Black Mesa Ranch
Snowflake, Arizona, USA
Artisan Cheese
Nubian Goats
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Award Winning Artisan Goat Cheeses
4 Awards 2005 ADGA National Competition
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(available seasonally)
2 Awards 2005 ADGA National Competition
2 Awards 2004 ADGA National Competition
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Click here to read the online version of Kathryn's booklet
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This site last updated:
October 11, 2008
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Arizona Grown!
A Black Mesa Ranch sunset
11/1/00 Power to the South house!
It was downright cold this morning but lovely. Thick ice covered about every surface. The ground, which was muddy from all the rain when we went to bed, was frozen solid down several inches. Fortunately the sun came up virtually unencumbered by clouds and did it’s magic, warming everything fairly quickly.
D brought the tractor over to the South house with a load of more household things then spent a little time filling one of the solar guy’s trenches for them with it, making a new fire pit and bringing the 55-gallon water barrel over. I started a nice bon fire and kept it going all day for the hot water.
K spent most of the day continuing the cleaning, concentrating on the lower level, but working everywhere. The place is starting to smell normal and really looks almost habitable. She says her goal is to by tomorrow be able to do a cleaning in a room and not expect to find any rodent droppings at all. The kitchen is ready for move-in as is the living room. The bathrooms are getting really close to usable (if there was water) and it’s no longer disgusting to go into any of the rooms.
The solar guys showed up fairly early and began working on tying in the two houses to the Power House, topping out the electric in the Power House (supplying a ceiling light and receptacle), setting up the inverter to accept charging from our generator and running the necessary cords.
D did some de-plumbing in what was to be the laundry area, removing a water heater and a utility sink then started working on electric. The idea was to try and map out the various circuits from the breaker panel, check them for safety, and prepare the panel and circuits for energizing when the solar guys got that far. The task was a bit daunting. First I disconnected all of the breakers and wiring to the breaker panel and labeled each of the 6 regular 12-guage circuits with a letter designation for identification. There was also a 3-wire, 10-guage circuit running into the panel but it had never been hooked up and a matching wire in the laundry area we surmised to be for an electric clothes dryer never finalized. Next I tested each circuit for shorts to either ground or neutral and found only one with a problem. With K’s help we then went through every light fixture and receptacle in the house and determined which circuit it belonged to, as well as documented each switch and what it went to. One challenge came from the fact that the previous residents had wired for both Direct Currant (DC) and Alternating Current (AC) power and lighting and had made no differentiation in the configurations of the two separate, independent systems. We are only going to run AC power (normal household power) and will need to abandon all DC outlets and lighting primarily because the wiring is not to a safe standard for AC power, and secondarily because much of it (the lighting in particular) is redundant. Most of the rooms have two light fixtures within a few feet of each other, one AC and the other DC. Some of the rooms are unfinished, even without sheetrock in some cases, and it is easy to see the quality of the workmanship in the wiring. The AC seems to be run professionally in most cases but the DC shows careless and in some instances dangerously assembled construction just about everywhere. The decision to simply abandon all the DC without trying to re-use any of it for AC circuit extensions even where possible is a tough call but a good one. Once everything was successfully traced I concentrated on one circuit at a time and went through each outlet, switch and light box, check for good connections, broken receptacles or other problems until I was pretty sure it was in good working order. Then I re-connected it to a breaker and install the breaker back into the power panel.
By mid-afternoon the solar guys had the Power House wired and were ready to test charging the batteries through the inverter from our generator. We decided to only use our older, small (2.4 kW) job-sit generator for now and leave the big one (9kW) up at the well. It fired up fine and Matt programmed the inverter to suck as much juice out of it as it possible and let it run. We still don’t have the hose we need to be able to pump the gasoline out of the 55-gallon drum we recently purchased so once the generator ran out of fuel that was it for the day. It did bring the batteries up enough to get in a good position for the night and we’ll just have to run out for more fuel for it tomorrow.
Soon after the generator was up and running, Matt announced that he would be able energize at least the power panel in the South house today! It took a bit longer than he had thought but before they left for the day the panel was HOT. It was lacking a ground bus and he didn’t have one with him but he said he would bring one back next time, the day after tomorrow, Friday.
With the panel energized I was able to finalize my connections to the panel (except for the grounds) and get 2 circuits powered up. Our first power in the house! We had brought several packages of compact florescent bulbs with us in anticipation of this day and got several light fixtures (OK they’re really just work site “pigtail” sockets) lit right away. Over the course of the rest of the day I got another circuit assembled (it had never been completed and there were un-stripped Romex cables hanging out of most of the boxes) and energized. We now have 3 completed circuits with some lighting and power both upstairs and down, and another two of the last three circuits close to being done.
As it got dark I returned the tractor to the barn with a small load of things from the house to store there and quit for the night. Almost.
As predicted, now that we had lights in the house, and a way to re-charge the batteries, we found ourselves drawn back there to “putz around” a bit, unpacking a few kitchen boxes and such. We hung out a bit long and it got pretty darned cold out (the house seems to stay warm pretty well without any heat source so far) before we finally headed back to the RV for a late dinner.
Max’s hurt leg is much better today thanks I’m sure to the Antibiotics and Betadine K has been applying (no small feat).
This afternoon marked our 3rd week here.
11/2/00
Another cold but brightly clear morning with thick frost on every surface. Supposed to be nice today but another weather front with colder temps and some precipitation is scheduled to move in for the weekend. Max’s leg was improved overall, but a bit gooey again this morning so we dosed him well with Betadine early and several more times during the day.
We got a fire going to heat the water barrel for more cleaning and I started in on tracing more electrical problems while K ran out in the truck to get mail and buy some gas for the generator which she started going as soon a she returned.
There were several electrical anomalies we tried to pin down this morning; An errant current that showed up sporadically in the neutral lines (never could satisfactorily duplicate the problem to trace it), A sporadic current in some of the DC lines (really weird since they were completely disconnected from everything with any power to it. We kept just removing DC wiring wherever we found it and finally the problem stopped), A receptacle and ceiling light we couldn’t find a circuit for (found the problem was in the way a switch was wired and fixed it), and a hard short (hot to ground) which ended up requiring us to un-wire every box in the circuit to find the culprit (a box clamp had been over-tightened, cutting through the hot wire, causing the short) and fix it. K helped greatly assisting in tracing wires and working the continuity tester to identify problems, not to mention going up into the attic to look for problems. Buy the end of the day 5 of the 6 circuits were up and running. We cannot find what the 6th circuit went to, if anything so we capped it off in the breaker panel.
Between helping with all the electric K also did some more heavy cleaning and got several new plumbing faucets installed.
D brought a small truckload of non-burnables to our dump and brought back a load of stuff for the house from the barn.
We set a new toilet in the upper level bathroom (though still no water for it).
11/3/00
It started raining pretty good during the night and we woke up to a cold soggy morning. We were going to install the main gates at the road but decided not to. The clouds were super-low, hugging the top of the mesa and the rain looked like it was around for the whole day. We had left our little job generator outside at the Power House last night. It got pretty wet so I moved it into the Power House to dry.
I called a “Rivered-In day” (even though we didn’t really bother to check if the wash was running or not) so we could do anything we wanted to, not necessarily what we should be doing.
I decided to make a little shed on the North side of the Power House for the generators. Using all salvaged materials from around the property including a couple of 4x4’s for posts, some 2x4’s for framing and a large piece of framed corrugated aluminum for the roof I knocked together a decent 4x8’ shed addition in a couple of hours.
Next it was time to get some water so I got the tractor, loaded up the 55-gallon barrel and took it to the well for re-filling. After starting up the big generator I turned on the valve #4 in the Valve House that supplies the houses and K went to the South House to see how the flow was through our new supply valve and line. She reported great pressure and flow even though the first several 5-gallon buckets were very sludgy. She dumped 30 or so buckets down the toilet until it ran clear enough to use for cleaning, dog water and flushing then saved 3 more buckets worth. This was the first time we had tried running more than a couple of gallons of water down the drains and she said it went through with no hesitation. We have still been unable to find the septic tank but wherever the water went it went well.
After returning the filled 55-gallon barrel to its place by the fire pit I took the tractor back to the well to pick up the big generator and bring it to the Power House. The little generator had worked much of yesterday and barely put any charge on the batteries so we had decided to give them a bigger dose. The Solar guys were supposed to be back today to install the panels but we didn’t really expect them with the weather. Even if they did show and got them installed there would be no sun today to do any charging. The big generator fit nicely in the new shed so we plugged it into the inverter and fired it up. After a bit of fiddling it all ran together smoothly but we were concerned that the inverter panel had been configured to pull power efficiently from the little generator and the big one had so much more to give that it might be being wasteful. We played a bit with the set-up menus on the inverter looking for the way to re-set the amp-input parameters but couldn’t see anything right off that looked right. Matt had done the set-up for the little generator while I was there but he went through the buttons quickly and I guess I didn’t catch it all. Fortunately K had the manuals for the inverter and the ability to read through all of it and find the information we needed. After a couple of tries that bogged down the generator and one that caused it to trip its breaker we got the right setting and watched as the inverter just sucked up the juice. Though we didn’t get the batteries to “float” (where they are fully charged and equalized) we did manage to push a good amount of charging into the batteries today.
My next task was to try and finish the tractor grading around the South House. The rain made it a bit tricky from time to time but the bulk of the job is done. With a good deal of light left in the day I tackled cleaning up the “Garden-Orchard”. This is an about 1-acre rectangular area between the South and North Houses, just East of the Power House. It was almost completely fenced with a mix of horse-, chicken- and barb- wire about 5’ high, enclosing a once-cultivated area including about a dozen now-dead fruit trees. The dead trees went first, piled high for a big bon fire some day in the near future.
The fence, while probably still somewhat functional, was uglier than sin and had to go. The tractor made a huge job simple, scooping it all up into a big bundle (complete with wood posts etc), which we will hoist up onto the burn pile to render down a bit before taking it to the Construction Dump. I got a little grading of the area done and can tell that having it all cleared is going to look great but the light was going fast so I quit, took the tractor back to the barn and put it to bed for the night.
Max’s leg still isn’t healing as much as we’d like to see but it isn’t getting any worse either. 3 treatments a day with a good cleaning and Betadine applications is about all we can do. He seems in good spirits and in less pain (no aspirin last 2 days) and gets around fine, plays, sleeps well etc.
11/4/00
It pretty much rained all night again, but at least all the cloud cover kept the temperatures up a bit. Very soggy and muddy all around when we awoke but no frost or ice to be found. Max’s leg looked great and didn’t even warrant a cleaning or treatment.
We checked the battery power first thing and found it had drawn down way more than we thought it should with so few things going overnight. Don’t know what the story is with that but we gassed up the big generator and set it to run some more.
We got our messages and have more good news about the sale of our house. All the inspections are done and while the buyers asked for a fairly large credit for termite treatment and some repairs we countered back verbally with a smaller amount and they agreed to it. We will head into Show Low today if possible to trade faxes with our realtor in Tucson to finalize it all.
We ran down to the Draw in the truck to check if it was passable and found it muddy but not running. As we were standing there we watched a trickle of water approach, which turned into a small stream as we watched. By the time we left the draw was running on both sides. I guess it must have been raining upstream some place, and while we probably could have still gotten through we decided to do a bit of work and see if it dried up some. The trip back up the road was very tough. That section of road tilts at a pretty good angle into a 4’ deep ditch and, as with most of the dirt in the area it is quite high in clay content which makes it slippery as all get-out. Our attempt to back-up the ¼ mile (there’s really no place to try a turn-around) was fraught with false starts and even with the 4-wheel drive engaged we slid all over the place. It was just like driving on ice, only the truck got a lot messier.
Once we got back onto the property we then headed over to the barn where K concentrated on getting together all the stuff she would need for her impending trip down to Tucson. She would be going, hopefully tomorrow (weather permitting) to do some “big city” shopping and to meet the movers at our old house where they would be loading up most of our remaining possessions for the trip up here and to load up the truck and trailer with the rest.
I worked on the tractor, giving it yet another 10-hour servicing (70-hours!) and installed the “hood guard” (which is actually a grill guard) that the Tucson dealer had forgotten to put on.
We decided to give getting into town a shot and shut the dogs in the RV and headed off. The road to the Draw had not improved with waiting and was as slick as before, but at least we were going forward, which made it a bit easier. The draw was still running pretty much as we had left it but we knew it wasn’t too deep so we plowed through. I love 4WD! Unfortunately our little section of road wasn’t the worst part on the 6+ miles to the main road. As a matter of fact the road was in, by far, the worst we’d seen it. While most of the washes were in decent shape, whole sections of road several hundred feet in length were nothing but 8” deep mud. There were a couple of points where water had flowed across the road and had cut away most of the side leaving just enough solid dirt to barely get a vehicle through. Most exciting but we were both glad to get onto solid blacktop.
We went to Snowflake and did a bit of hardware shopping and made a stop at the P.O., then had lunch. We called our realtor in Tucson to make sure all the faxes had been sent to Show Low, then Confirmed with Bea the realtor in Show Low that she had them and would be there to send some return faxes when we got there. It continued to rain all of this time and though we worried a bit about getting back to the ranch we headed into Show Low. Business went smoothly then we stopped at an auto supply store to get some tie-down rings for the truck then we headed back to Snowflake. We stopped at a grocery store then it was back to the ranch.
It was still raining and suffice it to say the road was no better on the way back in but we made it. We have some pretty serious concerns about whether the mover’s truck will be able to make it in if the weather doesn’t dry out by next Thursday when we expect them to arrive. My guess is that if they see the roads like this the movers won’t even make a try at it.
Upon our return the batteries were fully charged according to the read-out. We’ll see how they last the night.
11/5/00
It was overcast but no rain this morning, and practically none all night. The ground had definitely firmed up and the Draw was not running so K’s trip to Tucson was on. We went over to the Barn to get the trailer attached and pull a few last minute things from there for her trip and got everything ready to go. We then noticed that one of the 4 trailer tires was flat and it looked like it was going to start raining again any minute. We had a compressor with which to inflate the tire at the Barn but no power so we loaded the compressor into the truck and drove the rig back to the RV so we could use the compressor. The tire inflated OK so we decided to proceed with the trip with K checking it and re-inflating periodically, as necessary then she was off. I rode to the draw with her and the 3 black dogs ran along side. Bosco went further, chasing the truck until it was well out of my sight. K said that he went with her as far as the turn onto El Dorado, about 2 more miles.
I walked back to the barn to lock up then on to the house to feed the dogs but I could only find Callebaut and Max. I figured Bosco would be along pretty soon but I didn’t have a clue where Roc was. After calling, whistling and searching I decided that he had probably gotten locked in the Barn so I headed back over there, continuing to call for him. He wasn’t in the Barn and was nowhere to be found. I began to head back to the house again and all of a sudden he and Bosco appeared panting and full of beans like he’d been on some great adventure. We all headed back and they got breakfast while I figured out what I was going to try to accomplish today. I started the big generator to boost the batteries even thought they were at 49.6 Volts which is still acceptable.
K called and said she had gotten out OK and was at a gas station where they had a couple of ideas who might be open on a Sunday morning to look at the tire.
The weather had cleared some though it was still quite cool and it was getting windy. I decided to clean out the wood-room which we might use for the chest freezer when K brings it back from Tucson. I went back to the Barn and got the tractor and positioned the bucket at the window and began filling it with the wood. It went smoothly until after the second load to the burn pile when I got down past the first layer and found that the bulk was all tiny little scraps of lumber. I tried filling 5-gallon buckets and using them to fill the tractor bucket but it was too slow and cumbersome. I decided to move the tractor around to the upper level side door, shovel the wood into a big garbage can, tote it upstairs and fill the tractor that way. It worked well and 6 more trips to the burn pile later (18 garbage cans full) it was done.
I then took lunch, checked the batteries (still not fully charged) then did a little cleaning up around the Power House
The pack rats had made themselves very at-home in the woodpile room (as they had in the rest of the house) and even with the wood gone there was a terrible mess. I began cleaning it by sweeping then soaking everything down with a heavy bleach solution. I left it sit while I began cleaning out the storage room and continued going back and forth scraping, bleaching, mopping, sweeping between the two rooms until the wood room was in good shape and the storage room was ready for final cleaning.
Ready for a change of pace I did some work on the plumbing, capping off a few unnecessary stub-outs, repairing the line to the kitchen sink and getting the laundry area almost ready for the washer.
I spoke with K on the phone. She had made it safely to Tucson and had already done some of the shopping she needed to do. She unmercifully described the nice hot shower she had just gotten out of.
The light was beginning to fade for the day so I quit at the house, did a bit of road grading, and then secured the tractor in the Barn for the night.
The batteries were at “float” again when I got back so I turned off the generator for the day. It began raining again around 7PM.
11/6/00
The rain only lasted for an hour or so last night, and then there were a few drizzles into the morning. By the time I got up it was still muddy and damp but not actively precipitating. The weatherman said that it would be partly sunny today with chances for showers periodically.
Max’s leg is much better. The wound is dry and finally scabbing up well and doesn’t seem to be bothering him at all. I’m saying it’s past the dangerous stage and is going to be fine.
The batteries were a bit discharged so I fired up the generator to give them some juice.
I decided the first project would be to try and build some front steps for the house. I took measurements (it’s about 60” from the ground to the door sill) and did the calculations for run and rise for the treads and risers, made a material list and headed over to the storage yard to see if we had what I needed. It was close but it looked like enough stuff, though some of it was of marginal quality). I loaded the wood and tools onto the tractor and headed back over to the house. The set-up and lay-out for the stringers (the saw-toothed-shaped pieces that support the treads) went smoothly, as did the cutting of the first stringer. As I was getting started on cutting the second stringer it started to rain a little. Since I was working outside with power tools I thought it would be a good time to switch projects so I picked up the tools and headed inside. Before I had a chance to get everything put away, the rain began mixing with wet snow. By 10:30 AM the snow had won out and it snowed the whole rest of the day until about 5 PM. It was really beautiful though we only got a little over an inch accumulation at most.
A light snow
I spoke with the solar guy on the phone. He was still trying to find out when our panel racks would be here and when the new water tank was scheduled to arrive. He is planning to be out tomorrow to install the pressure pump and bladder tank.
While the weather was doing its thing I did inside work. First I thought I’d finish up trimming out the new door we’d installed (twice). We had purchased lumber with which to make extension jams and I measured and cut the three pieces I needed to length and was setting up the table saw to rip them to the proper width when a thought struck me. How were the hinges and latch strike-plates going to work with the extension jams? I took one of the boards and put it in place and tried to operate the door. It wasn’t going to work at all. It seems that the extension jams have to go on the OUTSIDE for an inward-swinging door. That means that if I’m going to make it work I am going to have to remove the whole door AGAIN and re-install it flush to the inside this time, then proceed with the trimming-out. Well, not today in this weather, that’s for sure.
Next I made some adjustments to the shelving in the Storage Room so it could fit some of our bulk-purchased goods. I then spend a good deal of time scrubbing down all the shelves with bleach water and cleaning the floor. It took 4 big mop-pails of bleach water before the floor started to act somewhat clean.
I then did some electrical work installing a new receptacle for our chest freezer in the old wood room, and a receptacle in the kitchen on a new circuit for the refrigerator (the previous occupants apparently had a propane fridge).
Once all the shelving in the Storage Room was dry I moved all of supplies we had, so far, brought up from Tucson into the room.
I then swept and mopped the rest of the lower level (3 more buckets of water!).
I hadn’t seen Callebaut for several hours and I thought maybe she might have gotten stuck in the Barn, I’d last seen her following along when I went for the tractor this morning. I called all the dogs to get biscuits in the house, I checked the RV again and hollered a bunch outside but no Callebaut. It was pretty obvious that the snow was going to keep up for a while and I wouldn’t be doing any more tractoring today so I took it back to the Barn and put it away. Callebaut was nowhere to be found. Max and Bosco had follow me to the Barn so on the way back to the house I kept telling them to “Go find Callebaut” as I hollered and walked. When we got to the place where I had last seen her, the boys were right there so I pointed to the bush where I’d seen her snarfing and again said “Go find Callebaut”. Both young boy dogs looked at me, sniffed around the bush then took off like a shot across the road and up the hill.
Now, to be honest neither of these dogs is a real tracker, though they can do some pretty amazing things with their noses when motivated to. I was not at all convinced that they were either motivated or really on to something at all but they were headed to one of the dogs’ SPECIAL PLACES (a place also from which we had heard one of the dogs yelp in pain, though we never did find out which one or why). I trudged on after them in the thickening snow, watching Bosco, nose-to-the-ground, swerving back-and-forth across whatever trail he was onto. One thing I learned about snow… it sure makes it hard to see the Prickly Pear Cactus (I think that’s why most places where it snows there are no cactus, it’s like a rule).
I stumbled into one right at the start and later I found both dogs had also had run-ins with them (Max had a big sticker stuck right in the middle of his head). Funny, I’d figured they’d be better at avoiding them then I, then again, they seem to run into them enough even when there’s no snow cover for an excuse. Anyway, about half way up the mountain I lost them both. It was a beautiful view from up there but I wasn’t really in the mood. I hadn’t dressed for an arctic expedition, was cold and wet and had had enough. I called out for the guys and from the distance I heard Max “woof”. I looked toward the sound and there they both were way down at the bottom of the hill, standing in the road waiting for me with that “Wasn’t-that-fun-but-let’s-go-home-now” expression on their faces. Fun dogs. By the time I got down the hill they were gone again and I didn’t see them until I approached the South house where they were both waiting at the door. Max was whacking at the door and when I looked… there was Callebaut on the other side just sitting and waiting. So did they follow her trail to find her? Darned if I know, they could have I guess. I gave them all biscuits and told Max and Bosco how good they were anyway. Just in case.
Back to work. Next I set-up a tool/work room in the unfinished room on the lower level, taking the old door we had replaced from the side entrance for a work bench/tabletop and bringing all the tools from around the house and organizing them in the room.
The weather had let up though it was still very wet and mucky out. It was a perfect time to assess the drainage situation around the house perimeter. Most of the grading was pretty good but the rear dirt still needed to be brought down further from the window sills and the North side seemed to accumulate puddles along the foundation wall so there’s more to do there. I spent a little time making a little trench on the North to help drain the water away for the time being, and dug a bit more below the windows on the East to set where I wanted the grade to be for when I got the tractor out to work on it some more. It got dark and I quit for the day.
Spoke with K down in Tucson. She had had a very busy and somewhat frustrating day. The new refrigerator was not where it was supposed to be (Sears couldn’t actually find where it was), the alarm system at the house was messed-up and the weather there was as wet as here, though not as white. She’s still on tract to meet with the movers Wednesday morning she thinks.
11/7/00
At one point last night I’d noticed that it seemed light out. When I looked, the moon and stars were shining bright in a crystal clear sky. That clear sky contributed to it getting very cold last night. This morning the ground was frozen hard and most of yesterday’s snow remained. That crystal clear sky from last night had been replaced again by a familiar gray one but at least there was no precipitation. As I was feeding the dogs the sun actually broke through for a couple of minutes and there were some promising beaks in the clouds to the far west.
The inverter said we were at 49.6 volts which isn’t too bad but since I planned on using some power tools today I started up the generator anyway.
The hope of a clearing day and some warming sunshine prompted me to again get out my tools to work outside on the front stairs. I got just about everything set up and began brushing the ice and snow off of the boards I’d left on the saw horses when DARNED I knocked off one of the pieces of the stringer I had been working on. I had noticed that the board had a crack running the length of it when I’d started but thought it was just on the surface. I kept brushing, thinking I could repair the piece and 3 more big pieces fell off! What’s with this business?? This was not acceptable for the major support piece of the stairs so I scrapped the piece and headed over to the Barn to get another piece of wood (actually I had to cannibalize a shelf to get the piece, oh well). I also picked up some other parts and pieces I needed for some other projects and brought it all back with the tractor. I laid out the stringer again and made the cuts. I then cut and attached the cleat to the house’s concrete blocks with power-driven fasteners and fiddled a bit with fitting the stringers to the cleat.
I noticed that the generator sounded different, like it was not pushing power so I went down to the Power House to check on it. A reset button on the generator had tripped and the inverter was not getting power. I reset the button and went back to work.
I next measured and cut the treads (there are 8 steps up) and again noticed the generator sounding wrong.
The reset had tripped again. Apparently when I am using the circular saw the inverter tries to pull all the power from the generator, tripping the reset when the saw works too hard or bogs down on tough cuts. I’ll have to ask the solar guy about that if they really show up today.
I tried an experiment on the remaining cuts for the support pieces for the stairs. I cut very slowly and didn’t push the saw at all. I made half a dozen cuts that way and the generator never cut out once. The rest of the stair assembly went smoothly. I left space to add risers later if we want and I’ll discuss with K what kind on railing she wants for them.
Just as I was cleaning up the tools and stuff from that project the generator died. It was out of gas and I had used up the last of the 5 gallons we had bought in town. We still had the 55-gallon drum of gas sitting over at the Barn but the new hose for the pump had either not come in yet or they hadn’t bothered to call that it had. Either way I was stuck here on the ranch and needed to get some gas so I went over to the Barn and took the old hose off another pump, mended it as best as I could, assembled the new intake pipe for the pump, mounted the pump on the barrel, attached the old hose and gave it a whirl. It worked fine with no leaks at all. I filled our 5-gallon gas can and headed back over with it to the Power Hose, juiced up the generator and fired it up again.
Next project was doing some miscellaneous weather proofing around the house. Even though I couldn’t finish trimming out the new side door I stuffed insulation around the edges to make it less drafty. I also insulated the old woodstove pipe that goes up through the ceiling of the laundry room and stuffed a bunch more up the chase way where the furnace flue would soon run.
I then worked a bit in the bathroom, getting the lavatory hot water hooked up. I’ve still got a few other final connections to do before we can turn on the water (IF they ever come hook up the pressure pump and bladder tank, which looks doubtful again for today) but I’ll need a few more parts to do them with.
After a late lunch I decided that in spite of the cold I really needed to do some grading work on the roads in preparation for the mover who could be out as early as day after tomorrow. I ran the tractor between the South House and Barn a couple of times but it was already in pretty good shape despite the recent rain and snow. The section between the Barn and the San Carlos Lane (the County road) was OK and though I did some it still needs work in one low section that is holding water and mud. The main thrust of my work was out on San Carlos. The nearly ¼-mile section between our gate and the wash was in terrible shape. The last couple of times we had used it in the rain we nearly slid into the ditch. It was narrow, very sloped and the last half of it doubled as a major run-off drain for the area which kept quickly eroding the minor fixes I had been attempting. I trenched a new channel for the water to follow, instead of the road hopefully, then leveled, widened and smoothed the road. After a few rains (or maybe snow run-offs) I’ll have to check it to see how it’s all working, but it should be good for the movers if they can get in this far.
As I was finishing up the grading work, some time after 3 PM a large snow squall pushed into the valley. It was snowing pretty heavily with wind and it felt even colder. I quit the project, headed back to the Barn to park the tractor for the day then went to the RV for a warm-up cocoa (or two!). The snow began to stick almost right away but tapered off in an hour or so to just flurries.
I did some little things around the RV and spoke to K in Tucson. She had been loading some things in the trailer and had gotten snowed on there too! They have had tons of rain and people are starting to talk about the floods of ’83 again. Her projects have gone well, she located and picked of the fridge and has confirmed the movers will be there tomorrow morning. If they are on time and it takes them as long as they predict she may head back up here tomorrow afternoon, and be here tomorrow night! The movers will plan on delivering Thursday unless we tell them the road is too bad. They will hold the load for a little while (“less than two weeks”) before delivering if we need to, to let things dry out for them.
I noticed as it began getting dark that the clouds were again breaking up and I could see the moon clearly. Another cold night ahead I’m thinking.
11/8/00 K arrives home
K is due home this afternoon! The weather looks good for having the roads dry a bit though they’ll surely be in rough shape still from all the rain and melting snow.
I finished tidying up the house, moving things around so that if the movers actually do show up tomorrow there will hopefully be enough room for everything.
I then spent a good part of the day on the tractor, working on the road some more and working up by the well, preparing the pad for the new water tank, if it ever shows up. I called the solar guys several times and eventually got a hold of them. Matt said he would be out just after lunch, around 1PM to work on the pressure tank and pump. Around 4PM I checked messages and there was one from him at 3PM saying he was running a little late but was on his way.
I spoke with K several times during the day. The movers showed up pretty much on time (around 8AM) but it was taking them longer to load than they had anticipated. She was loading the trailer and truck with all the stuff she couldn’t before because of the bum weather down in Tucson. They had been having tons of rain and even some snow flurries. She said the weather was better. By 3:30 PM the movers were almost done and she was just finishing all the cleaning she was doing behind them and was getting ready to hit the road. She later said that she locked up the house and was out of there before the moving van had even left.
I puttered around doing some hand grading around the perimeter of the house to aid in drainage.
The Solar guys showed up around 5:30 and got a very small start on the pump and tank install before running out of parts and quitting for the day. They would not be back tomorrow because he was headed down to Scottsdale to pick up some supplies, hopefully including our panel racks. He thought he might be back Friday.
After they left I swept the house one more time then quit for the day and waited for K to arrive.
She showed up around 9:30PM with a very full load. There was nothing that needed dealing with tonight (she did have our chest freezer full of food on the trailer, but since the temperatures were in the 20’s there was no rush) we just yakked for a while and went to bed. We called the moving company driver at home to let him know the roads, while rough, were passable and that tomorrow (according to the weather reports) sounded like the best day to come up for the next several.
11/9/00 Our stuff arrives
A lovely clear and crisp morning for a moving day. Looks like the movers will have the driest roads on the way in that we’ve had for a week.
We started off by unloading most of the trailer at the house. Some of it stayed on there to be brought over to the Barn later. We unloaded the freezer of all the food, set up it’s stand, moved the freezer to the room on the lower floor I’d prepared then brought down all the food and re-stocked it. We unloaded lots of the stuff that was supposed to be too heavy for us to economically have the movers truck up here, plus some things they wouldn’t ship (like the propane tank for the BBQ) and some last minute things like cleaning supplies, the lawn mower etc. All the time we kept looking for the movers and trying to listen for the mobile phone for a call from them. K had told them that we could meet them out at the main road and escort them in if they wanted.
With the trailer done we moved the truck up to unload. It was full of the appliances K had purchased in Tucson including a dishwasher, our furnace and new 26 cu. ft., high efficiency refrigerator. We were in the process of wrestling with the big, boxed fridge when K spotted the moving truck.
We met them at the foot of the hill by the South House, gave them a brief tour of the house so they could see where everything was going then got them to help lift the fridge up to the landing by the rear door. They tried to help move it into the house but it was too big to fit through the door. The driver said that they had quite a time with the dirt roads on the way in. He said that they had gotten on El Dorado at about 8:45 but it had taken them until almost 10 AM to get here.
The movers arrive!
While K & I worked on taking the doors off the fridge so we could get it into the house, the movers got their truck into position near the landing and got set up for moving the stuff in. Once we got the door off the fridge fit in just fine. I worked on re-assembling the fridge while K handled all the “Hey Lady…?’s” that came up, directing the movers well. We parked our now-empty truck next to their big truck and had them load it with the things we knew were going to the Barn.
One of the things that they had the toughest time with was our office furniture. Its modular and K had disassembled much of it for them in Tucson but they had still managed to bang up the walls badly, break a window and a light fixture, and mar up the corners of the hutch units moving them out. Here they were just too big to fit down the stairs at all so I further broke them down before they could move them in. Contrary to that, the baby grand piano was pretty easy and straightforward for them to move.
They finished up by early afternoon. The driver had difficulty in contacting his dispatcher before leaving to get a final billing amount. The woman who had come over to price the job had eventually (after we had agreed to take all the books, tools, hardwood, shop stuff and other heavy things) come up with about 5000 lbs for our load. We agreed to pay $1500 to have the stuff moved up. The driver said that the load had weighed in at 8300 lbs. So we would owe more money. “NO, no, no” we said. “We had agreed to a price for moving our stuff, not to a price per pound”. Was it our fault that the estimator had done a lousy job? (She probably OVER-estimated the next fellow; do we think he got a refund?) The driver was unable to get a clear line out so we paid him what we thought we owed and told him to have the office get a hold of us if they had a problem with it.
By the time they left, the house was absolutely crammed full of stuff to the point we really couldn’t move around very well. The rest of the day we spend unpacking and trying to get a couple of paths through the boxes to see what needed to be dealt with.
Time to start unpacking
One of the high points of the day was lunch. K had gone to one of our favorite little Mexican fast food places in Tucson and had brought with her a huge container of their “Super Nachos”. She had had to get them to make it up especially for her with all of the various components (guacamole, sour cream, beans etc) in separate little containers so the whole thing didn’t get too soggy en route. There was something of a language barrier at the restaurant and it took quite a while for her to be able to explain that she had to travel a long way and that everything had to be wrapped individually. Finally the counter person got it and made a note to the kitchen on the packaging and totaled up the order. As K was paying the woman asked her if her order was “…for here or to go?”. K got a good laugh out of that until she realized that the woman was waiting for an answer. At any rate the nachos made the trip in fine shape and they were a most welcomed treat for lunch on this hectic day.
11/10/00
Called the Solar guys. Matt really didn’t think they would be out today. I told him that all our stuff was here and that it would be really nice if we had some running water to go with it. He said he would try to send his assistant (just a kid) over this afternoon to work on the pump. I told him to wait until Monday.
We prepped the RV and took it into town, along with all the dogs, for a bit of an outing. Just as we were getting ready to leave the mobile phone rang and a woman from RPS shipping company called. She asked for directions to the house. When I gave them she said “Oh. Is that past that big rocky hill?” I told her it was. She went into a big story about how she usually has a truck, but “it was out hunting” and all she had was a car with really low clearance and she didn’t think it would make it. I told her we were on our way into Snowflake, would it be easier to meet somewhere? She said she was coming from St. Johns and would meet us at the McDonalds in an hour. I said fine and described our vehicle.
We first headed for the bank to make a deposit and open a safe deposit box. There were too many people waiting there to deal with getting the box so we figured we’d come back sometime later and do that.
We then went over to the McDonalds and got lunch while waiting for the RPS lady. We waited 30 minutes after she said she would be there. When we never saw her we left.
We went across the street and got the RV stocked up with propane (uneventfully this time) and water. We then went to the Ace hardware store and picked up a little list of things for the house projects, and the Napa auto parts store to pick-up the drum pump hose I’d special ordered. While at the Ace the RPS lady called again and said she guessed she’d missed us. I told here we had waited and never saw her. She said “Gosh, were you in that Tioga RV?… I saw that but I thought you said it was a little RV”. She was down in Show Low now and said that it was starting to snow there and she wasn’t sure if she would make it make up this way today. I told her we’d be in town for another hour or so and to call again if she did make it up and we’d try to meet again.
We then went to Farr’s plumbing to get some parts the Ace didn’t have. Farr’s isn’t really a plumbing supply store; it’s a plumbing contractor’s showroom and office. Sometimes if one of the guys is there in the back you can buy supplies from there warehouse. We were fortunate in that one of the guys was there and they actually had everything in stock that we needed. Along with a bunch of venting for the furnace we bought an LP water heater and a few other supplies.
From there we went to a tire shop. Several of the RV tires had been very low, on the verge of flat when we had gone to leave this morning. We inflated them but wanted them checked out. K headed over to the bank again to try to get the safe deposit box while I had them check over the tires. They said that all but one seemed fine and that that one might have a very slow leak. They inflated it and I said I’d keep an eye on it.
I went over to the bank and called the phone company to arrange picking up the cable we needed. We will need to trench and bury about 1 ¼ miles of phone cable before we will be able to have service. The woman I’ve been dealing with said that she would get a hold of the yard supervisor in Snowflake Monday and see if they had enough service wire for me to go get. If not they’d get some to him.
I joined K in the bank and we completed the paper work for the box, put some stuff in it and headed back to the ranch.
After unloading all our goodies we hitched up the trailer to the truck and brought a load of things over to the barn. While we were there a little red van drove up. It was the RPS driver with our little package. After she had left we opened it and found a little refrigerator coil cleaning brush that K had gotten for free when she had ordered an LP conversion kit for our new clothes dryer. What a waste of time and energy to get it to us!
We did a bit more unpacking and organizing the house before quitting for the day.
11/11/00
It snowed during the night, just a dusting and everything looks fresh and clean and new.
This morning I concentrated on developing the laundry room. First I installed the new LP water heater. Though it took a while the installation went smoothly except I couldn’t get the existing 3” double-wall vent pipe to drop down the last few inches in order to get it attached to the heater. Next I did some plumbing for the washer; put on the hose bibs for the hot and cold water supplies, made a trap for the drain line and capped off another waste line nearby. I next worked on the vent line for the LP gas dryer. This entailed making a 4” diameter hole through the concrete block wall to the outside and installing the weatherproof cap, then attaching the metal dryer vent hose. Next came running the electric. I ran 2 new circuits from the panel to the laundry with K’s help. While she was in the attic pulling wires I had her check the water heater vent pipe but she still couldn’t find anything keeping it form coming down to where I needed it. While we were running electric wires we also pulled a circuit to the new water pressure pump the solar guys were supposed to be installing. It’s really supposed to be part of their work but I figured we’d do a better job of it and maybe I can get some consideration for the work. With all the rough utilities run I worked on the actual installation of the clothes washer and dryer. The dryer had a smaller LP gas connection than I’d expected and I didn’t have the right adapter so that part went on a list. The vent hose was difficult to get attached well but finally worked out OK. The washer installation went smoothly.
Aside from helping with my projects all day K assembled a new outdoor space heater she had purchased in Tucson (it’s really neat, all stainless steel) and kept a big burn pile going all day. She spent a good deal of time organizing the store room, unpacking and generally figuring out where to put all our stuff in the house. She made several trips to and from the Barn with loads of things.
In the evening we worked together in the library getting books on the shelves.
11/12/00
It snowed again last night. Not as icy as the previous nights snow, very light and fluffy but the sun looks strong and promises to melt it all quickly again.
After getting the generator going (a regular morning chore, it sure will be nice if we ever really do get solar) we went in the house to start work.
I began by finishing off the water connections to the last few plumbing fixtures I hadn’t completed previously then worked most of the rest of the day on installing the new furnace. First I attached the filter base to the main unit. This went pretty quickly as the parts really matched up like they were supposed to and all I had to do was do some crimping the flanges together. Next I built a base frame for the whole unit. The base will act as the return air plenum and will eventually have a pair of 12”x20” grills for intake. Next I worked on the venting; transitioning from the supplied 3” connector to the 5” double-wall pipe as spec’d. The pieces snapped together well and I pushed them up through the chase way from the old wood stove through the roof. A couple of gentle bends at the end and the venting was almost done. K & I then went up on the roof and put on the gas cap for the furnace and flashed the roof penetration well so it was weather tight. We also were able to find where the water heater vent pipe was stuck, repaired it and got it correctly positioned on the water heater. I next ran the gas line for the furnace from the stub-out I’d left when running the new house lines and made the connections to the furnace.
In between helping me K kept another burn pile going and got all the moving debris (so far) dealt with as well as a big pile of other stuff. She also made another trip to the Barn bringing over some things for storage and returning with some others for use at the house. She then spent some time installing clothing hooks in various locations around the house.
The afternoon was beautiful and warm in the sunshine. The snow had mostly melted from last night (making everything very muddy, of course) and there was little wind today.
While I worked on running an electric circuit for the furnace K worked on digging the hole bigger where we still had to repair the snapped new gas line. Once the hole was deep enough for the pipe cutter I was able to get a nice clean cut on the pipe. We were sure this would fix the problem we’d been having with the pipe-threader cutting double threads. We were wrong. Soon after starting the cut it was clear that it was still cutting double. Next we took the threader to the basement and tried threading a small piece in the vice to see if that helped. It didn’t so we disassembled the cutter head again to see if we could see anything wrong. K caught it right away; one of the cutter blades was in the wrong position. Some how along the way in all the fussing and cleaning and playing with all the cutter parts we’d been doing since the threading problems had started I’d managed to put it back together wrong. We cleaned it all up and put it back together (the right way) and cut another test piece of pipe. It worked beautifully. Back out to the hole and we were finally able to re-thread the broken pipe, get it reassembled to the rest and re-bury it where it belongs. Good to be done with that stupid project.
K continued to work on organizing, getting the bedroom in great shape and unpacking all the stereo equipment while I finished running the electric and thermostat wires from the panel to the furnace.
11/13/00
Spoke with the solar guy early and reminded him to bring out the ground bus I needed for the South house sub panel and the new 50-amp plug for the generator so that we can more efficiently get power to the inverter (using a 15 amp one now), and to tell him not to bother getting the small list of plumbing parts I’d ask him to bring Friday (since he didn’t come Friday we’d gotten them ourselves when we went to town). He said fine, he’d bring them when he came a little later in the day. He later called and said that the racks for the solar panels had come in to Scottsdale Friday and that the distributor there had shipped them right out to him. They should be here this afternoon or tomorrow. He was going to wait for their arrival then come over to finish everything up all at once. We’ll see.
K went into town, did some P.O. business, some materials shopping and brought home sandwiches for lunch. I puttered around finishing unpacking the office boxes and organizing that room, then unpacking more books in the library.
In the afternoon I finished unpacking and organizing the kitchen while K removed a mirror from the upstairs bathroom and replaced it with the medicine cabinet from the Barn’s bathroom. She also hung a smoke detector downstairs and did more organizing. I assembled most of our stereo and home-theater equipment and we got to play some tunes with some good speakers for the first time in a while. This evening we even watched a DVD on the big screen TV.
Spoke by phone to a guy from Farr’s Electric who is going to come out in the next few days to discuss the ducting for the furnace. We will be getting a bid to have them do the complete installation but if we can’t fit it into the budget we will use their plan, buy the materials from them and do the install ourselves.
The house is really shaping up and is going to be just fine for however long we will need to stay in it while we do major work on the other house. If we ever get all the utilities working, especially running water and heat it will be a great deal more comfortable.
We are definitely loving it out here. The privacy and the quiet (which having the solar panels up and working will greatly enhance) are terrific. We just love the views from here at just about any time of day, in just about any direction. The dogs are all becoming real good ranch dogs too and we will often look out and see them (especially the three black dogs) way out there, a quarter of a mile away or more, romping across the meadow or cavorting across a hilltop or scampering along the mesa, obviously having a wonderful time. It’s a really great place here.
Had a call from the LP gas company reminding us that they would be out about 9 AM tomorrow morning to set our new tank and transfer gas from one of the two big old tanks we have over by the Trailer Park (The BOMBS).
Tonight we watched the near-full moon rise over the mesa and it was quite a sight. The bright light from it (plenty bright to see well outside even with no other lights around) spread across the dark valley floor, starting at the far side to the West and pushing toward us, finally engulfing us.
The generator has been getting more difficult to start in the mornings so I thought I’d start it up tonight and run it for a little while, maybe make it easier to start tomorrow but it almost didn’t start at all. When it finally did we decided to let it run until it ran out of gas to give the batteries a bit of a boost for tomorrow in case the generator wouldn’t start then. This morning in checking the oil in it I found that the kind I was using (the type that came with it) was only supposed to be used above 32°F and it’s been quite a bit colder than that mornings here. I don’t know if that’s the problem or not but I had K buy some cold weather oil today and I’ll plan on changing it out tomorrow.
11/14/00 We get gas!
We all wandered over to the Barn first thing this morning to bring back a few things we had put out there for storage and to get the tractor. I brought the tractor back to the South house and dug a pit for dumping the RV tanks.
Got a hold of the solar guy Matt. He said that the panel racks had not shown up yesterday so they should be here today between 12:30 and 1PM and they would come right over and start installing as soon as they did.
At about 8:45 the LP gas guy showed up. I went with him back to the Trailer Park where the two old LP tanks (the Bombs) were. He checked them out and said they were in OK shape and that we could just use them if we wanted, or talk to his boss who would probably buy them from us. One tank was a 291 gallon one from 1946, which was 70% full. The other was a 193 gallon one from about the same time with about 60% still in it according to the gauge. His task was to transfer the gas out of the two tanks into the “new” (1970) company owned one he had brought. He had a neat little pumping machine mounted on a lawnmower chassis that forces air into one tank which pushes the LP into another tank. Unfortunately these two tanks were not equipped with the proper type of valve to be able to use it so he had to resort to gravity-feeding from one tank to the other. This entailed setting the new tank on the ground, lifting the old tank on end up in the air with his truck-mounted crane, attaching some hoses and letting the stuff just flow. The pumper is supposed to be pretty quick but the gravity method most definitely is not.
Transferring the propane
Once the cumbersome set-up was done it still took about an hour and a half to transfer the LP from the first tank. That filled the new tank about 40% and since he was there doing it and they are allowed to fill the tanks to 80% I got him to fill the rest from the other tank which took another hour leaving just 20% (about 60 gallons) remaining in one of the old tanks.
As we were finishing up with the old tanks a Citizen Communication truck pulled up. Citizen’s is the telephone company for the area. The guy in the truck said that they had sent him out to see why we though we needed to get 7000 feet of cable from them. I explained how we were planning to run the wire but he didn’t have a map with him and got a bit confused so I had him follow the gas guy and I back to the house. While the gas guy was setting the tank I took the phone guy to the office and showed him the map of the property, pointed out the three structures we wanted to get phone to showed him the route I had chosen, and explained why I had picked that particular path for the trenching. He hemmed and hawed and scratched his head. Finally I asked him what the problem was and he said “Well, you could run 7000 feet of cable if you want but with that length of run you probably wouldn’t hear anything for all your trouble.” Apparently runs of the type of cable we were looking at are limited to about 6000 feet max. More than that and they have to boost the power or something to make the signal clear. Why nobody had mentioned any of this before is the big question. Anyway he left, having taken down the parcel numbers to go back to the office and see if they needed to do some kind of extension before we could do our line tie-in. He hoped to have an answer by the end of the week.
As the phone guy left the gas guy finished setting the filled new tank in place. He proceeded to pressure test the whole system, which passed with flying colors (of course) than tied the tank into our piping. The only appliance up and running so far is the stove and he worked a bit on getting all the pilots to light (but they finally did but, boy did it stink), had me sign some paperwork then he was done and gone by noon. There was no charge to us for any of the work and by our calculations the transfer of gas saved us about $240 from having to buy that much to put into the tank.
We fired up the oven on high to hopefully help burn off the nasty smell from it. Despite K’s vigorous cleanings of it I guess some packrat nest fragments remained and lighting the oven brought out some of the most noxious smells I’ve had the displeasure of running across in a long time. Whatever was heating up in there affected me like tear gas. I cranked up the oven temperature to 550° and opened all the windows on that side of the house and ran outside.
While I was doing all the fussing with the LP gas and phone guys K had started a couple of burn piles and had been busy with the tractor bringing loads of burnables to the piles. By the time I was done she had a good blaze going on the pile of dead trees we had cleared from the garden area and had just about finished with another burn pile.
While the kitchen aired out I brought the RV over to my prepared pit and dumped the tanks. As nasty as that smell is I’d take it any day over burning packrat remnants. There was plenty of room in the hole so we tossed in a bunch of non-burnable stuff before covering the pit.
After a late lunch I called Matt again. The UPS delivery had not showed up on time and he was trying to track the shipment. Later he said that he had found out that the regular driver was out today and the substitute driver had not been able to find his house. The racks were still on the truck and Matt was going to meet the driver at one of his last stops at around 5PM to get them. They would then be here around 8AM tomorrow to install them. We surely do hope so.
Next I loaded up the generator onto the tractor and took it over to the Barn to change the oil, which went smoothly, hopefully this will help it’s recent morning starting problems. I then gassed it up at the drum pump, filled our 5-gallon gas can and filled the tractor with diesel (the end of our first 55 gallon drum of diesel fuel for the tractor).
I then took the generator up to the well and ran the pump for a while, filling the tanks a little (up to the point where they started leaking real badly) and allowing K, who was at the South house, to fill some 5-gallon buckets there. While the water was pumping I gave the tractor a good bath then K joined me and she helped scrape off some the amazingly stubborn dried mud from various parts, especially around the loader joints.
After finishing at the well I brought the generator back to the Power House and fired it up to give the batteries a nice drink of juice.
The rest of the afternoon until it got dark I spent working with the tractor, bringing some loads of wood to the burn pile, digging up some partially buried old concrete footings near the Power House and preparing a pit in which we intend to bury one of the Junker cars currently on the property. K spent the remainder of the afternoon giving the RV a major cleaning, even vacuuming the carpets, dog bed and sofa. Man it looks really great.
Today ended up being a beautiful one, weather-wise. The sun was out strong most of the day and the wind mild except for a few gusty times. Almost all of the snow is gone from the ground now except for some patches under trees or in other shaded spots that never get sunshine. There was an absolutely magnificent red and orange sunset tonight.
11/15/00 Solar panels are up.
Today we buried a car. One of the three junker cars on the property was an old, partially cannibalized station wagon that sat a couple of hundred feet from the front door to the South house. This eyesore which obviously hadn’t been road worthy in many, many years and which was filled almost to the window sills with packrat nests was in plain sight every time we came home or looked out a front window. Today we put it to rest in it’s own grave.
Burring an old car
Using the tractor I began a pit next to the car yesterday. I finished it this morning then prepared the car for burial by busting out the windows and trying (unsuccessfully) to smash down the roof. I spun the car around by hooking the tractor on the bumper so it would fit best in the hole but during the process inadvertently knocked one of the loose fenders into the pit. As K climbed into the pit to retrieve it so the car would fit better I saw Bosco fly off the edge into the 6-foot deep hole then watched K jump back, then begin to laugh as Max joined Bosco in the pit. I got off the tractor in time to see both dogs diving at the fender. K said that they were after a packrat that she had just seen jumping way up into the air, trying to escape them. Within a few seconds they had flushed it out again and it was pretty much all over for poor Mr. Packrat except for the sport. The two dogs took turns grabbing it and tossing it way up into the air. To his credit the rat got in a few good bites on them as well. Soon the other two dogs noticed the commotion and joined in the fray. I think Max ended up with the prize in the end but they all certainly had a fine time during the chase. Anyway, I eventually flipped the car into the pit onto it’s roof (using the tractor, of course), tamped on it for a while, threw in a few more miscellaneous vehicle parts that were laying around the area then covered it all over with dirt. It’s buried pretty well, but we’ll try to remember not to plant a tree or start a garden there.
The solar guy’s helper Brandon showed up around 10:30 with (miracle of miracles) the racks for the solar panels. He worked the rest of the day on assembling and erecting them and attaching the panels. When he left they were all up and looking very official, though completely non-functional as he had not done the wiring to connect them to the inverter. He thought they would be back tomorrow. Probably. I called Matt who (after listening to some strongly expressed concerns from me) said that yes, they would both be out tomorrow and promised to 1) have the panels fully functional, 2) have running water to the house, and 3) have the correct plug on the generator so we can properly use it to charge the battery bank when necessary. We continue to hope, but are not holding our breaths (although under the circumstances and considering the present hygiene situation, breath holding isn’t such a bad idea from time to time). Sponge-and-bucket baths have been an OK necessity but the appeal of an actual hot running water shower is (understandably I think) indescribably strong after six very busy weeks.
It turned out to be an absolutely magnificent day with full, bright, warm sunshine and very nice temperatures, probably in the mid-50’s. Though we did have some inside projects we had planned on knocking off we opted to play outside all day. I spent much of the day on the tractor smoothing and grading the area we had cleared where the garden used to be with K ‘s help in making and consolidating piles for the Dump Pit. She also kept the burn pile fed all day.
In the afternoon we worked the area around the Chicken Coop (West of the North House), which had loads and loads of widely scattered rubbish everywhere we could see. We made another good-sized burn pile and numerous small bury piles and generally just neatened up, cleaned the section and did a bunch of raking-out. We didn’t completely finish the job but got a good way along. Maybe tomorrow will be another nice day and we’ll have a good excuse for working outside again.
The UPS man delivered a package from my sister in FL marked “Extremely Urgent”, “Overnight, Next-Day Delivery”. It had actually taken 2 days to get here but the contents (a care package including home-made cookies) were fortunately in fine shape.
11/16/00 - running water in the house today!
First thing this morning we used the backhoe on the tractor to grab a big pile of wire fencing and drag it to the Construction Dump. We had made the pile previously, using the tractor to roll up the perimeter fencing from around the garden area when we had cleaned that area.
We then loaded the nearly empty 55-gallon drums of diesel and gas into the truck and K headed into Show Low for re-fills with stops at a plumbing supply house, Farr’s electric, a couple of hardware stores and the grocery. She also stopped and picked up a late lunch, getting back around 2 PM.
While she was gone I did a normal 10-hour maintenance on the tractor (it’s 90th hour). While checking the mounting bolts for the loader I found that several were a bit loose and one was very loose. I had just tightened them at the last maintenance and can’t account for their loosening so quickly. K picked up another wrench to keep out at the Barn and I will begin checking them daily. If the trouble persists I’ll contact John Deere for suggestions. One of the rear tires looks a little low; I sure hope I don’t have a leak there.
A short while after K left, the two solar guys showed up. Brandon started right in on the panels, working on the wiring. I discussed the remaining projects with Matt and expressed my anxiousness to be done with them. He said that he was really a guy short but didn’t think he had enough work down the road to hire another on. He said he paid $8/hour or maybe $10 for somebody with his own truck and tools. I told him I’d work on this project for him if it would help free him up and get our work done more efficiently. He seemed OK with that. We spoke at length about the installation of the new water tank for up at the well and went up there so he could describe exactly what he was going to do and I ask him if he wanted me to do it. He said that would be good. I got a material list together and called K to add it to her lists for pick up today. Matt and I then went down to the house. His supplier had given him the wrong electrical boxes to use for the Trimetric monitor (the remote inverter read-out to be mounted in the house) so I grabbed a couple of the right ones I had, ganged them together and set them in the wall, bringing the wire into the box. I also topped out the receptacle for the pressure pump I had run the other day then left him to do the installation of the pump and pressure tank, and to put in the ground buss in the electric sub-panel.
When the pump was ready I loaded the generator onto the tractor, took it up to the Well and pumped water until it began to really leak from the various holes in the tanks there. When I returned to the house he was ready to run a test.
Water pressure pump installed
He adjusted the tank from the factory pre-set hi-low cut-offs of 40 psi and 20 psi to settings of 50 and 30 based on his experience with what most people like. I double-checked that all the valves for the fixtures were off and we fired up the pump. It cycled fine and we ran a good deal of water into the lower level bathtub. Even with the in-line filter the water was really nasty looking with a great deal of silt, muck and sediment. I’m hoping that it is just stuff being flushed from the lines in the house after the filter. [Note: Months later we found out that when they installed the filter unit they never actually put the filter in it!] I noticed one small drip right away in the office ceiling from a repaired joint but decided it could wait while I checked everywhere else. No apparent major leaks anywhere to be found. I then turned on the water to the water heater. There were a couple of minor drips from the flex line connectors which tightened down fine and again no major problems from the hot side either. I lit the water heater then began going around fixture by fixture and valve by valve checking the connections and flow at each one in the house. Only two incidents of consequence; first, the cold water in the upper level bathtub had almost no flow and second, there was no water at all (hot or cold) from the kitchen sink. I eventually got the kitchen sink to work by disassembling the faucet (twice), cleaning out the gunk that had clogged both lines, flushing it for several minutes and then re-assembling it. At some point I noticed that there was a small amount of water accumulating around the base of the new pressure tank down in the storeroom and called Matt (who had just left for another job) to ask him about it. He said he would have to send Brandon out for a part for it (Brandon was also missing some electrical parts he needed to go out for). I later discovered a small leak in the supply pipe to the water heater, which is located directly above the pressure tank so the water may have been coming from that. I will have to fix it, dry everything and check it out again.
At about this time K arrived home from her travels, we ate a late lunch then she jumped right into the bathroom for a hot shower. Actually it was too hot because as she showered the cold-water problem got worse and worse until eventually there was nothing but a trickle of cold to all the hot water. When she was done I checked the shut-off valve behind the tub, replaced the cold water supply line to the tub then finally disassembled the cold faucet to find it almost completely clogged with grit and rust particles. After a thorough cleaning then re-assembly the cold worked great and I was able to take a much needed shower myself.
We had managed to use quite a bit of water and without any way to know just how much the tanks were able to retain with all those leaks, and not wanting to run the pressure pump dry so we headed back to the Well with the generator and pumped more water. K dropped off the plumbing parts for the tank installation up there too.
We then went over to the Barn where, with the aid of the tractor, unloaded the two, filled 55-gallon drums of fuel and re-installed the hand pumps in the barrels.
We then headed back to the house, stopping at the Well for the generator (where we noticed numerous lovely icicles hanging up to 2’ from the water tank leaks there being very pretty in a twisted sort of way).
The generator got fired up again at the Power House to work on charging the battery bank. Brandon was back from his supply run and was almost done with the panel wiring, unfortunately the sun was fading fast and we would not be able to generate any power from the panels today.
I returned the tractor to the Barn for the night and when I got back Brandon was working on the plug for the generator. It was the wrong configuration so he had to put the 15-amp one back on for the night. He said he’ll be back tomorrow first thing to check to make sure the panels were working correctly and would try to bring the right one then.
Got a message from the guy from Farr’s who will be looking at doing the furnace ducting. He is planning on being here tomorrow morning around 9AM. I called and left a message that that would be fine.
Never did get those little leaks dealt with today so they’ll have to be a priority when we get started in the morning before things get too soggy.
Tonight we will sleep in the South house for the first time ever and in our own bed for the first time in a long while.
11/17/00 sun power at last!
It was quite cool in the house last night but we both slept well under the electric blanket. The thermometer read 48° in the hallway when we got up but that’s still a lot warmer than outside where it was probably in the teens. Once we have more than body heat to warm the house with I think it will stay pretty comfortable. The windows in the bedroom were covered with the most beautiful ice patterns I’ve seen.
Ice pattern on the bedroom window
This morning we watched with great anticipation as the sun came over the mesa and hit our solar panels. Their placement seemed very good and they caught the first rays available (no shadowing at all) as soon as it was above the ridge. Once in full sun, about 8 AM, with much excitement we went down to the powerhouse to see how many amps the panels were producing. To our disappointment the wires from the panels were not even connected to the inverter.
Matt and Brandon, the solar guys showed up about an hour later and after a little work had us sucking up those rays for real to feed the batteries. At first they were producing about 8.5 amps but later in the day when the sun was pointed directly at them we saw 18.2 amps being produced. We checked again just before sundown and they were at 1.5 amps. We didn’t run the generator at all today (it felt very decadent) and we’ll see what kind of shape the batteries are in tomorrow morning. The solar guys also put on the correct new plug for the generator and adjusted the inverter so we can now send about twice as much power to the batteries from it when we need to.
John, the guy from Farr’s showed up around 9:30 AM and we spend about an hour with him discussing options for ducting the furnace. He had several good ideas and took many notes and made drawings to take back to the shop to price out for us. He hopes to get back with a price on Monday though even if we contract with them right away they wouldn’t be able to start until a week after Thanksgiving. He checked out my installation of the furnace, return air, electric, gas and venting and said that if things got really cold we could fire it up as is without any ducting with no problem (obviously it wouldn’t heat the place very evenly but it should keep things from freezing).
The rest of the morning we puttered around. I baked some cookies and some cornbread and we had lunch before really getting down to work on anything.
After lunch I hung my cherry wood clothes racks in the bedroom then, with K’s help, we tackled fixing the only two small plumbing leaks we had been able to find since getting the water turned on yesterday. They were both in kind-of tough spots (of course) but I think we got them fixed right. While we were waiting to turn the water back on I fussed a bit, finishing the electrical connections to the furnace and putting a collar sleeve on the vent pipe at the ceiling penetration point. K worked on organizing the workroom.
We then worked together on the laundry, finishing the dryer venting connections, hooking up the gas line and adapting the dryer for LP gas from natural gas. That was quite a process and apparently not intended to be an end-user project though we were able to follow the directions precisely and the installation went smoothly. We also reversed the swing on the dryer door to make it more convenient to use. It fired up perfectly when we tested it.
The rest of the afternoon I spent taking measurements and making plans for adding a dishwasher cabinet at the end of the counter in the kitchen and for a microwave cabinet directly above the dishwasher. K made plans for her imminent trip to KC for Thanksgiving.
At about 9:30 PM the batteries read 50.2 amps so we should be fine for the night.
11/18/00
Started off working on the cabinets for the dishwasher and microwave oven. I rough cut all the pieces outside from a 4x8 sheet of birch plywood but the wind made it really too cold to do much more out there. We brought all the pieces down to the workroom where I finished the cutting, edging and gluing the sub-assemblies. These cabinets are surely not fine furniture but they will do.
After lunch K sanded and spray-poly-ed all the parts while I worked on running the water supply and drain lines for the dishwasher and the electric for both it and the microwave. When I was done with that I was going to install the cabinets but the finish still wasn’t dry. Guess we’re not in Tucson anymore, that’s for sure. Instead I replaced all the drain plumbing under the kitchen sink so that we would be able to tie in the dishwasher drain correctly.
Another day without running the generator in spite of my having run the circular saw and small table saw a lot this morning.
11/19/00
We started off the day by running a load of laundry, our first with the new appliances and hook-ups. Fixed a couple of minor drips we noticed and kept a good ear out to the pressure pump. We were concerned that we might run out of water in the line at any minute since the old broken tanks we are still using hold so little water. We are not supposed to run the pump dry. We had taken several showers, and had several days of normal water usage, dish washing, toilet flushes etc. since filling them last. After the first load we decided to re-fill the tanks before doing any others. We walked to the Barn, got the tractor and brought it back to the Power House to get the generator, then brought it up to the Well and began pumping. While we waited for it to fill we discussed the plan for piping the new water tank and did a couple of other this-and-that’s. K headed back to the house to get another load of clothes going.
After filling the tank I went back to the house and we noticed that it smelled good because of the laundry drying, but kind-of gassy too. I checked behind the dryer and found that the vent hose had come off again so we had to pull out both appliances to get in and fix it. K had noticed that the water flow seemed to have slowed a lot to the washer so I checked the little in-line screen filters on the supply hoses and sure enough they were almost completely clogged. The house lines must be really full of muck and every time we do anything on the plumbing it seems to knock more and more loose. Not only that, but we’ve noticed that the water gets very yellow and cloudy right after we refill the tanks, even with the whole-house filter we have installed. We think that the act of adding water to those old, rusty tanks, coupled with the fact that the way they are set-up doesn’t allow for any sediment space, stirs up a lot of stuff that makes its way to our sinks. At least it tastes and smells OK. [Note: Months later we found out that the guys who installed the filter unit never actually put a filter in it!] While back working on the machines I found another small drip in a supply line and fixed that as well.
Though we had planned to finish the kitchen cabinet additions and install the dishwasher and microwave today the weather was too beautiful for indoor work. After lunch we headed out to burn some trash and ended up working out there for hours, cleaning up the old burn pile and raking up the area.
We then went down to where we had buried the old car and finished cleaning up and raking out that whole area. It really looks much better and once we can encourage the native grasses to fill back in it will look great.
It was so lovely out we decided to take a little hike. We headed up the mesa on the piece of property directly behind the houses that we are pursuing buying. Nothing new from the realtor about it since she said that the owner seemed interested in selling but she hadn’t pinned him down on specifics. Anyway we headed up a wash toward an interesting sandstone ledge we had noticed from the houses with the idea to look for some petrified wood. We had found a few pieces around our property (plus a huge chunk of tree trunk that is still sitting down near the Power House) and as K was off to Kansas for Thanksgiving day after tomorrow, she thought her family might appreciate some nice little pieces. Soon after we started up K found a good-sized piece but didn’t want to lug it all the way up the hill and back so we left it in a conspicuous place along the way to come back for. The hike was great with all kinds of interesting rocks along the way, even a few more small petrified pieces. By the time we had climbed up the sandstone ledge we had a fantastic view of the whole valley and much of our property. What a wonderful place this is! We climbed a bit further then angled to come down around the ledge from the other side. There we came across a wealth more of petrified wood pieces from small bits to softball-sized pieces. We collected some of the ones that really caught our eyes. I also found a nicely marked little Indian pottery shard. By the time we began to head down seriously, we both had more to carry than was probably wise, considering the terrain however we made it safely down none-the-less and home again just as the sun was setting across the valley.
After poking the fire a bit and checking the batteries (only 50.4 amps, one of the lowest numbers we have gone into a night with so far) we went inside to work on the kitchen. First we installed the cabinet sections for the dishwasher.
I then wired the machine with the cord K had gotten for it and slid it into position under the counter. It fit well and it looked like we had all the necessary connectors in the right places. Next I attached the drain hose and the copper water supply line to the machine. With those connected we were able to slide a little extra up the other way into the cabinet under the sink with which to make the other connections. We had to do some re-plumbing of the hot water under the sink in order to get the new valve for the dishwasher put in where it needed to be but we had all the parts and it went smoothly. One more check of all the connections and we were ready to open some valves and check it all out. After turning back on the water main to the house we attempted to flush the lines before running water to the new appliance by running the kitchen faucet. It clogged almost immediately and required complete disassembly (again) to clean the gunk out of all the o-rings and gaskets before we could get it to flow properly. Finally we were able to send water to the dishwasher, check for leaks (none) and send it through a few cycles to see if everything was working correctly (it was). Considering the low-power situation, we opted to not run a full cycle or load of dishes tonight so we left the final reassembly of all the under-cabinet parts and toe space panels until after we did to make a last check of all connections possible tomorrow.
11/20/00
Even before the sun hit the panels this morning we still had 48.8 amps on the batteries so as soon as they began charging we ran our first load in the dishwasher. K had picked out one with a water-miser setting and the ability to air-dry the dishes (no-heat setting), both which we took advantage of. Everything worked fine with no leaks so I can button up things whenever I get around to it.
I called the phone company engineer who had been out to the property last week to see what information or solutions he had come up with regarding getting us the cable we needed for the phone. He said that he needed to get up to Holbrook to research the property and see if there were any easements. When I asked him why he said that we were not permitted to run cable across any easements and if there were any they (the phone company) would have to run it to that point. I told him that we had all the paper work from the title company from purchasing the place and that it did have some stuff about easements in it. I told him I was going to be in Show Low (where his office is) tomorrow (to see K off at the airport) and would it make sense for me to just bring them by, make copies, and save him the trip. He said it might be worth it. He gets in the office very early so I’m planning to see him just after dropping K off. He didn’t say anything about time frame for the work or who had to pay for it if they are required to run the cable instead of us. It is very frustrating to have started this process well before we purchased the property and to have gotten so many differing and contrary stories along the way. Maybe I can get some straight answers tomorrow.
Next we decided to go do some work up at the Well in preparation for being able to set the new water tank when it arrives. According to Matt now, they were waiting on a part to finish it up and he was expecting it delivered early this week. I used the Backhoe on the tractor to dig a 30” deep trench from near where the well head is (there is a large concrete pad around the area so I couldn’t get closer than about 8’) around to where the tank is to be set with a side trench off to where we were planning to connect into the existing pipe manifold in the Valve House. K assisted by digging by hand in the places I couldn’t get to. The trenching went very well and we fortunately didn’t even hit one of the eight 2” water lines coming out of he Valve House. A little excitement came when some of the melting icicles fell from the tanks above us with a smash and really surprised us. We then worked on running the new 2” pipe in the trench and through into the Valve House, and over to the Tank location. Matt had assembled a “swing joint” which is a series of galvanized 90° street-bends designed to flex a bit with the changing weight of the tank depending on whether it was full or empty. We installed this joint at the tank end of the run. I then went inside the Valve House to run a bit more pipe and K worked on filling the trench, first by hand around the pipe, then with the tractor.
Trenching and plumbing work for new water tank
I was working along gluing a couple of joints when something went very wrong. First the Valve House shook a bit, then one side completely lifted about 8” from its foundation and abruptly dropped back down again. The motion rocked the whole place (which is really just an 8’ x 10’ plywood shed with a dirt floor that drops down to about 30” below grade). It moved everything inside enough to crack one of the main pipes coming down from the two big water tanks mounted about 20’ above. Within seconds I was drenched and as I scrambled to get to the door and out I became completely saturated with the very cold water. When I emerged it was immediately obvious what had happened. K had had a bit of a boo-boo with tractor and while working it in a very tight and difficult spot with the loader, had slipped up and accidentally nudged the little building. Later she said it must have been a subliminal goof because she had just been thinking about how it was her least favorite structure on the property. I called it a “hydraulically enhanced Freudian slip”. There was no real damage to the building but we were going to have to do a bit more plumbing than we had planned. We made a parts list and used the incident as an opportunity to go into town for lunch and to get a bunch of other things on lists as well.
While out, besides getting a lot of project supplies we also stopped in at Farr Plumbing to check on the estimate for the ducting work to the furnace. John was there and he had just finished up the calculations which came to a whopping $2500. This was $1000 more than what we had though we could justify spending for the project. We discussed some other options, including replacing some of the rigid ducting he had spec’d with flex and having us do more of the labor. He said he would work the numbers some more and get back to us by tomorrow.
After getting back to the ranch we worked on making repairs to the pipes at he Valve House, which went pretty well.
While I finished that up and re-filled the tanks so we would have water again tonight K went back to the house and began working on prepping the RV for winter storage. She drained the water tank and removed all perishables as well as some other things we might want in the house. By the time I got there it was pretty much ready. I drained the water heater and the gray water tank and helped run the special anti-freeze through the pipes and that was about that.
John from Farr Plumbing called. He had re-worked the numbers for our estimate and figured that they could sell us the materials needed as we had refigured them, having us do all the installation for about $1300. Ouch, but at least it was in our budget. He said he would do a couple of drawings to help with the installation and could show us how it all was supposed to go together. After talking it over we decided we could handle the work and called him to order the materials. Some of it could be in tomorrow by noon but the sheet metal work (which they do in-house) would take several days to get done.
The rest of the evening we spent getting K ready for her trip tomorrow. It’s an early flight and between having to get there 30 minutes before the flight, and the fact that it takes over an hour to get to the airport, we will be getting up around 4AM to make sure to get there on time. That still beats, by a mile and a half, having to get her to Phoenix for a flight.
11/21/00 K goes to Kansas
Got up at 4AM, right on time and were out of here at 4:30 and on our way to the Show Low airport. K’s flight was at 6:20 but we got there at about 20 to 6. The airport is quite small but very nice.
K and I were the only ones in the building I think until just before 6 when a lady from Sunrise Air (the only commercial service at the field) showed up. She checked K’s stuff and asked her how much she weighed today so they could balance the plane correctly. The pilots came in a few minutes later as did the two other passengers for the flight to Phoenix. They boarded the 9-seat, twin-engine prop plane at about 6:15 and immediately took off. K said the flight was great because as they flew West she got to see a constant sunrise the whole way.
I left the terminal and went to the Show Low Citizen’s Phone Company building, a new and modern structure, where I was to meet Michael the engineer who had come out to the property. I got there just about 6:30 and rang the employee door buzzer as I had been instructed. A man answered the door but when I asked if Michael was in yet he said he didn’t know but I could head back and look for him then took off. So there we were, just me and the cleaning lady, with me wandering around peeking into each of the 40 or so cubicles. I actually found him pretty quickly, considering. We went into a conference room and I showed him all of the information from the title company regarding easements on the property. Even though he couldn’t find exactly the description he was looking for he found a couple of references to utility easements and in his experience, all of the properties in the area have them. One document was particularly confusing where it spent a paragraph talking about several interior easements then went on to say that there were no interior easements. The next step would be to show all the info to his direct boss and see if they needed to get a lawyer’s interpretation or not. Michael made copies of all the documents and said that by bringing them in I had saved him ½ a day in Holbrook researching records. He would still have to go up there for another thing or two the boss (who was on vacation for this week) would want upon his return. The upshot, according to Michael, of all of this was that with the easements in place we would not be permitted to do any trenching on or across an easement. That means that they would be required to bring the phone line all the way adjacent to the 40-acre parcel that the houses are on. This would leave us with about ¼ mile to trench. As for the costs he said that the $2.50-$4.00 per foot we were quoted was their cost for running the cable but we only had to pay 1/25th of that cost. In other words about $100 per ¼ mile would be charged to us. He also said that the first ¼ mile was 100% their cost. Worst case scenario he said we could give them an easement to run the line, though I don’t really know why we’d want to do that. Another point he made was that with the current “line extension charge” prorate costs running through 12/12/00 (the thing that would make it cost $3500 PLUS running the cable) they couldn’t legally start any work on it at all, including getting permits or scheduling until after that date which will likely push back our best-case hopes to get service until after mid-January. We left it that I would give him a call in a week or so to see how (if) things were progressing, or he would call with any news.
I wanted to head to the Wal-Mart Super Store to do a bit of shopping but it was too early so I stopped at “Burg ‘n Brew” for a cup of coffee and some biscuits and gravy. When it was time I went to the store, got my glasses repaired and some new lenses ordered for another pair of frames I had and got some shopping done. I then headed back towards Snowflake.
I stopped at three well drillers looking for a small piece of 2” galvanized pipe I needed to finish the water tank prep but nobody had what I needed, though everybody was really nice and helped me look through their junk piles.
Stopped next at Farr’s to see if any of the furnace ducting parts were in yet. John wasn’t there but he had already prepared the invoice and had gotten a large pile of things ready for me to pick up. There were just 6 or so pieces still on order plus the sheet metal parts they would be making in-house. I paid them, loaded up the truck and headed back to the ranch.
Furnace ducting parts ready to install
Upon returning I found the dogs bouncing off the walls, but no major damage done. We all unloaded the truck together then went out to finish winterizing the RV water system. I dumped in 3 gallons more of the anti-freeze that I had just purchased into the water tank and ran the hot water until it came out then shut everything up tight.
The dogs were all still exceptionally antsy so we all went on a long walk around on the property. I found a couple more really nice pieces of petrified wood and the dogs eventually got pretty pooped.
I spend the rest of the afternoon raking and cleaning the area just South of the South House where we had been discussing putting in the drive and parking area for that house. The dogs helped a lot too.
11/22/00
Spent most of today on the tractor although there was a good amount of hand work too. I did quite a bit of work around the well area, re-grading and finalizing the area for the new water tank. I brought 5 loaders full of gravel over from the Trailer Park pile to be spread for the base when the time comes and finished filling in the new pipe trenches where I could. I spoke with Matt the solar guy who said the tank was supposed to be in this afternoon. He was heading out of town for the holiday but would be back Friday afternoon and would come out then and start working on it.
I also did a bunch of work around the South House, grading the new driveway area, trimming trees, moving piles of materials, and generally cleaning and raking up.
I fired up the burn pile again and dumped a bunch of stuff on there to cook down. One note of serious import: I broke the iron rake today. It just wore out and the iron head cracked then snapped. It was my favorite rake and I was tempted to run into town to replace it but I controlled my impulse.
To finish up the day I worked at the Construction Dump. After bringing a load of stuff there and dumping it I worked in the pit with the tractor and deepened the next section, readying it for more junk then spent some time up top filling in the first section with dirt. It looks like it’s going to cover well and pretty much totally disappear completely when we’re ready for it to.
11/23/00 Thanksgiving!
I totally goofed off today and didn’t do a single solitary thing of consequence around the place. The dogs and I took a couple of really nice walks up and around the mesa and we discovered several more good sites for petrified wood and Indian pottery shard hunting. Spent the rest of the day eating a Jennie-O pregurgitated turkey loaf (that I wouldn’t recommend to anyone else), Pepperidge Farm stuffing (that I will recommend to everyone), mashed potatoes, fake turkey gravy and cranberry sauce. Quite possibly the second worst Thanksgiving meal I’ve eaten but it was easy to make for this poor old temporary bachelor.
11/24/00
Well rested, I got off to an early start and got a ton of stuff done today.
I started off finishing the kitchen cabinet projects by replacing the toe-kick boards I’d had to remove to do the plumbing for the dishwasher and attaching the bottom trim panels to the machine itself. Next I installed the microwave oven’s shelf unit and put the oven in it’s new place. I then went downstairs and replaced the sheetrock on the ceiling in the storeroom where we’d had to remove it to do some plumbing and electric work and neatened up the storeroom form the construction mess. We’ll soon be messing with the ceiling and cutting into the sheetrock again to install the furnace ducting but probably not in exactly the same areas.
The day was warming up nicely out and most of the frost had melted by the time I finished those tasks so I decided to take on a few outdoor jobs. I loaded up the truck with tools, swung by the Barn for more things then proceeded out to the end of the driveway to install the new gates for the property. We’d set the posts weeks ago and had bought the gates at Home Depot at about the same time but had either been too busy with other, more immediate tasks or the weather had been uncooperative to finish up the project. Even though it probably would have been smarter (and certainly it would have been easier) to wait until K’s return and do it together I felt like getting it done so I did it. The gates went in fine after some fussing and I even was able to hand pull the adjacent barbwires over to the new posts and attach them. They’ll have to be stretched properly at some point, but they’ll hold for a while. There’s still a bit of grading work to be done at the gates so they freely swing 100% correctly and some raking and smoothing to make it all look nice-nice.
After lunch the weather had turned even nicer and it was finally warm enough to take on a couple of other good nice-day projects like installing new exterior doors. I started by pulling out the old front door, an ugly solid core particleboard thing with no glass. K had brought back a new pre-hung front door from her trip to Tucson, a 12-lite steel door and some really nice hardware for it. After re-securing the rough framing members to the concrete block with power-driven fasteners the new door went in pretty quickly and well. After shimming and securing it in place I worked on building the extension jams for the exterior, then trimming out the interior. I then installed the new knob and lockset but apparently the package had been bought, opened and returned as was evidenced by the box being taped together. As I reached the end of the installation I found I was short two important screws but had close matches in our hardware kit. I thought I’d been pretty lucky just missing the screws until I realized that there had been no keys in the box for the lock either! This will cause a minor inconvenience (since we hardly ever lock the doors except when we leave the property or at night) and we had been planning on eventually getting that lock keyed the same as the other exterior door anyway. [I later learned that K had already had the lock re-keyed to our other door when she was in Tucson and our other key would have worked all along!]
Once that door was all done with the exception of the exterior trim, which we need to decide on, I took on re-hanging (for the third time) the back door. I had run into trouble hanging it the first time weeks ago and had had to remove it and start from scratch. A while later when I had gone to make the extension jams for it I had realized that the jams wouldn’t work on the inside and that the whole door would have to be removed AGAIN and re-installed so that the jams wou