Tires a tiring scenario

Our truck has never had the right tires on it since we have been here and I have completely eaten through two sets on these dirt roads. For the third set I thought I would try something different than a car tire, I needed a light truck tire, but since I have 14" wheels that is not an option. So I needed 15" wheels and tires and after a lot of research and money I ordered tires and wheels through the mail.

I had everything on hand last Friday and proceeded to mount the tires on the wheels Saturday.  Getting them mounted was easy, but getting them seated/inflated on the bead was impossible with a small air compressor. As far as I could see it, I had two options: give up and bring it to a shop on Monday; or use the last-resort, ether-explosion method.

Being a DIYer I chose the explosive technique but I couldn't make that work either.  Phil discovered that the technique seemed to work best if the tire was vertical, sitting on the tread. So we attempted to mount all four tires that way, with ether and a spark. 

It worked!

The tire upgrade is working out fantastically, and I have been all over the Ranch this past week running service calls. Our automotive repair business has been busy, and I always love figuring out the correct diagnosis and how to fix things.

It also seems to be solar power season!  We completed an install this week and have 3 or 4 more coming up. 

Well that's it for now -- I will add some photos soon but until then I am getting some Zs.   

Terlingua Time: a Local Phenomenon

It's hard to imagine that a week has gone by already, but there you have it.  All in all, we're pretty busy these days, but sadly not on our own projects right now.  To make up for it, we try to keep our project list interesting, and enjoy every accomplishment.

Monday night we had a rare night out and took advantage of the Monday burger BOGO at the Starlight.  Good food and music, but $4 for a margarita is too much.

Thursday was Casey's birthday and the community potluck.  Turnout was fair to middling, but as always the food and company was great.

Leaving the Bad Rabbit Cafe, we stopped to watch a thunderstorm dumping rain on the Chisos Mountains, the heart of the Big Bend National Park.  The Chisos often create their own weather patterns, and are home to a huge variety of plants and animals.

Though we didn't get much rain from the storms, we did get a double rainbow in the evening and another big one the next morning.  Too bad our little mountain house isn't quite as lovely as the rest of the scenery.

Saturday evening I spotted a blacktail rattler crossing Lake Ament road and stopped to watch it for a while.  It was a perfect photo-op, but I didn't have my camera on me, so the photo below is from Wikipedia

Blacktail rattlesnakes are not endangered, but they are less common out here than the western diamondbacks.  The one I spotted was very greenish, which is why I stopped, thinking it might be a mojave (aka "emerald death") which are out here but in limited numbers.  Besides their green color, mojaves are known for having a seriously bad attitude, even chasing people and cars.

But the blacktail was pretty mellow (as far as rattlers go, at least) and they are pretty snakes with bold patterned skin and stripes across their eyes.

Saturday was also my sister's birthday, so I snapped some pictures of her birthday sunset:

It was an exceptionally beautiful sky, with pink and purple clouds blanketing the horizon.  Happy birthday Liz!

Today we are working on adobe.  Messy stuff, but very rewarding.

Hair of the Dog

We came home Friday evening to find that Sprocket had a large, red, swollen bump on his hind leg.  Fang marks are obvious, as you can see in the picture below, but the perpetrator is still a mystery to us. punctures are spaced just a half centimeter apart, so it was small - whatever it was.  Possibly a small snake or a tarantula?

Any one have any clues as to what this bite is from?

Thanks,
Sara

Wild as the West Texas wind

The wild West Texas wind rolled in today.  Haven't heard of any damage from it yet, but it sure seemed to wake up a lot of South County.  But given the way the day started today, we thought we should finish with it too.

We finally got our PhilMax blades up and spinning this evening, and so far they seem to be doing great.  They seem to love the erratic gusts of wind we've been getting today, and spin up to charging speed quickly.
 
The wildlife out here is getting active.  We've seen lots of javelina, mule deer, and other critters out along the roadways over the past few days (though still not the primate who left his bag of feed; see previous post).  The local quails had two clutches this summer, and the babies are like tiny copies of their parents running around.

Our animal is doing well too.  Sprocket is back at his post as guard hound and loving it, though sometimes he barks too much at night.

A chicken got et while we were away, so we're down to nine.  They're getting pretty hefty though.  Finishing the coop has been on the back burner lately, but I wan't to get some work done on it this weekend. 

I will take lots of pictures for the next post.

Lately

We
drove and ate road food for 2 1/2 days.  On the second day we stayed with
our good friends Sandy and Charlie in Midland. We made sure we got the
maximum payload out of our small car: I packed a tabletop drill press, a
12 volt cooling fan, a reciprocating saw and many other tools (pretty
much the remainder that had been left up North). Sara also got to bring
some of her stuff as well.

In
energy news, the fossil fuel industry has had a year full of disaster
and negligence. The Massy Energy mine explosion,demonstrated that to
some, production value outweighs safety and lives. With BP the cost of
redundancy was just too much, so instead it cost lives and tainted our
waters. Maybe BP should focus more on their solar panels -- on second
thought, maybe not. We all need to be more serious about the research
and application of alternative energies, and this is a commitment Sara
and I take very seriously.

On my way to the Ranch Lodge, I ran into this interesting sight along the road:

The
bag says "Primate Feed," and behind the bag are about 80 jars of peanut
butter. Next to that, a jug of wine and (out of the photo) ten 2x4s.
Obviously there is someone with interesting plans ---  your guess is as
good as mine!  

Only in Terlingua.

Travel

In our short time up north we manged to have a gathering of friends and family, most are excited about are new home and some don't quite get it. As far as far west Texas goes, you really need to go there to fully understand. We will be on the road tomorrow headed back and really can't wait to get back to our little off the grid home. I have both solar and automotive related customers waiting and Sara has here job at the ranch to get back to as well. Many new and existing allenergies.net projects are coming we promise.
Well if you see a red suzuki aerio with an allenergies.net bumper striker, give us a wave.

Set in Stone

Its been busy here. We poured our bathroom floor/ foundation yesterday in about 3 hours of hard work. Of course the preparation took up a bit of our spare time over the past few weeks, digging into the hillside, setting the plumbing, laying the re-bar, and gathering the washed river gravel.
   The pour turned out great and we should have our bathroom closed in by winter. Just used a single drain with the whole pour sloping to it for the shower, and we used dedicated gray water lines for the shower and sink.

    Business has been busy and we have two solar installations already scheduled for September, along with plenty of automotive and electrical jobs. We met some of our neighbors for the first time yesterday (they had been away) and today we gave each other tours of our houses. Very nice folks. Sara has been working at the ranch office for the past few weeks, which explains why the blog entries have been so sparse. We are going to do a quick trip up north to see our family and tie up some loose ends -- should be fun.