BMN July 2nd (2012) Progress Report

Good Morning
Well first off the bat, I'm happy to report that Nell isn't crying. She is taking the passing of her sister very hard. She is doing better. Thank you everyone for your support. There will be a service in August, on or around Jeannie's birthday. It will be in Arkansas where she lived with her husband Lee, after retirement.

Nell, Jona, Sara, Rachel and I had the most wonderful weekend together. Saturday morning I made a fresh batch of almond sunflower seed cookies, yummy. I started out the morning ready to work on the foundation pit for the Shell project, when the phone rang and it was my son Austin. We talked for most of the morning, just chit-chatty type stuff. I'm getting better at talking on the phone with practice. Water is becoming super scarce here in the southwest. Austin is a river rafting guide during the Summer up in Taos. The water levels are way down. He says people still want to raft, but it isn't quite as fun without the raging torrents.  Anyway, we had a very nice yak. Maybe if we're fortunate, Austin will come down and get a chance to experience the Shell rock pit before it is covered.

We've been getting afternoon clouds, so far no rain, except for a few sprinkles that tease. The clouds are cooling it off. We'll take that part and be happy, but we are getting desperate for precipitation. The sun screen over one section of garden is working very well. It doesn't take nearly as much water to keep the ground moist, without the Sun blazing down directly upon the earth.

Sunday morning Nell seemed to be making progress moving out of the terrible grief she is feeling at the loss of her sister Jeannie. People need to grieve, but this is wearing deeply on her. So in the typical multifaceted interwoven screwed up fashion typical to life moving out of grief is a good thing. I'm so sorry for her and her siblings and their families. They are all so very close. As Nell points out it wasn't always so, they worked through much to get where they are; tight. Damn you guys. I wish, man do I wish, I had a tight family and we had already worked through the crap like you did. I have much to look forward to, sigh.  

I did get out to our little rock pit haven early enough on Sunday morning to get several wheel barrows loaded with busted rocks and wheeled to the driveway. It really is amazing how the byproduct of one project when used appropriately adds an incredible benefit to our lives. I don't know how to adequately describe this. The rocks come out from where we don't want them, which is enabling us to have the space we need to better our lives. That's cool, because it doesn't cost us anything to dig and bust rocks, indeed it is also beneficial to our health in that this manual labor is fantastic exercise. Two pluses, right there. Then the byproduct gets put in our driveway to channel rain water runoff if we get any, into the gardens around the driveway, plus, again I know, but these pluses are adding up to something that is so wonderful that I get a little scared that… I don't know the government is going to come in an tell us we're doing something wrong, just because it makes too much sense on a practical homesteading level. Surely there is a way they can tax us for this right?   

Electrical-Work-July2012-mains  Jona is an electrician, although the fact that I am not never stopped me from tearing into an electrical box. This time we have a professional. The idea is to move four circuits which run across the remaining trailer wall to the entertainment system from this electrical service entrance. With those circuits out of the way we can tear down the wall between the removed section of trailer and house.

Electrical-Work-July2012-dryer-hookup Yeah you read it right. The self professed un-dropped in hippie is installing a dryer, an electric dryer no less. It wasn't my idea okay. Danny scored it for us, and Nell has been bugging me to get one, so there it is. I still believe the solar powered clothes dryer is the only way to go, and since I do much of our laundry I can do it anyway I like. When the weather is not optimal for solar drying we'll have an alternative.

Electrical-Work-July2012-retasked-circuit  "Epiphany," I think this is the word which describes what happened here. The conduit seen above the entertainment system is one of the original Addition circuits, and it really didn't do much. When we had a licensed electrician get our house ready for certification  for a electrical meter we added a new circuit to the entertainment system, amongst other areas. Anywho, that is the circuit we just removed. The epiphany came while I was looking at how and where we were going to pull power from for the entertainment system and the refrigerator, when it occurred to me that I could simply bend the overhead conduit down and the deal was done; no rewiring, no more conduit to run, just done.   

TheShell-Pit-July2012  Jona has a laser level, after busting rocks for a couple hours more when they got here, we checked the pit level, employing the laser light as a line in the rock. Welp, that rock that looks like a tooth sticking up is indeed in the way. Figures right? That is a very hard rock too. We've already beat it with a ten pound sledge hammer, which really only scratched the surface. No big deal, we've got time, I'll hit it more over the next few weeks, it'll come out or wear down, either way, is fine, and I can eat cookies until my heart is content knowing whatever calories I take in have a perfect place to go

TheShell-Pit-July2012shadow  Nell and I have been talking about what type of floor we want. We're leaning now toward concrete, mostly because we now see that we need to put not only the kitchen in this space, the bathroom needs to go here as well. With all the plumbing, a wood floor isn't ideal, a tiled floor will be easier to maintain, and certainly will last longer and be less maintenance in the long run.  This was our plan all along: Get the north section of trailer cut out, look at what space we have and then make our plans. 

Rachel-Nells-collage

I didn't get any pictures of the crew in action this weekend. Rachel wants to be right in the action, and we want her to be, except breaking rocks has byproducts besides wheel barrows full of gravel for the driveway; Pieces of rock fly out as fast as a bullet when a ten pound sledge hammer hits a four hundred pound hunk of limestone. One of us must entertain Rachel at a safe distance from the action, and this isn't a simple task. She wants to be in the middle.

We worked together as a crew, and a family, I am so happy, I love you guys, thank you for being part of my life.

Happy Monday folks
P.S. I'm off to the dentist in Mora this morning. Ten original teeth left, and the dentist needs to work on them. I'll take my dog again, so he can jump in the river if he wants to.
Brian Rodgers  

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