Tuesday, January 11, 2011

1/11/11 Cold, Cloudy, Windy & Crappy!

I guess the subject line pretty well says it all, but I'll add a little extra. May or may not add pictures later. Probably not because I don't see any beauty in Crappy. However, if the sun comes out and it warms to the 80s and the wind quits blowing then I might. Not looking for that to happen though because I think the high is only supposed to be in the 40s.

Well I guess I lied about not posting pictures. The clouds are breaking up a little and I actually see some blue sky in small patches. The pictures? Well... last trip to Study Butte and a trip to Study Butte Store someone had left the battery powered shower on the bench there for the taking. I picked it up along with a couple of LAN cables which I don't need now, but may later for some reason or the other. The black barrel is the one Frann gave me and I'd about decided to put it on top of the It'll Du/Shower for a gravity feed shower since I now have the pump that I used to the shower dedicated to supplying water to this trailer in the warmer parts of the year. I've been thinking I needed another pump for the shower though because 20 or 30 gallons on top of the It'll DU/Shower would be a darn heavy weight. I'd probably need to reinforce both to handle that much weight.
Now that I have this pump I've decided to keep the barrel on the ground like I did using the old blue container and that will simplify the process a lot. I won't have to use a splitter from the pump on my water tank and a long hose to pump water up to the tank on top of the It'll Du, I can use the two wheel dolly to move the black barrel back and forth between the water tank and shower to keep it  filled and won't have to reinforce the out buildings.

I checked out the electric shower after I got it back here and it works. It works off of 4 D cell batteries though and I don't plan to be buying a bunch of those batteries just to take showers. I still have the two golf cart batteries that never came around as far as using them on the battery bank, but between the two they will make a good 6 volt battery. I plan to use those as a power supply for the shower pump since it is 6 volt and I also have a 6 volt light that I will run off of those batteries to. I have a small 6 volt solar panel to keep the batteries charger to 6 volts so I should be good to go with this setup for both showers and lighting in the It'll Du.

UPDATE
Just had a visit from John Wells and he dropped off the other half of the Diego Burger he got at the Starlight Theatre and couldn't eat. I'd jokingly posted on his blog to bring me the other half and danged if he didn't do it. Now I know what my lunch is going to be.
 Now earlier this morning I'd gotten an email from Frann saying her and her neighbor were going to be here around 1:00 for her neighbor to pick my neighbor's brain about some electrical stuff. She says stuff like that is too boring so I suspect her and Hell Dog will hang out here while her neighbor is visiting my neighbor? Its 2:40 now and they haven't shown yet, but if they show real soon I'll split the burger with her since it is a whopper and I probably can't handle the whole half by myself. Then again I'm sure getting hungry smelling it so they had better get here quick!

17 comments:

  1. That Diego burger sounds and looks like the muffaletta I always get when I get home to New Orleans. I order a quarter for myself, one person can't eat a whole one.

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  2. Man, that is the wild west. Even the burgers are open range out there.
    Mmmm.

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  3. D Rose, Frann's neighbor backed out again so... I also have supper with the half I was saving for her. Good burger, but half of the half was enough for one meal! (for me)

    ezrablu, There used to be a place in Odessa that made them much bigger, but they were straight burgers. No egg or bacon. They would give you one free if you could eat the whole thing in front of them. Not many people could do it! Don't know if that place is still open or not?

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  4. Watts Burger?? Best burgers in Odessa, on West County Road. If you get a shower going then we will never see you in Study Butte anymore!

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  5. It was cold, damp and windy as heck here today. It was only like 45 degrees but the windchill was 34. It was way too cold fer me and tomorrow supposed to be even colder!
    I have to say that burger looks mighty tempting. Just looking at it made me hungry. Hey thats a cool looking shower head. ~Jen

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  6. Frann, When I get another shower setup, figure our how to make ethinol alcohol out of cactus, (to run the charger of course) make food out of cactus and build a Trike'O Washer then you won't see me much in SB. ;) May take a few years. You do believe the part about using the ethinol alcohol for fuel don't you? Well maybe part of it.

    Jen, Its lousy weather here to and I think to be cold for a couple more days. The nights here will probably be cold for a good while. We didn't have the damp, but could sure use it.

    Allen, I have a large battery charger that got run over by a semi. What a mess, but if I can get a good heavy diode out of it that still functions then I may be able to get the genny back on line.

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  7. At least it's not snowing there. The weather folks said we'd get less than in inch and there are at least three on the ground right now and no let up in the stuff coming down. At least it isn't a repeat of last winter's snowpocalypse. I have company from NYC who is happy that it's not piled up everywhere.

    Is there enough cactus for the biomass, tffn? Otherwise, you can ferment the cactus fruit. Still not enough to be viable and replace gas 100%.

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  8. The best thing about Crappy is that when it's not Crappy one appreciates it more :-)

    Gotta have the good with the bad - othewise life would be boring - no?

    Reckon you slept well after that burger...

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  9. Nice I love the idea of being able to personalize and customize your home decor with Bathroom Lighting . The result is having something unique that no one else does.

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  10. Score! on shower, burger , and I like the barrel idea.

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  11. D Rose, according to a book one of my neighbors has you can make ethinol from prickly pear leaves (or what ever you call them) and can also make wine or brandy out of the fruit. Supposedly you can also eat the leaves as well as the fruit, can get water from them and make sort of an artificial lemonade from the leaves. I need to find a copy of that book! There probably isn't enough on 10 acres to do much good as far as fuel goes, but they could be transplanted and grown like crops and it might work.

    Dani, I guess you're right, but I still don't find any beauty n it. ;)

    mukesh ke sharma, the It'll Du is already a pretty customized facility so I guess the lighting should be to. I'm reasonably sure its a one off complex.

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  12. If your running that propane heater alot be sure to crack a window.

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  13. Frann, this place is no where near air tight. No need to add insult to injury by cracking a window. I only run that heater for a few minutes at a time and the rest of the time I use the oven with the door open and set on from 175 to 250 degrees to maintain a comfortable temp in here.

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  14. Oops - forgot to tell you when I asked if you have an e-mail addy - my addy is: dani@ecofootprint.co.za

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  15. Good score with the shower head.

    That hamburger looks really tasty, though it is the first time I have ever hear of one with two fried eggs on it.

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  16. I really like that battery powered shower. It would really come in handy on a camping trip, but you'd have to figure a way to get the water hot. One of those solar shower bladders should do, but if you got one of them, you could just fill it with water, lift it to the top of your shower stall, then wait a few hours for the sun to heat it up. How do you heat the water you use for a shower? Does the black barrel absorb enough heat in the sun to make for a warm shower?

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  17. Allen, I haven't tried the black barrel yet, but when I was using the blue 7 gallon containers they would get hot enough for a shower by noon in the summer time. Any longer and it was too hot. I figure the barrel being black should work even better. I do have one of the bladder type showers that Bigfoot gave me, but I'd have to hoist it up well above roof level to use it. I'll come up with something else to use it for later.

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