Just thought we should give everyone a brief update on what we've been up to lately. Casey has been hard at work, wearing his mechanic hat. We took an Ohioan SUV over to Beechie's to replace a whipped wheel bearing. We hope this old girl has a good trip back north!
We also took a little time to help Dennis and Debbie with their Kia Sportage, which ate its timing belt several weeks ago. We had thought that it was an interference engine, meaning the valves would all be junk, but it turned out it's not! Dennis picked a good vehicle, and soon we'll pop a new timing belt on and she'll be as good as gold.
While we still haven't seen a single drop of rain since September, we were blessed recently with a low hanging cloud. We awoke one morning to the unmistakable scent of damp desert (an amazing, heavenly smell that should be bottled and put in laundry detergent).
The cloud lingered for a few hours that morning, then dissipated as the sun got higher. The plants seemed grateful, but not every location was as lucky to have a dewy morning. The vegetation is all extremely thirsty and the roads are tuning to dust and blowing away. We need rain!
We also went back to Alpine to work on the Simple Pump installation. This time we were working on the solar/electrical side of the installation, and everything went very smoothly. Soon we will make a fourth trip to the site and retrofit the pump to an above-ground discharge. We're looking forward to checking this job off the to-do list!
The deep freeze we got last month is still wreaking havoc with residents, and we got to see one tenacious amateur plumber's attempt to fix his water system. I predict that soon spray foam will replace duct tape as the glue that holds our world together.
On our way home from our trip to Alpine, we were very upset to spot a wildfire burning on Cienega Mountain, just south of the checkpoint. We took several photos, but most came out blurry and useless. The one above barely captures the ring of fire spreading through the grasslands, but it's the best we've got. According to
Marfa Public Radio, over 8,000 acres were burned in the fire.
Back at the home-front, our hens were hard at work laying some gigantic eggs. The egg on the left represents the average size of our eggs laid by the Brahmas. On the right, one of the giants we got with a large clutch of eggs one morning. One of the giant eggs turned out to have a double yolk, and the others were just big 'uns.
We got a call this past Monday morning that a palette of solar panels we had ordered for a customer was going to arrive in Alpine (even though the shipping address we gave was Terlingua) in just a few hours. We had been expecting the delivery to arrive on Tuesday, so Casey had to put his pickup truck rack project into overdrive. It was
mostly done by the time he left....
And I butchered the last of my meat birds yesterday. Casey once again was too squeamish to help. Sheesh.
The battery box we were building for one of our customers turned out pretty good, though it took us longer to construct than expected.
It was finished just in time for the panels to be delivered! The panels are now resting from their journey, safe inside the small building.
Thanks for reading and have a beautiful day!
Why does a head of lettuce from the grocery store cost $3 when fast food restaurants can sell you a burger, fries, and apple pie for the same price?
Lettuce goes from farms to the store. Not too much in between.
Fast food goes from farmers, to factory processing, to trucks and trains, to franchise locations where they are assembled and served up to hungry customers.
How can that possibly be cheaper, with the factories, equipment, fuel, and about a gazillion employees in between?
Well, we're getting more clouds all of a sudden, including the one photographed above. It looked like rain, but the sky was just teasing us!
And chickens always seem to find the oddest places to roost. I guess a leaf spring is as good as anything else...
We are much closer to finishing our off-grid RV job. The panels are mounted, the batteries are on site, and all the parts are in. All that's left for us is the installation of the charge controller and inverter, and wiring everything together. Those panels are a beautiful sight as you ride down Ranch Road!
We even got to spend a little time on our own projects, like hauling gravel from the stream for concrete.
The gravel pile is getting bigger! Soon we'll be ready to pour the shed floor, and after that the rest of the structure should go together quite fast.
We didn't get stuck in the creek bed when we were hauling gravel, but ...
We did manage to get the red truck buried up to it's axles in the sand behind our house. Completely unloaded, too!
It took several tries with the white truck to pull it out. 
And when Casey lowered the air pressure in the tires, some rocks got stuck in the bead of the tire.
At times, it seemed like we were going to end up with two stuck trucks, but thankfully everything ended well. Took some life off the tires though, that's for sure!
