We’ve been really getting a lot of rain. Last night, it poured buckets for several hours with dramatic thunder and lightning all around.
With the rain, of course, comes bugs. And after dark, thousands of them gather around our windows and doors, seeking the light. It’s kind of gross.
But now we’ve gotten a new way to combat this. They seem to arrive every evening to sit on our stoop and enjoy the buffet.
Before starting on our final stucco coat on Sunday, we had planned to take a rare day off and go explore a place we’ve been wanting to go. Rucker Canyon is about 10 miles south of us, and like most of the canyons that run to the west, it ends up in the Chiricahua Mountains, transitioning through many botanical zones along the way.
We left the house a little before 9. It was sunny, but cool and breezy after rain yesterday. (We are getting nearly nightly rain now during the monsoons. It’s wonderful.)
After driving a ways into the canyon, we stopped at Camp Rucker (later known as Fort Rucker, an outpost for fighting the Indians), an old Army supply camp from the late 1800s. It has several old adobe structures and corrals. As we walked to one end of the encampment, we found a huge wide open pasture. It was sunny with big white puffy clouds, and we decided to hike to the other end.
About half way back, it started to rain. Quickly, the pleasant light rain turned to big wet drops. We rapidly got soaked to the skin and sought shelter under one of the big oak trees. Lightning and loud claps of thunder ensued. (Brad mentioned that being under a tree is not the recommended course of action in this situation.) We stood there for a while, and when the rain let up a bit, we headed back to the truck.
The rain let up, and we explored an old ranch house. Then on the way back to the truck, the sky opened up again.
By the time, we got to the truck, we were really soaked through, but rain here is always a joyous event, so we were happy.
We drove down the canyon for a while, and the rain got heavier. It rained and rained and rained. Rivers were forming on the sides and sometimes across the gravel road. I was a little worried, but Brad always tells me our truck is good in this kind of driving.
This is from the truck, crossing a stream flowing through the road.
Then it started to hail. Really, I swear, 3/8″ diameter hailstones in 80 plus degree weather. So bizarre.
We drove for a while and around noon had our picnic lunch (in the truck). Eventually, it cleared off so we could enjoy the spectacular mountain views.
It really was a magnificent day. We look forward to more exploration and camping and hiking in this area.
Since the snow before Christmas, we’ve had another snowfall (this is not seeming like the desert southwest), and it’s been cold — low 20s at night and not out of the 40s during the day. With a brisk north wind, that’s too cold to stucco, so we’ve been working on solar and other things. One of them is the woodworking.
As you may remember, we began a test run of building our own doors just before Thanksgiving. It was a project that we weren’t in a huge hurry to finish, but now that the batteries are in their house and the weather is cold, the battery house needs a door.
After many rounds of sanding, I proceeded with staining the door. I used Minwax wood conditioner first (which I really liked) and then an oil-based stain. It went on very nicely. Then we began working on mounting the door hardware and hanging the door. (In hindsight, I would have done all the hardware work before even staining. It didn’t make a huge difference, but I did have some touch-up work to do afterward.)
First, Brad used a template to rout out the space for the hinges, both on the frame and on the door itself.
Then we did a test hang (the first of many) to check the door height and width. We needed to trim just a bit off the top and the bottom, which went smoothly.
Then we worked on the width with a planer. This not only narrowed the door to fit, but also put a bevel on the door so it would close right.
The process here is first to plane and then to test hang to check fit. Repeat, repeat, repeat. It took many, many times to get it just right.
Then for the last steps of several coats of varnish and installing the lock. Here is the varnished door.
I also stained and varnished the door frame, which is really looking nice. (It’s been fun to finally do something that I had some pre-existing expertise in — thanks Dad!)
You’ll have to wait to see it hung with final hardware … it’s taken me so long to get this posted that we’ve now commenced stucco’ing. And with stucco started, everything else will be on hold for a while.
Apologies for the dearth of electronic communications this week. On top of all my other hand problems, I slammed my finger (left hand, thankfully) in a car door this week, making typing not so easy.
So the storm that many of you saw blow through California over the weekend hit us just as we had stripped our house almost bare to repaper and prepare for stucco. There were gale force winds that blew off some of the little remaining paper that we thought could be salvaged. The wind was so fierce one night that it kept us both up all night. I honestly thought a big piece of something might come through the window at any moment.
I had to work at schools Tues. and Wed., but by Thurs. we were ready to attack the house again. In two days, we got most of the paper back up and more than half stucco netting up. We should finish this weekend and hopefully be having a lath inspection next week. Yay!
Here’s an update from Brad on the solar stuff.
The first five columns to support the solar panels are poured. I need to put together a test in order to determine how far the back row needs to be from the front row so that we can properly adjust the angle of the solar panels. Once this is done, we will pour the next five columns and install the first six solar panels.
Here is what a dried and peeled column looks like.
December 21st is the solstice and the day I need to measure the shadows in order to properly position our two rows of solar panels. I just realized that I need to measure in the morning, afternoon and evening because the sun is making an arc to the south this time of year.
On Tuesday night we came home from celebrating Brad’s birthday to see snow on the mountains on both sides of the valley. It has continued to be cold this week….20s at night and 50s during the day.
On Wednesday, we got the roof on the battery house in one day. It was pretty easy after doing the other one. (Things are way easier at 9×12 than 44×27.)
Today, our plans, if the wind cooperated, were to start on re-wrapping the house and doing chicken wire to get ready for the stucco.
There was too much wind though, so we finished the interior of the battery house instead. It’s almost finished now. Excellent.
Well, the weather forecast was right. It didn’t get out of the 40s today, and there is snow in the mountains. (None here…yet.) We just went and harvested a bunch of lettuce and covered the rest, since it’s supposed to freeze tonight.
We also put the tomato plant (which has a half dozen still-green tomatoes….it’s thriving on drip irrigation) into the house. Despite the cold, our house has remained toasty warm (and the fireplace is not hooked up yet). This bodes well for when we move in. The only bad thing from this weather is that the winds have been howling, and for the many-ith time, some of our house paper has ripped off. I’ll be very glad when we get some stucco on it.
Also, in our big driving adventure yesterday, we broke a strut on the truck….really broke it right in half. It is amazing that in 10 months of living here, this is the first car problem we’ve had. It’s something I’ve been kind of dreading, because of our lack of proximity to anywhere, but we found a repair place in Douglas that seemed pretty good, and thankfully the truck made it there.
In one afternoon, I have totally changed my thinking about interior doors.
Originally, I had been thinking about rustic wood plank doors. Then I looked at prices and decided that it wasn’t worth it.
Then I found some pretty nice and inexpensive wood doors at Lowe’s that I liked. They have a kind of arch in the top panel that I thought would look nice with our other arches.
This afternoon we went to visit someone’s house who has solar to see his setup. (We also heard he has a very nice adobe house, and I’m always eager to get new ideas on interiors.) We weren’t exactly sure where he lived and inadvertently ended up at someone else’s house. It was someone else we’d wanted to see though (they’re on the board of the local fire & rescue, for whom we are doing a web site, and they have done their own lovely cabinetry), and so we took a quick tour of their house. It was a very nice house, and they have done all the work themselves. As we were walking through, lo and behold, they had the Lowe’s doors I was thinking about. I really liked how they looked which helped confirm my plans to go with these doors.
Then we went on to the house we had actually intended to visit. Wow. Beautiful house. And all the interior doors were made by the owner out of plank wood. They were stunning. He said that all he did was laid 2×8’s on a table, glued the edges, and clamped them. When they dried, he nailed two planks crosswise at the top and bottom to add stability. Then he rough finished them with a wire wheel and distressed them a bit to add character. (He also hand forged his own cast iron handles, but I would be happy just buying those.) So that all seemed manageable and something we could do (which Brad confirmed on the way home).
We really only have one interior door in the main house, but we have several in Tumbleweed. I would like to try this there. My only real hesitation is that we have so much else to do, but I think we could leave this door project until after we move in.
Also on this drive, we found another old abandoned train car. I took pictures and am still working on my collection. Stay tuned.
By the way, it is windy and cold here. Yesterday, it was 36 when I left in the morning. They are talking about possible snow later in the week.
It is a rare day of steady, hard rain here. It’s supposed to rain all weekend…very rare for Oct., we hear (except for in 1983, when Tucson got 7 inches of rain in a couple hours and it took out the freeway). While the weather quashed our plans to spend the day in Bisbee, it has given me a chance to catch up on some work and to do some writing and video editing.
It has been a busy week here. In addition to having Brad’s mom visiting, we are taking care of 6 horses, 2 burros, 2 cows, and 4 dogs for our neighbors. Whew!
Oh yeah, and the main house slab was poured on Friday.
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Pouring the slab
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This is the color.
They dump it in the mixer, bag and all.
And here are the final results (well, not exactly final, but for today:):
We had a good day today. We’re starting on a new project, putting up the parapet. For me, starting new projects is more fun than finishing ones we’ve been working on for a long time (especially ones that I thought were already done like the roof panels. We spent most of the day yesterday putting more screws in the roof. I think it’s really done now.)
The parapet is especially of interest to me because it needs to be done before we can put the waterproof paper up on the roof and walls. (After that, we stucco.) Building the parapet entails putting down a long 2×6 and then putting a 15″ 2×6 perpendicular to that every 16″. Then two more 2×6 longways on top. (I’ll take a picture in the next few days.) The tricky part is that, because our roof is low slope, we first had to rip the bottom 2×6 on an angle so that it ends up laying flat. The parapet runs on three sides of the house. It will take several days to do all this.
On the weather front, it’s been really hot…107 today. One lovely thing is that the inside of the house is quite cool now even in the hottest part of the afternoon. There have been thunderstorms blowing through almost every afternoon, which cools things down a bit. About half the time, it actually rains where we are; the rest of the time we just enjoy the show.
On the wildlife front, we had the pleasure of seeing the baby bobcats (now getting quite a bit bigger) climbing in our big oak at the front gate. We also saw momma bobcat hunt and kill a bunny. Not quite so nice…
Most big projects have some big unforeseen challenges that seem overwhelming. This was our week for that, and it left us logistically, financially, and mentally taxed in a big way.
But we got through it, and now our roof panels are finally up. It wasn’t easy, but we are thrilled that it is done, and we are no longer praying for no rain (and feeling panicked when, in fact, it does rain).
The first step was to get the panels up to the roof.
A new kind of bobcat to help with that. (We ended up doing it this way instead of with a crane, which worked out great.)
Then the panels had to be slid into place in their proper position…
and foam cemented into place.
Of course, it was a hot day.
And then the clouds started rolling in….along with looming thunder and lightning…
Fortunately, it all got done before the sky opened up.
Afterwards, Brad and I put up plastic sheeting to keep water out until we get the final roof up. Standing up on the roof with a large sheet of plastic with gale force winds blowing was an experience. Several times I thought I was going to be sailing off to Lordsburg.