Seriously, I have been to ski slopes with less snow on them

Update:

The birds are all OK, a little frosty and bedraggled, though. We boiled some sugar-water to thaw the drinkers, which they appreciated.

Driving was surreal, but we had plenty of traction in Big Red, which has two new tires and 4WD. The visibility is almost nil, so I'm hoping that folks aren't driving around today.

We're really glad we drained the water system yesterday, because everything could have frozen. Temperature is still below freezing, but thankfully the breeze is pretty calm.

Ski Terlingua

You really could 'Ski Terlingua' today! At least, in our neck of the desert you can.  We got over five inches of gorgeous powder last night. This is the most snow we have ever seen out here, and it is amazing.  Naia is loving it, and Wrinkles won't go anywhere near it.

And we turned our satellite telephone off to conserve power, by the way. You'll be able to call us when the sun comes back out (which looks like tomorrow)!

We opted to spend the night at Cafe Colando yesterday evening, and it is a good thing, too. Having a house on stilts is great most of the time, but when there is bad winter weather those stairs are deadly! Now we are headed over there  in the 4WD pickup to check on the birds. I'm sure the Buttercups are miserable, but the Brahmas are probably fine. They are hardy in all sorts of conditions, whereas the Buttercups prefer mild weather.

Will report their status soon. Over and out.   ;)

Snow Day

Can't even see the Christmas Mountains today.

A very gray day here in Terlingua, with thick snow clouds weighing heavily around us.  It is always exciting to get snow in the desert, since it only happens once or twice each year. If the sun comes out, the snow will not melt, but sublimate, meaning it skips the liquid phase and go straight to water vapor because of the incredible dryness of the desert.

But there is no sign of the sun and little hope it will show itself at all today (check out our local forecast here).  Bad news for photovoltaics, but if we are conservative with our power, our battery reserves can last for days.

When we began studying photovoltaics back in New York, the standard was to design the systems with enough reserve to supply at least a week of power with no input.  This means everything has to be oversized, not just the battery bank but the array size that pumps in the juice, and therefore all the components that handle the current as well.  This is one of the main reasons that solar power is so much more expensive in cold, cloudy New York State.

2008 NREL insolation map of US

Here in the American Southwest, we get some of the strongest insolation in the nation, and very few cloudy days.  This allows us to size systems smaller, usually preparing for a maximum of three days without sun. But sometimes, even here in the Chihuahuan Desert, we exceed our reserves and have to have a backup plan.  So once in a blue moon, we have to run a generator to keep our batteries charged. It is so important to keep the batteries above 50% charged, or else we risk damaging the batteries, which are the most expensive and weakest link in the system.

In the future, we hope to use a renewable fuel like biodiesel or woodgas to power the generator.  But right now we don't have a diesel genny, and the woodgas apparatus is too big and cumbersome to run alongside our house on the hill (moreover, the desert sun has really taken a toll on the plastic components!).

But so far, so good. We haven't used all our power yet, and we plan on being very careful with what we have got until the sun comes back out.

Diggy, diggy

In & Out arrived right on time, dropping off the mini-excavator yesterday morning, and we wasted no time putting the digger to work.

The only downside to all this hard work is that we have to take attention away from finishing up the second SunStation, which is due to be delivered in a few days.

After spending all day digging and scraping and leveling, et cetera, a storm moved in early in the evening.  

What seemed like just a small and isolated rainstorm ended up dropping a half inch of rain as it moved in and out of the area, and then back again? It was very confusing, listening to the storm, because a strong burst would hit, then taper off and end.  Then half an hour later, the rains came back.  And the lightning never went away.  There was a fantastic light show for hours, long into the night.

But even though there was plenty of rainfall around the mountain, our neighbor Dan got hardly any precipitation at his home which is nestled into the Northwest side of the West Corazón Peak. The weather here can behave in ways you wouldn't imagine.  

There seems like there is a chance of more rain in the forecast, which would make this the wettest October we've ever had if it comes to fruition. No doubt that will make hunting season even more active this year.

Wet Stuff

That funny, wet stuff has been falling from the sky quite a bit lately.  We took the photo above Saturday morning, after it rained all night Friday.  Then it rained slow and steady on Saturday night, and we got another light shower this afternoon. Three days in a row of precipitation feels mighty nice.

But it also means the bug population is exploding. Whenever it rains, the termites bubble up from the ground and fly into the air, like some weird, effervescent entomological eruption. But lately we're nearing plague-like proportions.

 And also coming out to eat all these tasty morsels are the arachnids and other bug-hunters.

The chickens are doing their part to eat as many bugs as they can catch.

And the kittens have become such good hunters that they can snatch them right out of the air most of the time.

The prolonged rain should lead to another flower bloom, also.  The lechugillas are the most recent plants to bloom in our area, and I think they can be underrated.  Some people don't realize they bloom at all, but they actually have a very pretty display if you catch the show in time and get up close to the action.

Lechugillas are agaves, and their flowers are similar to those of the century plant.  But unlike the century plant which blooms only once, right before it dies, lechugilla agaves bloom every year.

The rain also shows off how well camouflaged Wrinkles is in her desert environs.  Her red leopard pattern mimics the dappled color of our wet, volcanic sand perfectly.

Rain & Pizza

Quite an exciting day yesterday. We ran around the ranch doing automotive repair, then came home and hosted a small pizza party for our friends and neighbors.

Suffered a loss, though, as my camera crashed onto the rock floor and bit the dust. We'll probably send it to Canon for repair, if possible. But that means that there are no photos of our friends eating pizza, and no photos of the big rain storm that crashed the party.

It was a good, strong storm, but since our rain gauge bit it in the hailstorm, we did not get a measurement of rainfall.  Enough to start the creeks running and flood the road in spots.  The storm also brought the temperature plummeting, so everyone was freezing cold in tank tops and shorts.

We've had a few sprinkles this past week, but it was nice to finally get hit with a full rainstorm.  Everything is greening up and new growth is everywhere!

Last photo before she bit the dust.

Glazing

We had a diesel generator to work on yesterday, and it's pretty rare that there's something about an IC engine we're surprised by.  But I have to say, a fuel filter clogged with flies was definitely a first.  Luckily it was a pretty simple fix.

Afterwards we started making more permanent repairs to the Cafe Colando.

 

Replacing the windows is a great opportunity to get rid of her eyesore front-end. Not to mention that the new glazing will be much more energy efficient.

We moved the cactus garden to where the lettuce garden used to be.  They're not as tasty as the prevous residents, but more hail-tolerant (they were getting too much sun on the east side, anyway).

Folks say some cacti are like "dry whiskey," in that you'll be feeling tipsy if you eat one, but we'd rather stick with traditional whiskey.

This Mothera of a lepidopteran dropped by the Cafe at lunchtime yesterday. Pretty friendly guy/gal; he/she loved being handled.

Torrential Hail Storm

We had a really vicious storm hit us Friday night. It came on so fast even we 'clever' humans got caught in it.  Beautiful, towering clouds circled us all afternoon ... then in rolled a big dust storm.  The dust storm was a warning, one that we didn't heed, as what kicked up all that dust turned out to be quarter-sized hail.

The hail hit our immediate area incredibly hard.  Along with the two inches of rain, there must have been at least two inches of hail that pelted everything to smithereens.  All the foliage was knocked off the plants.  Immediately around our house, we lost about 80-90% of all the vegetation.

The rain and hail caused a massive flash flood, the worst we have ever seen since we first arrived here 3 years ago.  The flooding washed so much soil and vegetation away.  Lake Ament Road is impassible without a truck or SUV.  The road to Gigabytes Cabin 2.0 is completely impassable, as a deep rock gully has opened up across the road.  So that project is on hold for a while...

I'm sure there were a lot of critters killed in the sudden storm.  The dogs found two flattened mice bodies.  Almost as flat as paper.

The hail broke all the east windows in the Cafe Colando. It also killed much of the gardens, including Sprocket's agave.

After all is said and done, we pulled through just fine.  None of our animals were hurt, and only some minor damage was incurred on a couple of buildings.  The roads are very bad, though, and we have a lot of clean up to do.

Temporarily stranded.

We expect to hear the frogs soon!

Hidden Lake overflows through this waterfall.

Feels like we've been moving mountains for days now.

Several panes of glass were shattered by the horizontal hail.

Guess it's time to buy a new rain gauge!

All grass and vegetation is washed away.

Bobcat rode out the storm and flood at the bottom of the creek.

She ended up pulling herself out of the creek pretty easily.

Snow Day

Cold as Ice

We are experiencing a pretty bad cold snap right now, a little earlier than anticipated.  The weather has been almost totally unreliable for forecasts extending beyond five minutes from now.  But where once they said 'slight chance of rain' and 'snow north of I-20', now NOAA predicts freezing rain, and ice where clouds touch ground.  

But alas, it's snowing!  

Just flurries, but certainly no ice storms, or freeing rain/drizzle, or sleet.  The flurries seem to be mainly occuring inside the clouds.  That is, the heavy clouds that have been lingering overhead for the past couple of days now are sinking closer to the ground (as they tend to do at night) and as we drove up over the tops of hills and into the clouds, we would find ourselves inside a swirling tantrum of flakes.  Then, descending down the other side, they would dissipate. 

But as the clouds continue to sink lower and encapsulate our homestead, I am hopeful we may have a dusting of snow tomorrow morning.  Casey's mom Kathie departs for Florida tomorrow, and while she may not have gotten to experience a bed-wetting thunderstorm, perhaps she may hit the road with the surreal images of a snowy desert fresh in her mind's eye.

In other news, my beautiful sister recently underwent spinal surgery to relieve strain on a strangled nerve within a herniated disc.  Despite the initial postoperative agony, she seems to be recovering very well, and is actually in less pain than before the surgery.  I am dedicating this post to her and hope that our wel-wishes help her along the path to recovery.  We love you, Sis!

I hope all of our readers are enjoying a healthy and happy holiday season as well, and please keep warm and safe, everyone!

Send in the Clouds...

This is great weather for the day after a big concrete pour!  

New Camera!

We finally picked out a new camera -- a camcorder actually.  We can soon say goodbye to wind noise! Now, if only we could keep the dog from barking....

It's a Canon, and should drastically improve our video quality.  Plus the higher frames per second will show things like the wind turbine movement better.

When we get back out to Texas, we are going to tape a lot more of the day-to-day work (and play!) We are hoping to get it soon enough that we can use it for the hydro videos, but if not we'll publish them with the old camera. 

We are getting just a little behind schedule thanks to the cold and rainy weather!