Three degrees Fahrenheit may be normal for some areas of the country at this time of year, but my good friend Andrea has been living in the Big Bend for a decade and she says she has never before seen single-digit temperatures.
We didn't waste time during the cold though -- we made good progress enclosing the bathroom. The photo above was taken from the roof looking into the bathroom, right before we affixed the last panel of OSB. Just one more panel to go and we can open the doorway between the bathroom and the rest of the house. Once that space is available, we can move most of the interior items in there and finish off the main space. I can't wait to have sheetrock walls I can paint and hang shelves!
One of our other major projects this week was a Simple Pump installation in Alpine. Simple Pump isn't a description, it's the brand name. In fact, it was quite complicated and not really simple at all.
The pumps are very interesting and have a lot of advantages, to be sure. They are -- in essence -- hand pumps designed in the old style with a pump cylinder and a sucker rod. This installation dropped the pump cylinder about 60 feet down, and then pumped water through what is called a "pitless adapter" by means of a 12VDC motor.
The original Simple Pump doesn't have a pitless adapter or an electric motor to run the pump. And when at the end of the day the pump didn't produce water, we immediately suspected one of these features as the culprit. What we discovered when we removed the pump head and well cover was that the pitless adapter came detached. The problem is that the pitless adapter was not installed deep enough into the well casing.
In truth a pitless adapter is not really recommended for our latitude. Up north, the pitless adapter allows the water to exit the well and pump below the frost line, so the water will not freeze in winter temperatures.
The Simple Pump company will probably send us parts to remedy the problem, but until then the installation will focus on the solar power side.
We also spent some time at our neighbor Robert Beauchamp's garage. Casey helped him diagnose some electrical problems on his tow truck and I helped however I could, but I spent an awful lot of time playing with Beechie's dogs.
Beechie has the only garage on the Ranch and we are very lucky to have him and his wife Nola as neighbors. Someday we would like to have our own modest garage with a lift, but until then it is a pleasure to work with Beechie for shop time.
One neighbor we don't like at all is the electric line that runs down Lake Ament road. It's more like a nextdoor nightmare in my opinion, but I am a little biased. The Rio Grande Electric Co-op is installing new poles and lines in our area, but they also seem to be "upgrading" the lines. We have gone from having three lines per pole to eight, and you can hear the EMF in the radio when you drive under the wires.
Just to really make me sour on the subject, the power company has also installed a super-bright street lamp at the corner of Lake Ament road and Terlingua Ranch road. I guess they are trying to prevent theft (tons of their supplies for working on the lines are sitting at that corner, waiting to be used) but the light is really obnoxious.
I guess if you love paying through the nose for unreliable electricity, then this is good news. For the rest of us, it's just another eyesore and health risk.
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