Off-Grid 101

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.

2 Comments

Tracy said…

I spotted it right away. I hope that doesn’t mean I’m being supervised; I don’t like that idea at all!

June 7, 2008 11:16 PM

Wretha said…

Naw, not being watched, you are just good! Now, your papers pleeze…. ;)

Wretha

June 8, 2008 11:55 AM

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 …