Update on the well problems, so far so good, the water still has some particulates in it, and it still smells faintly of chlorine, but it is still running strong and is clear (not muddy). We think the particulates and chlorine odor will clear out with use.
Not much new, just been working on improving the cabin, Bob took these pix a few days ago, enjoy!
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Chilean President Bachelet allows diesel generator owners a tax refund to encourage more off-grid power generation…
03-04-08
We had an interesting few days, it’s been warm, nice, perfect weather, then yesterday, it snowed, all day, but it was so light that it didn’t really stick, it was pretty though, nothing like seeing snow in the high desert mountains. :) Sorry, no pix of the snow, I took the day off from everything, I got up long enough to eat and use the toilet, it was a very lazy day for me, I slept most of the day. By the time I got up for good, the sun had come out and the snow that did stick, had mostly melted off. We ate dinner at our neighbor’s house and had a pretty good time, good food, good company, TV and the internet, what more could one ask for? ;)
Last weekend, we went to our friend’s new place, I have a few pix of us, Bob and I and our neighbor (who is our very best friend out here!), we are sitting on top of another mountain, I took the opportunity to take a pic of myself, I hate having my picture taken, I tend to hide behind the camera (grin), but I am fairly happy with the pictures (mark it on the calendar, that doesn’t happen very often).
Here’s Bob
Here’s Bob and our neighbor (and very good friend)
Anyhoo, we have been helping our friends get their house ready to be lived in, it’s an 80s model single wide mobile home, it’s not too bad, a little water damage, mostly on the edges of the floor, we helped pull carpet (shag carpet), paint walls and clean. This place had been empty for many years and it had been home to mice and various other animals, they caught a ring tailed cat inside too, they are messy, nasty creatures, at least if they are inside your house they can be… It will be a cute place when they are finished with it. They are getting 11 acres on top of a mountain, very pretty view but the ride up is pretty rough, you almost have to have 4 wheel drive, our bug does it pretty well, I can’t imagine driving up and down every day though. Oh, I almost forgot, they fed us a great BBQ meal for helping, we would have done it anyway, but it was nice to eat a good meal with good friends and a great view.
Here is the view from their property
Today, we went to town, we were going to the post office, and missed it by 13 minutes! Darn, small towns, I forget that they roll up the sidewalks earlier in the day. We will have to go again tomorrow, bummer, it’s quite a drive into town, heck it’s a 12 mile round trip just to go to the mail boxes out by the main road. Oh well… …
02-29-08
I have more pix:
This is our cabin from the opposite side of the valley from us, can you see the cabin? If you can, then you have super vision or are very psychically gifted.
Here is the same pic with the cabin pointed out, yeah I know, not very clear, but it’s the best my cell phone camera does. :)
After we got back from town the other day, Bob didn’t want to carry the cement powder (100 pounds) and all the groceries across the creek and up the hill, so he just brought the bug across, it took a few tries to get up the hill, but he made it.
Finally up the hill and parked in front of the cabin.
More Pix
I took more pix, here they are:
This is Bob up on a scaffold that he made, he was putting up more panels of wood on the south side of the cabin, the scaffold is about 12 feet in the air.
These are in front (south facing) of the cabin.
This is on the west side of the cabin, this is where a lot of activity is going on, you can see one of the concrete (soilcrete) walls, it’s not much to look at, yet, but it’s a work in progress.
This is the same pix as above, I highlighted the concrete wall in red, it is poured in layers, each layer is about a foot deep, the first layer is highlighted with yellow, the next layer we poured is highlighted in magenta. Between the yellow and magenta layers, we poured that layer too thick, the problem that occurs is with the weight of the concrete, if the pour is too thick, it will cause the form to bulge, we got lucky, it did bulge, but not too much. The form for the next layers is the wood panel that is above the concrete, highlighted in orange. This is only part of the concrete work, this is sort of a bump out, the other concrete work is being done under the cabin just behind what is visible in this picture. The bump out is going to house part of the water system, the top will be as tall as the floor on the cabin (about 6 feet in the air), sorry if I’m not explaining it well, I’ll take more pix as we get more done, it’s true that a picture is worth a thousand words. :)
This is Bob removing the wind part of the weather station, he had to do this in order to put up one of the panels on the cabin. You can see what is referred to as a radar net or camoflage net, it’s old military surplus, we have several of these, it works good for us to hide the work in progress, we don’t want our few neighbors who can see us to have to look at the half way done work on the cabin, it also helps us to blend in with the natural scenery, Bob eventually wants to place one on the roof so that when Google Earth updates their satellite images, our place will not show, we like being hidden from the world. ;)
I took more pix today of the cabin from much farther away, it will take me a few days to get it placed on the blog, it’s quite a process, I have to take the picture with the camera in my cell phone, I have to send the pix from my cell phone to my email address, then I have to go to my …
02-27-08
Pizza night went very well, the dough I made rose very well, I love a happy dough! I used spaghetti sauce for the pizza sauce, I cooked some ground beef, I had some left over(cooked) deer sausage, but it smelled a little off, I set it outside well behind my cabin for the wild animals to eat. I used fresh spinach, chopped onion and mozeralla cheese, it was very good and quite fun, everyone enjoyed it.
Today was a good day, we drove into town in the bug, we left out about noon, it is the first time in over a month that we went to town on our own, I have gone to town with our neighbor many times, but this time Bob and I went together, it was quite fun. To my knowledge, we have the only VW Bug in or around town, we are getting to be known a little, I believe people are beginning to recognize the little blue bug, it’s fun! We went to the resale shop, the sales here benefit the local animal shelter. It was full of lots of fun things, I got a couple of shirts (for $1.00 each), Bob got a pair of shoes, and we got a few other misc things.…
Have you been thinking about visiting Washington DC to see the sites, enjoy the great entertainment, talk with your representatives, advocate for a better environment, or maybe just join in on some interesting events, then this April seems to be the time to do it.
02-26-08
The month is almost gone, time goes by so fast here, it seems like we just got here and it also seems like we have always been here, I can’t say that I have forgotten my life before this, but it is fading. Before we moved here, I didn’t know how I would be able to leave all of my responsibilities, I felt a great responsibility to do the jobs I had, both at Best Buy and at Curves. I did a lot of key things at both places, things that no one else did for the most part, and I enjoyed working at both places. I enjoyed the people I knew there. I know that I did a good job at what I did and I cared about it, I am afraid that things aren’t getting done as well as I would do it because I did care about what I was doing. The few weeks (or was it months?) that I was still in Irving after I quit both jobs, I felt like a fish out of water, I felt like I didn’t have anything to do, in reality there was lots to do with all the last minute packing and keeping the items on the trailer safe from the weather… well, once we got here, that all changed, I do not worry about things back in town like I thought I might, I do miss everyone I knew there, but I am pretty busy here, and what I do is so much more enjoyable and rewarding, I do not regret making this major life changing move.
Tonight is pizza night, I am making the dough, I make a yeast dough and right now it’s rising on the wood stove, the stove is still warm from this morning and it’s the perfect temp for the dough. I have some hamburger meat that needs to be cooked and I have some left over deer sausage that needs to be eaten, that will go good on the pizza. I am making the dough here in the cabin, but I’ll cook it at our neighbor’s house, it’s pizza night for him too! :)
Bob just scared me to death! I am inside the cabin, he is outside on a very narrow scaffolding attached to the house, he is putting up more siding, he is up pretty high, I heard a crash and other sounds that you don’t want to hear in this situation, I had a vision of him falling, I jumped up and ran to the door while calling out to him, he answered that he was OK, I still went out to see what happened, he had nearly fallen, the scaffolding he is using is a ladder with some boards on it to walk on, he said he was focused on what he was doing with his hands …
Today was a banner day, it was a beautiful day, sunny, slight breeze, warm , the high was 75 f. After lounging around most of the morning into the afternoon, we got up and started working on concrete. We poured about a foot in depth and about 10 feet long, we are pouring a three sided wall, we pour, allow it to set for a few days, remove the forms and reattach them higher on the wall and pour again, this keeps the forms from bulging out too much, concrete is heavy. Bob mixes the cement powder, local soil, local gravel and a little water in the cement mixer, pours it into a bucket and brings it to the wall, he pours it into the wall cavity, I tamp it down and smooth it out as best as I can with a stick. We also throw in fist sized rocks and poke them into the wet concrete.
After that, Bob got out the powered post hole digger, my Dad gave it to us, so far, digging has been so easy that Bob hasn’t felt the need to use the auger, but he tried it tonight, and was very impressed, he dug 3 holes a few feet away from the south side of the cabin, he set some long 2×6 boards in the holes, filled the hole back in with dirt and a little water and tamped it down. His intention is to make a scaffold structure so he can work safely on that side of the cabin. While he was doing this, I made dinner, I was instructed to post the recipe on my blog, so I will. It’s a recipe I made up when I was a teenager, it’s extreme comfort food.
4 slices of bread (your choice-white or wheat)
4 wieners (hot dogs)
1 can chili
1 can cream corn
mayo
shredded cheese (your choice)
Heat the cream corn and the chili in separate pans, you can heat the wieners in the chili if you want or heat them separately, leave whole or cut into bite sized pieces, your choice. Take 2 slices of bread for each serving, place it on a plate, slather each slice with a thick layer of mayo, I like Miracle Whip, my hubby likes real mayo, make it thick, pour the chili with the wieners) over the bread, place some shredded cheese over this, as much as you want. Next pour the cream corn over the top. Eat. This serves 2 hungry people.
I don’t have a name for this, anyone want to name it? When I made it as a teen, I didn’t add wieners or cheese, I add this now to make it more of a meal. It may sound like a strange combination, but it’s very good, have lots of napkins. Don’t ask about the calorie count, if you have …
02-16-08
Today was different, quite fun actually. The weather has been fairly quiet the last few days, sunny, calm, a little wind now and again, warm days (in the 40s & 50s), cool nights (30s-40s) but for the most part, uneventful. The humidity is generally pretty low, in the 20-30% range, higher at night, lower in the day.
Last night the humidity got up to 91%! I looked out the window and could see low clouds coming across the mountain tops, obscuring them. Today, it snowed, not much accumulation though, a couple of times it looked like we were in a snow globe and someone shook it up. :) I really enjoyed the snow falling and blowing, the snow fell for a short time, and as soon as the sun peeked out from the clouds, the snow that had accumulated, immediately began to melt. A couple of times, during the snow fall, there was so much snow falling and blowing, I couldn’t see the mountains around me, it was so pretty to see. Sorry I didn’t get any pix, but my cell phone takes terrible pix and with all the snow blowing, all it would have shown was white to light gray on white/light gray…
The snow is gone, but the wind stayed, it’s not that cold outside, but with the wind blowing and gusting, the heat that is generated by the wood stove is pulled out almost faster than we can make it. It also messed up movie night, it’s nearly impossible to hear the little computer speakers on the laptop, that is something that I overlooked before I left Best Buy, I wished I had known, I would have gotten a small set of powered speakers, but live and learn.
Power
We have been doing very well with the power, we have learned how much we can use and still have power left over, ie we don’t run out of battery power any more! We have a total of 4 deep cycle batteries, 2 are hooked up to one set of solar panels and 2 are hooked up to another set of solar panels, we use one set for the water pump on the sink and one light, the other set is for the rest of the lights, computer, fan (rarely used), cell phone and occasionally a small electric blanket. Oh, I almost forgot, we are now running a small cube refrigerator, right now we are leaving it outside, covered with a piece of plastic to keep it dry (just in case). It is in the shade (it’s on the north side of the cabin, so it never gets any sun), and for the most part, the outside temp stays cool to cold so the fridge doesn’t run very much, even so, I unplug it at night, and sometimes even leave it unplugged during the day, just depends …
When he was VP, Gore cynically abandoned the environmental movement. This is his chance to make good.…
Congrats on your (edited). Just make sure that she does not leave an (edited) to your name for (edited) to follow. (edited to remove stuff-nothing against oldman).
March 20, 2008 6:29 AM
I think she has that all taken care of…she hates paperwork, besides, I will not be (edited) enough to worry (edited).
Wretha
March 25, 2008 10:17 AM