10-21-07

Doghouse, Nevada

I have been using my Case 1290 tractor with front-end loader to do some backfilling and digging around the new dog house. Sheila was here and commented on how well it looked in the evening in silhouette.

I think it was the next night she was watching the nighthawks as they were putting on a fancy flying display. She hollered at me to come quick!! At first I didn’t see what she was seeing as I was distracted by the nighthawks, always one of my favorite birds. It was a great horned owl perched on the smoke stack. 

We took a ride up to Ingomar so Sheila could have a bowl of their ‘famous’ beans. I snapped this photo of the coal trains as we crossed the overpass in Forsyth.

The moose was trying to get a light when we were in the bar but no one had a match.

From Ingomar we took hwy 12 on up to the Blair ranch house where Sheila went through on the tour. I stayed in the visitor’s area and had a good time petting the little dog that comes with one of the ladies that gives tours.

Not  far from Martinsdale is a Hooterite colony. A guy in a tractor was digging the potatoes and the women and kids were picking them up. This guy with the big loader was picking up the sacks that they were filling.

I had to get a photo of the sign at Ryegate for Sheila.

We had a good ride and up to White Sulfur Springs and it sure was nice being able to soak in the hot pool and take a swim in the pool. We stayed in the motel right at the hot springs in town.

This is a project of moving the woodpile so I can make a access road to the new dog house. Sheila’s dog Spice is looking for the rabbit that lives under the pile. She had spent hundreds of hours digging and smelling around the edges of the pile. As it so happened, there was a dumb bunny under the pile and when we had the pile down to a small stack, the bunny made a run for it but Spice grabbed it and ran off with it.

Mark Weeding came by and brought a man with a little backhoe to dig ditches for power and water lines. It is a powerful little hoe and it did a nice job making a mess of my yard.

A timely little blip from the daily reckoning. Am I on the cutting, bleeding edge again?

But buy, buy, buy is going bye-bye, says Jack. The consumer economy is unsustainable. People don't have the money for it. It is based on cheap energy and cheap credit, both of which are running out. He thinks it will disappear by 2020.

"Get ready for an existential leap…" he warns.

The next Big Thing in American society will be a huge interest in downscaling, downshifting, and simplifying. When the baby boomers realize that their houses won't allow them to Live Large, says another friend, they'll begin to appreciate Living Small.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Spice somehow got a nice big rip in her hide, probably from worming her way into a place I had blocked off with wire panels. It involved calling the vet who was at church and running her into the office where he sewed her up with nice wire stitches, which kept her from licking the wound.

Looking down in one of the ditches you can see the white verticle pipe for the water shutoff, the yellow propane line, the white horizontal pipe that has an electrical line for the shop and my Avion trailer, the blue waste/gray water line. The white stuff sticking out of the covering dirt is some left over scrap from the foam blocks that I had to cut for windows and door. I put it down there for added insulation for the water line.

I have started using some material like stucco to cover the foam blocks. It involves two layers, first mastic goes on the foam and then a textured paint goes on. I will backfill against this coating.

Power in the dog house.

I put a old grinding wheel on my little chain saw for a limiter for how deep I cut the races for the electrical wire. A person is supposed to use an electric saw but I don’t have one but did have this handy little saw. Worked great.

The wire goes in the boxes and then I used some foam to stick them in place. It really glues them solid.

My friend Joe had to go to Bozeman for a gathering of county and city folks and I got to keep Fey for a couple of days. She had a good time looking over the rabbit houses. She liked being out at camp.

I had Russ come out and spray insulation in the roof of the cabin. Here he is just getting started spraying the edges and gable end.

He sprayed both sides of the rafter and then filled in between.

He sprayed in about 4 inches of the foam. He said that 2 inches would be just as good because heat will not go through this foam. Amazing eh? He said it is something like a foam cup of boiling hot coffee that you hold in your hand.

Russ is one of the nicest people you can ever meet. He is the third largest applicator of this foam in the USA. It works so well that he has folks asking for him to come spray their buildings all over the state as well as the Dakotas and Wyoming. Most of the work he does is commercial stuff but he does some residential work now and then. He said he sprayed a little house maybe twice the size of my place and the guy told him that he spent $100 to heat the place last winter. Wow!!! That is what I am looking for in this small airtight building. Oh, bug proof and the walls are bullet proof……

Oh, an if ya get hungry, you can eat it…….. might make some interesting turds………

I got a call from Kenny down in Silver Peak, Nevada telling me that his father, Ken, had died. Whoa, what a shock that was! Ken was one of my best friends that I have known for 35 years or so. We had a lot in common and we always got together whenever I got down in that area. We emailed each other several times a week and his passing has really left a hole in my life. When I first met Ken, Kenny must have been around ten or twelve years old. We got along well right from the start and I sort of feel that Kenny is sort of my son in a way that I never had. He would come out to my Fish Lake Valley farm and help me. I knew if I was feeling a big hole in my life I was sure that Kenny was feeling a bigger one, so I hopped in my pickup and headed on down to Nevada. We had been having wonderful weather in the Tongue River valley but when I got over in the western part o the state, they had had a little of the white stuff on the mountains.

The mountains in the northern part of Nevada were snow covered as well but things dried out when I got down south a ways.

What a beautiful country….. or at least it is to my eyes.

Alkali hot spring was a welcome site. HOT, and just right to take the cramps out of a long distance driver.

I made a quick run into Goldfield and was SO pleased to see Tom and Karen’s new cabin that Kenny built for them. This is right across the street from my cabin site and are the lots I sold them last fall when I stayed in Bolder City, NV at Tom’s gym. You can see their Joshua tree forest just over the edge of their new gravel pad.

Ahhh, the neighbor across the street has a more low key outfit.

I came into Silver Peak and stayed in Ken’s old adobe cabin that is right on main street. This street is actually a state highway but things are rather casual here in the Peak. Often cars and trucks are parked in the street like Kenny’s pickup is in this photo. They did have a deputy sheriff that lived in town but he got a ‘real’ job and so far the cops haven’t replaced him. No reason for a cop in town anyway as things are rather laid back. Kenny owns a bar just down the street but he doesn’t run it and has some of the young ladies operate it for him. He said that once in a while he will get a call from the bar tender that there is a fight going on. Kenny goes to bed early so he just puts on his bath robe and goes on down, but he says that they are usually just buying each other drinks when he gets down there.

I stayed a week with Kenny and we had some good times together. He is doing well and seems to have things under control. I helped him with the computer stuff.

On the way up to Reno I passed by the old Coaldale Station and see that having a restaurant, bar and sluts didn’t keep the place from closing down.

This was a new item in Mina that I hadn’t seen before. It is a long way to water but I guess this guy just had to have his boat to live in. It looks a little roomier than a little sailboat.

I stopped for a very quick visit at the Jaggard’s place just south of Carson City. Judy and Brian were home and I didn’t get to see Rich this time. Brian is home schooled and one of the things that he has been focusing on is the violin. He is studying concert violin and he played a nice piece that he had been working on. That evening he was to play for a recital and after hearing him play this little piece, I sure wish I could have gone to hear him. Judy told me that Rich had just had a heart attach last year. Holy cow!! It seems like it must be going around, I better keep an eye on myself. I think Rich is about ten years younger than I am …….Ken was 6 years older.

I stayed the night at Steamboat Jack and Deliah’s place. In the morning Jack showed me the brace that he installed on the big cotton wood trees that is next to his house. When Jack came to our farm here in Montana we had just had two big cottonwood trees fall apart much like these. He is hoping that the brace will keep them from falling on the house and new garage.

I was looking for a pee stop and thought this one looked like a good place to stop. Some rancher did some serious welding to put this pump jack together. I love the ingenuity that some guys have.

This was a interesting tree along the side of the highway. I couldn’t figure out what the heck was going on so I turned around and came back for a better look.

Hundreds of sneakers hung from the tree.

I made it to Hay Loader Tom’s place in the Reese River Valley. He didn’t have much hay left and he said by the end of the month all would be gone.

I am in love with his cabin and it seems like I always have to take a new photo of it when ever I get near it.

Tom and Judy. Judy has just robbed the hen house of the only egg that day. Judy was a good friend of Ken Polman and it was the first time that I have had a chance to meet her. Ken has talked about her over the years and she was feeling a little empty with Ken gone too. Judy was nice enough to invite Tom and I over to her house for supper. Tom’s wife Bev had just gone to see her folks that morning and wouldn’t be home for a day or two. Judy was raised in rural Nevada and knows the ranches and farms, as does Tom.

Here is Tom showing off the new storm door for his root cellar. It is counter balanced so Bev will be able to run out and get some spuds and such by herself. It is not that Tom is lazy, he is just thoughtful.

Tom let me stay in his little camp trailer for the night. In  the morning I beat feet for home. It was good weather most of the way and only a little snow going through West Yellowstone. I stopped by Bob’s Motor Werks and had the good fortune to meet Bob’s brother and his son. It would have been nice to hang there for a while but I needed to get home before dark, which I did. This time of year the deer on the highway are so very dangerous.

Ahh, back in camp and the trees are so colorful down in the valley. Sugar beets are being dug and the last cutting of hay almost all put up. Winter is on the horizon. I hope to get a little work done on the dog house before I leave for the south lands.