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Guruthondu Day

Every few months the monks take part in Guruthondu Day, a rare time when nearly all of them are able to band together and work on one or two large projects. This time the focus was on the rapidly advancing solar project and on the tree planting at Himalayan Acres. The Solar panel racks have been fabricated and secured and the next step was installing the micro-inverters which control each individual solar panel. This system allows each panel to utilize the maximum sun exposure and transfer that power to Monastery. After the micro-inverters were installed, grounding wires are needed for each individual panel. The panel can then be secured to the Solar panel racks. One interesting aspect of solar panels is that from the moment the panel is exposed to the sun it generates electricity. Safety is very important as you can imagine. Recently the SK carefully transported the panels and hand carried each panel up three scaffolding frames to the second story of the Mini Mela and completed the roof installation. Now the main array is the gets full attention. With the day's help of so many monks, the panel grounding wires were mostly installed, and the SK estimated one or two weeks of work was done on this single day. Another group of monks spent the morning planting trees, joining the solar project in the afternoon, while another small group helped with the Media Studio renovation project. It was a productive and enjoyable day for everyone. Jai Bodhinatha!

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The main group works on the solar installation

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A few days earlier the SK works on the roof panels

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Here is a near-full shot of the solar array to be

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Throughout the day, the monks set up the micro inverters, power lines, and grounding wires

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Nilakanthanatha and Adinatha work as a team

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Saravanathaswami helps to pull the grounding wires

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Mayuranatha attaches connectors for the wires

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Jayanatha runs grounding wires and then wraps exposed copper to keep it from touching the steel, as it ould cause corrosion.

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The green glue acts as an extra layer of protectant

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Taskforcers Adi and Cody help as well

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Jayanatha and Arumuganathaswami work as a team to pull wire after getting directions from Yoginathaswami

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Yoginathaswami was happy to have so much help

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Arumuganathaswami, Nandinatha, Tejadevanatha, Jayanatha, Adi and Cody spent the morning planting trees across the river

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Doug helped as well

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They planted over 250 trees with another 300 to go of the 800 total

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