Communities

Bob the Lumberjack

This morning, Bob went out and cut down a few juniper trees. they are about 6-8 inches in diameter and the part he is using is about 8 (+/-) feet tall, he is using them for posts and beams inside the cabin, it is going to strengthen up the cabin considerably, and it will lend a rustic look too, I’ll try to snap a few pix when it is done.

Grass

I have been eyeballing the local grass, it grows in clumps and gets 18-20 inches long, it is quite strong, I have been considering ways I can use it, such as weaving it into mats, baskets & bowls, making wall coverings and window blinds. I will have to look on line to learn more about weaving, but not knowing about something has never stopped me before! ;)

Dentist

Bob had to go into town and go to the dentist, he has a bad molar, the dentist gave him a prescription for antibiotics, he will probably have it pulled, it’s cheaper than fixing it, money isn’t something we have in abundance, he has to go back in early February and will decide then how to proceed. Hopefully we can come up with something between now and then. I had a filling come out just before we moved out here, I went to my Dad’s dentist and he fixed it, I am very happy with his work, I wished he was out here…

Last night was COLD!!! I think it was the coldest night yet, we used a laser thermometer, I tested several surfaces outside, the metal ladder said 9 degrees(!), the ground registered 19 degrees, a few other surfaces registered between 14-19 degrees, that was early in the night, I know it got colder as the night went on, there was a light breeze from time to time, Bob stayed up all night keeping the fire going, we really need to get our big wood stove in the cabin. Fortunately once the sun comes up, the temps raise up into the 50’s, at least it feels that warm in the sunshine, if you get in the shade, you are reminded that it is still winter here.

3 Comments

nanabird said…

Hey look forward to reading your blogs almost like talking to you at Curves. Nothing worse than a bad tooth poor Bob. FYI the Haltom Curves is closing as of this Friday and merging with the Richland Hills store so many ladies are not happy and have resigned the reason she is isn’t making any money at that location. Don’t know what I will do I joined here for convience……You are so lucky to have such a wonderful neighbor and friend so close and so willing to help you out. Hope thing continue to go well for you guys find all your stuff quite interesting keep up

01-01-08

Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later… I got angry, I lost my temper, normally it takes quite a bit to make me display anger. The problem (I have) is the propane stoves, we have a one burner and a two burner stove, we use an empty lighter to light them (it still sparks, and that is all you need), when I turn on the gas, I place the lighter close to the burner and start sparking it like crazy, well, for me, most of the time it doesn’t work, I get jumpy and pull back too soon, well after a few time I feel I need to stop, turn off the gas and let it air out, I’m not interested in creating a fireball, I just want to light the damned thing! Bob finds it amusing, not in a mean way though. He tries each (AND EVERY) time to explain why it doesn’t work for me and how to make it work, I just get even more frustrated with the whole thing, today I was trying to cook breakfast, and nothing I did would light the two burner, Bob started smiling and started to explain (AGAIN), I just couldn’t take it, I turned off the gas, and tossed the skillet and the lighter on the counter (I really wanted to throw it!). That really made his smile even more, he seems to find it amusing when I get angry, much like seeing a young child or small animal get mad about something minor. I reminded him about when he gets angry, how he would react if I laughed at him, he agreed that he would not like it at all.

Breakfast did get cooked, I resorted to using a match, we had toast, toasted on a well seasoned cast iron skillet (not the one I tossed), and scrambled eggs, the eggs came from a local resident’s chickens, the eggs still had a few down feather attached, talk about fresh! I can’t wait to have my own chickens, fresh eggs every day…

We spent this day putting up more plywood to the cabin, at least half of the walls were basically heavy builder’s plastic and wire, it kept out most of the winds, and kept in most of the heat, but it was noisy in the winds, now, I’d say that 85-90% of the walls are covered in at least 1 layer of plywood, many of them have two 2 layers, one on the inside and one on the outside. I helped as best as I could, the plywood panels are heavy, and we had to get them up at least 8 feet off the ground, not an easy task with the wind gusting like it has been. Bob got on the ladder and I worked on the ground, we do make a pretty good team, though …

01-05-08

Life is good! We finally got all the solar panels set up yesterday, it was too late in the day to benefit from sunlight, it was nearly dark. Bob wired up the Xantrex charge controller, this device is wired between the solar panels and the batteries, it makes sure the batteries don’t get overcharged, it does other things too to make sure the batteries are maintained at peak performance. I created an image to show our solar setup, it’s a very simplified image, but it shows basically what we are using.

We have:

• four 55 watt solar panels
• three 15 watt solar panels
• four Trojan Deep Cycle batteries
• one commercial grade cut off switch
• one Xantrex C35 Charge Controller
• two 1000 watt (2000 peak) inverters

It goes basically like this, the solar panels are on the roof at about a 30 degree angle facing south, they have a positive and negative wire running to a cut off switch (this is like a large on-off switch), from there the wires go to the charge controller (this regulates the amount of power that goes to the batteries, and maintains the batteries at peak performance), from this the wires go to an inverter, this changes the power from DC (direct current-battery power) to AC (alternating current-this is what comes out of your wall), from there I have an extention cord with multiple outlets and I can plug in whatever I want as long as it doesn’t exceed the voltage or amperage allowed by the inverter, the inverter is one of my bigest bottlenecks, it can do 1000 watts sustained, and 2000 watts surge (when you first turn on anything, it usually requires a surge of higher power then it settles down to a smaller power requirement), and it can handle up to 8.5 amps, so I can’t run any single item or sets of items that requires more than that.

Click on the image below to see the full size picture.

For the most part, I am running small items, a couple of low wattage fluorescent lights, a small radio/CD player, a laptop computer and charging my cell phone. I have a dorm room size refrigerator, but so far we haven’t needed to plug it up, it stays fairly cold, even during the day when it warms up, in the shade it’s still pretty cool, we keep our milk, eggs, cheese and butter in a 5 gallon bucket, we keep it in the cabin most of the time, if it gets too warm inside during the day, we set it outside in a shady spot and it stays cool enough. Right now we are using our refrigerator to store foods outside and protect them from animals, I expect this spring & summer we will actually plug in the refrigerator and use it for what it is supposed to be used for.

Sometime …

I have some pictures (finally!), sorry the quality is not that great, it is from my cell phone, and it takes OK pictures, this will give you an idea of what I get to look at every day. :)

The first 2 are my cabin, it’s a work in progress, we work on it everyday.

This is a beautiful sunset, the pictures do not do it justice.

Bob and Pekoe looking at some deer.

…

Focus The Nation is a movement that wants to find global warming solutions for America and they want to do it with the help of all Americans. They currently have four programs they are promoting to help America: National Teach-In, Green Democracy, 2% Solution, and Choose Your Future.

The National Teach-In is set for January 31, 2008 and is hoping to engage students and citizens alike with their political and decision makers in a dialogue about global warming studies. It is designed to be inclusive of all educational types from K-12 to universities/colleges, also civic organizations, as well as faith organizations. You can get involved by either going to an event or if none available helping to host one.

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