Recent projects

As I mentioned in the last post, now that spring has sprung, I have been getting back into the puttering mode. The following are a few of the recent projects.

Built a stand for the cool bell that Jill's folks gave us. While scrounging some wood for that project (as well as the gate project) from our neighbors Gene and Karen's yard, we saw a buffalo skull lying near the scrap wood. Being the shy folks we are we asked Gene if we could have it :)

I finally got around to making a wood rack. The top drawer that holds the newspaper was left over from some of the weird stuff I found when I bought Bonnybank. The rest is scrap wood from other projects. Once the wood-stove season is over, I will haul it out and paint it dark green so it matches the breadboard behind it.

Cut the sidewall out of the big old tire Laurel let us have for a raised bed planter. It actually wasn't quite as bad of a chore as I thought it was going to be. I also cut a piece of chicken wire to keep the larger burrowing rodents out. Pretty soon I will get around to filling it with earth. Not sure yet what I am going to plant in it.

I hauled rocks to build a little erosion barricade around the base of the "man shed". I'm not sure if I will fill in with smaller rocks or not. I was afraid if we have really heavy rains during the monsoon season, it might undercut the skids.

Last winter when the mud was so bad, we had a couple of sawhorses blocking our drive to keep it from getting so chewed up by the folks who don't seem to mind driving over soft mud and destroying other people's driveways. Anyway, I went ahead and built a little gate to take the place of the sawhorses. It stays open most of the time, but we can swing it closed in inclement weather.

I built a sandbag barrier around the base of the pump house, partly for erosion control, and partly for insulation. I filled the bags with the loose gravel that the local red ants were so kind to pile up all over out here. I never thought I would be saying "thank you" to the local ant population.

In honor of my brother Austin's visit, we actually did some spring cleaning. I went old school (since we no longer own a household vacuum cleaner) and hung up the few rugs we own and whacked them with a stick. So much fun.

Austin gave me a hand and we spent about 3.5 hours putting together our swanky new chicken coop.

I have been keeping busy, not too many hours a day, but steady. I still laugh when I think of the people who used to ask (on hearing that I planned to retire) "what are you going to do all day?!"

Spring has sprung

As Jill so correctly pointed out the other day, it has been a long time since I have lived in a place where the vernal equinox actually seems to herald spring. I am pleased to say that here at Mariposa, spring has sprung.

On March 22nd, we saw the first lizard of spring. A number of the bird species which were gone for the winter have returned. And of course, porch setting has become a regular pastime again.

In addition to sitting around, we have started taking longer morning walks; 1-2 hours on average. I have also started to get back into the swing of morning chores, with such activities as cutting firewood and hauling rocks to put around the base of the man shed.

We are looking forward to the arrival of the chicken coop I ordered, so that we can start having fun with chickens.

I would have to say, life is good.

New Toys

When Mike Gray from Beehive came out in December to finish up some solar stuff, he brought a cool little portable battery kit with him. He said he brought it to work sites in case he needed auxiliary power. He had designed it for an emergency preparedness seminar that he had given, but felt like he would like to build another one with a larger inverter. The kit consists of two 55 amp/hour AGM batteries, a charge controller, an inverter, and a trickle charger (in case the sun doesn't shine). All wired and fused in a heavy duty rolling case.

I had been thinking about a second solar system to run the heat lamp in the pump house during the winter, and to run a fan, or light, or battery chargers in the man shed during the summer, so I offered to buy it from him. He had only brought one panel with him, but promised to deliver the second panel as soon as possible. Last Wednesday he dropped off the second panel. In the mean time, I had built a rolling rack for the panels, with angle adjustment for the different seasons.

Now that it is all hooked up, I am quite pleased with how it is working.

During our last monthly trip to Gallup, I picked up a large drop-side wagon. It has a 1200 pound capacity, and should be better than our little lawn cart or the wheel barrow for hauling firewood, rocks, and gardening stuff.

On a rare (for  me) impulse buy, I bought a Black and Decker cordless drill. It is a 20v unit with a lithium battery. It probably isn't as robust as a Makita or Ryobi, but it cost about half as much. I used it to install the carrying handles on Jill's tray and it seemed to work very well. I am psyched about not having to drag out the 100 foot extension cord quite as often :)

Garden fence

In preparation for the spring planting, I put up a fence to hopefully keep the deer, elk, and cattle out of our garden.

16 T posts, and 100 feet of 5 foot high hog wire.

I picked a level spot below the pump house, so it wasn't too bad of a chore. Fortunately Dad had given me a fence driver before we moved out, it has really come in handy.

The old truck tire is a gift from our neighbor Laurel up the road. After I have cut out the side walls, it will be used as a raised bed planter.

Free firewood and a battery powered chainsaw.

When we moved out here, one of my goals was to use fossil fuels as little as possible. One of the things I wanted to try was a battery powered chainsaw. The use of Li-Ion batteries these days has made battery powered tools a much more reasonable proposition, but I had my doubts whether a chainsaw would pass muster.

After reading reviews, I decided to try a Greenworks 40v saw with a 16" blade. I bought one extra battery to go with the saw, for a total of 2.

I have been very pleased with the rig. In general I will head out onto the property with the saw and a wheel barrow. I get about 2 hours of work from a battery, which is pretty much all I want to do anyway. I put up about a cord of wood before winter started getting serious, and I figure I will put up a couple more before next winter. I have focused on the juniper, which seems to burn much cleaner than the pinon.

Christmas 2014

Better late than never. Our Christmas was quiet and wonderful. Jill put out our few remaining decorations, and I fried up some chicken on the woodstove using the same simple recipe my grandmother used to use. Life is good.

6 months at Mariposa and hello 2015

I haven't posted any threads lately since the batteries are lowest first thing in the morning when my bonus bandwidth is available. This one will be brief and will have no pictures.

We are still alive and loving it here. The winter routine is even more laid back than the summer routine :) We have been reading a lot, and keeping on top of such chores as still need doing.

We have really only needed to run the generator for any length of time on 2 occasions. The first was when we accidentally left a hot plate running all night, which took the batteries down to 50 percent. The second was a cold, snowy day that kept the solar panels covered. Even on those occasions, the generator was only used for a few hours.

The house is quite toasty with our little wood stove, we are generally much more comfortable than we were during the winter in Maine. I still prefer to use the outhouse, and I have taken to showering in the shed.

We currently have about 6 inches of snow on the ground, but if the forecast holds true, I expect much of that will soon be gone.

Look for more threads in the future as the days get longer.