in series. Then, each bank is wired in parallel with other banks. Right now, we have 8 batteries, so 2 banks of 4. 

(Here is a photo of the original battery system, which was replaced many years ago. You can see three banks of four batteries and the evacuation fan.)

And, they are old.

Batteries used for off-the-grid applications are deep-cycle batteries--different from what you use in your car. To start your car, you want a battery that can provide a huge amount of current for a very short time to start the car, then be charged back to full capacity quickly. For an off-the-grid application, you want a battery that can provide a more modest amount of current over a long period of time and use up to 40% to 50% of its capacity before being recharged.

The batteries we have now are wet-cell, deep-cycle batteries. That means they need to have distilled water added occasionally. And, that when they charge they give off hydrogen gas. Thus the battery box, which encloses the batteries and is vented to the outside. A small 24V ventilation fan comes on whenever the batteries are being charged, and exhausts any gasses in the box to the outside of the cabin. A critical safety feature!

Deep-cycle batteries have a lifetime specified in discharge cycles. A cycle is usually defined as a single discharge to 60% or 50% capacity. Lifetimes can range from 800 or 900 cycles up to 1500 or so cycles. It depends on the battery. And, the more cycles the more expensive the battery. After this number of cycles of discharge and recharge, batteries need to be reconditioned or replaced.

Our batteries are about 10 years old. They only cycle when we are there to use electricity. Or, when we are not there and we have several days where they don't charge. (There is electrical use even when we are not there since we leave the propane forced-air heater on and set to 45°F.) Still, they have had many cycles, and some to levels well below 50% or 60% of their capacity. Before we move in full-time, we need to replace the batteries.

To follow my research and decision on new batteries, click through to "More..."

More...

Several years ago, we had about 200 beetle-killed trees cut from our property. Beetle-killed trees are a fire hazard and we wanted to create a defensible space to the west and southwest of the cabin. (The wind almost always blows from that direction, and any wildfire would be highly likely to come from that way.) I'll likely talk more about the pine beetle infestation and the damage it has caused in Colorado forests in a future post.

The logging company we hired to do the job did cut the trees and hauled them away. But, they left a huge mess behind. There were stumps and slash that they refused to clean up. Also, some dead trees that were not cut have subsequently fallen. In short, our "meadow" was pretty ugly.

Last year we found a forest management company in Wyoming--Tiger Tree--whom we hired to clean up the site. They did a great job in trimming all stumps near the ground, cutting up fallen trees, and collecting all the trimmings into piles of "slash". Here is a photo of one of the four slash piles:

These piles are created so they can subsequently be burned. It is legal to burn these at our location subject to some rules. There must be at least 3" of snow on the ground and the wind must be 10 mph or less. And, I had to submit a request for a burn permit (easy to do online). Several agencies have to approve the request. Then, on the day of the burn the sheriff's office must be notified. 

Here is a wider view of the meadow after clean-up. You can see several of the slash piles, ready for ignition. Just need to wait for winter, snow, and no wind (along with access to the property).

We waited several months before everything lined up to make burning possible, but this week the job got done!

And, the result:

(Photo taken by a neighbor.) We'll rake this around and plant native grass and wildflower seeds!

In preparation for the upcoming retirement, we recently went through a financial planning exercise. I figured before I quit work and had no further salary coming in, we'd better damn well make sure that we have sufficient savings along with a realistic spending plan to have a good standard of living for the next 30 years. (We do.)

One of the suggestions from the financial planner was to secure a home equity line-of-credit from our bank, secured by the cabin, as a source for emergency funds. You know "just in case". And, she suggested it was best to do this now while I am still employed. (Obviously, we can't secure the line-of-credit with our NJ house, since we will sell it before moving.)

So, I contacted our current bank (which has branches in Fort Collins and Laramie) about such a loan. I went through the whole application process and even spoke at length with a loan officer. We were conditionally approved for the loan. The only condition was that they needed an appraisal for the cabin. They hired a Fort Collins appraiser to do a "drive by" appraisal.

Well, the loan application has now been cancelled and I am invited to reapply when the roads aren't closed by massive amounts of snow along County Road 80C. I guess the appraiser did not want to go through Laramie and then chain-up at the state line.

For many years, Lynne and I have maintained blogs. Lynne has done a great job in chronicling our time in New Jersey in her "a New Jersey Girl" blog. And, I've blogged occasionally on "Rick's Ramblings". Feel free to explore those blogs, I don't think we will be blogging there very often and will focus on our retirement, our move to the cabin in Colorado, and life "off the grid" in this blog.

However, I do want to draw you attention to a blog post that I did back in September, 2013 about our history with Sand Creek Park. I hope you enjoy!