Back at the Park – Days 38 – 52

Jan 2 – 15

I said my final farewell to Hersey the afternoon of Jan 2 after work.  He got some fresh air for a while before I finally laid him to rest at the property.  I am thankful I needed to go shopping in Douglas immediately following as I would have otherwise drowned my sorrows and been in no shape to work Jan 3.

Now to make you smile…

I made a rice dish for the potluck on Jan 5 which seemed to go over okay.  I intentionally made extra so that I would have left-overs to eat.  One thing I learned while making the rice:  Don’t open the lower cupboard that Hersey liked to open and explore and dig out dishes while you are cooking.  Cat hair flying every where.  I tried to hurriedly cover the cooked / cooking food before it acquires any of the flying cat hair.   I learn later as I was eating left overs that I was too late.  Hoping no one at the pot luck noticed or that I got all the cat hair in the left overs.

Here are some photos that I did not have time to include in the last blog.

 

As I laid the skids (two sets of two 2×4’s nailed together) on the previously pictured leveled bricks, it was clear that one of the bricks while level was way out of ideal position.  I didn’t feel like correcting it so I proceeded with assembling the floor frame.  Once I got the floor frame nailed together, that out of place brick was REALLY annoying my and my slight OCD got the better of me.  I picked up the frame to move it so I could relocate the brick.  I learned at that moment that the nails I used easily pulled out of the wood.  The whole frame pretty much fell apart.  While I let a few curses fly at the moment, in retrospect I am grateful that happened as it prompted me to pause the construction and go buy some ring shank nails.  Not to be idle, I opted to break down some pallets so that I would have some pallet wood readily available for use when I started building the shed.

 

Friday night and Saturday morning (Jan 5-6) I researched and wrestled with parts of my plans / design for the shed – especially the roof.  I finally chose a path forward and headed to Sierra Vista for building supplies late Saturday morning.  That blew the day Saturday as it is 3 hours round trip for driving and I get lost in Harbor Freight and Lowes looking at stuff.  Stop for lunch, gas, groceries, etc and the day is shot.

Sunday Jan 7 I painted the plywood I picked up Saturday that was to be used for the floor and inside wall to mount the electronics to.  Tom and Alicia stopped by with Scott and Gail (neighbors to the Southeast of Tom and Alica) and invited me to join them for a ride into the canyon.  While it sounded like a great time and was something I really wanted to do, I declined given the amount of work that I need to get done to get ready to move out of the RV park.  After I finished up painting Sunday, I reassessed the location I had placed the cement blocks for the shed.  I decided that location was not such a great idea as even though it is a “temporary” structure, I expect it to stay where I build it for at least the next two years.  Where I had planned for it to go, it was in the way of the future carport, so I decided to select a new location.  I reassembled the floor frame on the existing leveled bricks using the ring shank nails and called it a day.

I took vacation Monday – Friday and Rick, a fellow guest at Rusty’s offered to come help all week.  We made great progress this week.  Although building with pallets saved a fair bit of $$ in lumber, it certainly cost us time.

Monday:

• We laid and leveled concrete blocks in the new location.  I was fairly OCD about the location and level of the blocks.
• We secured one of the plywood sheets to the floor frame in it’s location, move the floor off the skids and set it aside.  We then set the skids on the new blocks, followed by placing the floor on the skids and then secured the floor to the skids.
• We then proceeded to use the floor as a platform to assemble 12 pallets into 3 walls.
• We got the tractor started (I discovered it wouldn’t start Sunday when I was working) by jumping it.
• We replaced the sheared bolt on the back hoe.
• We replaced the replacement hydraulic coupler that I received late the previous week.

Tuesday, we got a bit of a late start due to rain.  We put up the three and a half walls by the end of the day.  Rick had some volunteer work elsewhere in the afternoon for a an hour and I needed to make a run to Animas for more pallets.

Wednesday:

• We finished the forth wall by framing out the doorway.
• We installed the plywood that would be used to mount the electrical equipment to.
• We learned to mark and cut rafters using a speed square to mark the angles (after doing some trigonometry to calculate the angle of roof slope).
• We cut 4 rafters and secured them into place
• We cut down the east and west walls (aka pallets) to match roof slope.
• I decided against putting pallets on the roof so needed more ply wood.  We ran to Douglas for plywood.  Had lunch while there.  When we returned, we unloaded the plywood but decided it was too windy to try to put it on the roof with just the two of us, so we called it a day.

While we were working Wednesday, a jet buzzed us traveling at a high rate of speed east to west into the canyon.  It was kinda funny.  I heard him coming  but Rick didn’t hear him until he was on top of us so it startled the crap out of him.

Back at the RV park Wednesday, I decided I better use the sunlight left to troubleshoot my license plate lights given replacing the bulbs did not resolve the issue.  I confirmed power to a connector at the back of the truck.  Looking at the sockets, I believe both sockets need to be replaced.  So I ordered the parts online.  I finished the evening reviewing invoices and documentation for the solar system to refresh my memory on the pieces and parts of the system.

Thursday morning, I woke up early as usual so I started research on battery management systems for my lithium batteries.  When it was time to go, the truck wouldn’t start.  The battery was too run down from me troubleshooting the license plate lights Wednesday night.  I grabbed the charger and extension cable and hooked up to the battery and started the truck.  Put it all away.  Then got ready to leave only to realized that the dome lights would not turn off, the windows would not work.  Driving down the road I realized that very little was working on my dashboard.  Not a great start to the morning, but rather than focus on the negative, driving to the property, being sure not to speed as best as I could, I contemplated possible causes and solutions with plans A and Z (Z being worse case and B – Y to be figured out later).  Once at the property, Rick was already there and I apologized for being late and explained what happened.  I popped my hood and disconnected the batteries (I learned that my truck has two batteries thanks to Rick).  I was thinking that the computer got screwed up in the course of connecting the battery charger and starting it, so I figured removing the battery may clear the computer (plan A).  Worse case, I was planning on going to the mechanic Friday morning anyway so I would have them look at it then (plan Z).

After disconnecting the trucks batteries, we got to work.

• Attached plywood to roof
• Built and attached door to shed.
• Mounted inverter/solar charger to wall.
• Moved batteries to shed and evaluated them  for polarity and made plan for where and how to place them in the shed.
• Tarped all walls and roof to keep internal contents dry

Once we were done and put stuff away for the day, we reattached the truck’s battery cables and started the truck.  Everything worked fine.

Friday morning sitting in the mechanic’s office waiting for my truck to be repaired I was reading documentation on the inverter and had an aw – f*ck moment.  It can reach temperatures of up to 200 F and as such it shouldn’t be mounted on combustible material such as plywood as it was.  Ok.  Minor set back.  Nothing some $$ can’t fix.  Buy some more 2×4’s and some concrete backer board at Lowes.  I was going there anyway to buy a breaker box, breakers, and wire.  Did I mention I get lost in Lowes?  Four hours after arriving, I leave hundreds of dollars poorer. Stopped at Fry’s for groceries and gas, then straight back to the trailer to unload the groceries before dinner and a movie starts.  Well, almost straight back…  I forgot to set the cruise control coming out of Douglas.  Yep, you guessed it.  I got to visit with the same officer that gave me a warning for my license plate lights.  I’m thankful he was nice and only gave me a warning for speeding.  I’m also thankful that it was not dark out as parts for repairing the license plate lights were in transit.  At the dinner and movie event being hosted at the Desert Museum event center, Although I knew Tom and Alicia as well as Carolyn were there, I only did a cursory search for them then opted to leave my comfort zone and sit with people I hadn’t met yet.  I found a younger couple to sit with (I think we were probably the youngest people there).  Shane and Tonya were their names.  It seems that they are as introverted as I am.  They didn’t make much conversation and I struggled to initiate conversation, but I did eventually ask and learn that Shane is a bug/critter dealer.  He catches things like venomous spiders and scorpions and the like and sells them to buyers that find his internet site.  He says there seems to be a lot of research going on with the venoms for medicinal purposes.  So, now I know who to call now for removal of them when we find them.  After dinner, Wes Studi, the star of the movie we were to watch was there and he spoke a few minutes about his experience as an actor and answered some questions from the audience.  The movie was Geronimo also staring a young Matt Damon, Gene Hackman, and Robert Duvall.

Saturday and Sunday I attended a Firewise seminar.  I am now a certified firewise assessor.   See http://www.firewise.org if you are curious about the program.  Essentially, we learned about how to protect homes from wild fires.  It was held at the firestation and I happened to be sitting in a location surrounded by people associated with the local voluteer portal rescue / fire service.  During one of the breaks Saturday, the gentleman sitting next to me approached me and said:  “You should join the fire department”.  My response:  “Uh…  Okay”.  At the end of the class Saturday, he introduced me to the chief and fireman who were sitting in front of me as someone who wanted to join the service.

I chatted a bit with John, the fireman who was sitting in front of me.  He invited me to training next weekend.  I explained that I was under some time constraints as I committed to be out of my spot in the RV park by Jan 27.  He understood.  Seems that he also built his house via  alternative construction methods – using straw bales and is off grid.  I also chatted a bit with the fire chief.  He was asking about my construction plans.  He also lives south of Rodeo somewhere.  I didn’t recognize the road name.  Sooo… I’m thinking once I get settled on the property, I will likely get some training and be a volunteer fire fighter.  Believe it or not, being a volunteer fireman is something I have considered in the past.  I just got an email and see there is a board meeting Wednesday night.  I think I will go.

Class got out early Sunday so I reached out to Rick via his wife Laura (I didn’t have Ricks number) to see if he could come help redo the wall.  He wasn’t available.  I headed to the property to contemplate the details of the wall retro fit and work on marking locations for the water tanks.  I expect Victor to be contacting me sometime this week to meet out there to discuss details so he and his crew can get to work on it.  After developing a plan for the wall, I started working on mark the land.  I didn’t get very much done when I heard Rick driving up the road.  I quickly changed gears to start preparing to retro fit the wall.  We pulled the inverter back off the wall, mounted 2×4’s to the plywood, attached the cement backer board, then remounted the inverter.  We also hung a sheet of cement board over the inverter as a bit of added insurance.

Today, I worked a bit on the wifi here at the park.  Sadly I didn’t resolve the issues I was working on in a timely manner and felt compelled to move on to get some work done at the property.  I reviewed more documentation on the system to realized that I was sold an incorrect part for the solar panels.  Thankfully, I won’t be needing it right away.  I then moved onto marking the land for the water tanks and RV parking so I can clear the land for a place to park the trailer.

Look at the time.  That 5 hour energy lasted way longer than 5 hours.  Got to get a few hours of sleep.

Night all.

Cary