WRONG LAND!

 

Just Me pointed out to me that Classic Country Land is bad about making mistakes on their coordinates for the land they have posted. With that in mind I decided to do a little exploring to find out if they were wrong on my land and it appears very much so! Classic Country Land gives the coordinates (between the sticky pins) for the Southwest corner of my property to be 29° 35' 14.54"N and 103° 32' 16.77"W which puts that corner somewhere around 100 feet further east than it is according to the TRPOA Tract map which according to Google Earth would make it something like 29° 35' 14.62"N and 103° 32' 14.62W. As a matter of fact I had planned on doing what ever I will do (hopefully not long from now) on land which according to the TRPOA tract map is NOT my land! And who says procrastinating doesn't pay off? The reason I figured on building there is because there was a clearing.

Now... It appears that while my brother in law was here with his tractor we should have been clearing an area further west because most of my land now (according to the tract map) is heavy vegetation and I don't look for him to bring his tractor back so... Looks like a lot of manual labor coming up. On top of that I'm not even sure I have 10 acres because according to the tract map (If it is accurate) then my plot is shorter from east to west than all of the plots east of mine. Looks like it could be as small as 8 or 9 acres instead. I guess the one good thing now is that I will know where I can build and where I can't. It also gets me out of the marsh area so there does my Greening the Earth plans, but puts me on higher ground and probably less chance of flooding out. It also puts my land west of the part of the road that has a washout problem so that could be another major problem.

Note in the above pictures the one of the actual tract map which shows my land in the black circle. The other one shows the red box which would be closer to where my land really is.The old barbed wire fence would be almost center of my land.

ADDITION

The third picture probably shows the true Southwest corner. There were two blue pylons just across the road on the southwest corner and around where the northwest corner would be, but I'd forgotten about them. One where you see it and one further north out of the picture also just across the road. Someone was marking something and used small tires and had painted them blue for some reason. That would sort of Jive with the tract map boundaries for my land.

Latest Happenings

Looks like rain around here. Actually it has been raining a little. Just as long as it doesn't turn to snow I can deal with that. As for the whirlybird pictures and link to a video? That was at the request of Just Me and that whirlybird was given to me by an X - RV neighbor. I've about decided that some RV'ers just have to leaving stuff behind with their X-Neighbors. So far its been rocks, then the whirlybird, oranges and I don't remember what else? The other pictures are what it looks like around here just before sundown. No Sunset pictures tonight!

Soda Can Whirlybird Wind Chime (Video)

 

 

Turkey Day - Turkey Lady

Having dinner with a friend fell through and not eating turkey dinner got the best of me so I walked over to the cafe to see if they were serving anything else besides the $15 dinner. Nope... It was either pay the $15 or do without. I almost fell for that until I walked over to the buffet to see what they had. In my case it was what they didn't have. (No breast or white meat.) All they had in the way of turkey was deep fried drumsticks and wings and I don't like either. To add insult to injury some woman was holding up the line by being parked in front of the pan that had the drumsticks in it and was butchering all of the drumsticks and putting the meat in her kids plates and then leaving what was left of the drumsticks for the people waiting on her to move. Guess all of that saved me $15 and I'll eat some noodles and cheese or something like that. I'm not a big eater anyway and at best I might have been able to eat a half plate of food.

A Friend in Need.

Yesterday I noticed one of my temporary neighbor's pickup had Purple Heart license plates so I decided to walk over and talk to him. He was in Viet Nam at the same time I was, but was none too friendly so I just came back over here. About 15 minutes later I heard a knock on the door and it was him handing me a beer and he had a totally different attitude. I told him I had beer and handed his back and then we moved out the the nearest table which was shaded (Which was for the empty space next to this trailer.) We talked about our time in Viet Nam and it turns out he was a Marine and had been seriously wounded. He was sent back after serving 5 months there and seeing a lot of heavy action and then being wounded bad enough to be discharged.

Now... Remember the empty space I mentioned using the table for? An RV pulled up in it and neither the man nor his wife too friendly so we called our chat over and both went back to the RVs. This morning the guy next door had dead batteries in his pickup and when I told him I had a charger (which he didn't have or jumper cables either) he became a good bit more friendly. So did his wife. Anyway I let him borrow my charger and that didn't do the trick and he had already called the garage here to see if they had batteries, but they told him they had sold out during the chili cook off and hadn't gotten restocked yet. Anyway I got out the jumper cables and that didn't work so I told him to just let me keep the falcon connected and rev it up for a while to see if that would charge it and after about 10 minutes of that he got the pickup started. He wanted to know what type beer I drank, but I told him to forget it because I didn't help him out to get paid for it. He headed for Alpine after that to get a new battery or batteries since it takes two for a diecel. By now it was already 11:30 so... Looks like my  trip to the land will be put off another day. Or two or three or...

Update

I guess I got paid back for the help from another neighbor. I'd noticed an electrical company pickup parked two doors over and noticed that there was a bunch of scrap 3/4 inch PVC conduit under the trailer. I saw the guy sitting out as I was walking over to the store and asked him how much he would sell me some of the conduit pieces for and he picked up a hand fill of them and handed them to me. Said I could have them. I offered to pay him, but he refused. Now... You might wonder why I need a bunch of pieces of PVC conduit? Well I have something like 20 solar lights (The harbor Freight type) and it just so happens that 3/4 inch PVC is the perfect size for those to fit over. I needed to find some to stick those lights up on when I go out to the land next time so now I should have close to enough to do that and he told me if I needed more to let him know.

Adding Clickable Links to Blogs

I've noticed a few people asking why links don't show up on Blogs and decided for those people to show how it can be done. Not that I'm saying it has to be done, but it helps to just be able to click on a link someone posts instead of having to cut and paste it in to the browser (which adds it to the browser's link bar as a history.) Anyway below is how to do it in an image or otherwise it would  just show up as links on here.

The above link would work like this Thorne's Castle on the Web

RAIN

Got woken up several times by the sound of rain on the roof. The radar picture shows clear for here and it isn't raning now so I guess the part in the red circle was the culpret and has already moved off. Not sure how much we got or how this is going to effect me getting back to the road? I am glad I hadn't made it to the point of tenting out there for e few nights or I might have been stranded without supplies.

Pay Attention Dummy!

I hate it when I do things like this! Went to the hardware store here and was surprised that they had a shelf full of green slime. I didn't stop to think there were different kinds for different type tires so I just grabbed a couple of bottles. I know I really need 5, but have two spares so am trying to do this on the cheap.

Notice the labels. Both 16 ounce, but one shows a bike tire with tube and the other shows a tubeless auto tire. Not sure what the heck the differences is, but I guess I'll go back and get another one that has the automotive tire on it. Its $1.10 more than the other one. (another mystery) Anyway the one for the bike will likely do the trailer tire that hasn't been slimed yet. The other already has because it had been leaking down. Its small so maybe I'll go ahead and get two more and do the back tires and put some in the trailer tire and some in the car tires. Once the cold spell is over I might make it out to the road to start trying to round up the loose mesquite limbs with all the thorns on them and start chopping out the small trunks left in the road.

My brother in law came up with a good idea and that was to get some carpet and tow it along to pick up the thorns. Sounds like it might work. Anyone know where any old carpet is in this area?

All Slimed! Went back to the  hardware store and picked up two more bottles of the slime (for Car Tires). I slimed both of the fronts with the stuff for cars and then split between the car stuff and the bike stuff on both rears. I saved just enough out of them to do the last trailer tire so should now be good to go.

Now here's the deal on the balance and the difference between the bike stuff and the car stuff. The car stuff is thicker than the bike stuff and probably has more fiber in it. When I finished I took the car out on the road and the ballance was way off, but that was only for a short distance. Once the stuff had a chance to spread out and coat the insides of the tires the ballance seemed to go back to normal and no problem at all. If you use the stuff just expect to feel the tires being out of ballance at first and only for a short time. I haven't driven it again since then so I'm not sure if this will be the way it works each time you drive or not?

End of the Road

We made it out to the property yesterday and got the road (Elna Rd) brush hogged and the only problem now is all the thorns that got shredded from small mesquites that were in the road. The tractor tires picked up a bunch of them on the way back. I guess I named the roads wrong. Thorne Rd. doesn't have any thorns and Elna Road has a lot! I plan to start going back out there and walking that road and trying to find any parts of the shredded mesquites and get them out of the road before taking the falcon to the land. I'll also take an ax and chop off the stubs while I'm at it. Now that its been brush hogged the road is in plenty good enough shape for the car to handle it. For safety sake I'll probably also green slime all four tires and I have two spares in the trunk for even more safety. Also I think the trike will handle the road so hopefully I'll be able to get it here to once I can get something to live in there. That will at least give me a backup vehicle in case of a breakdown or emergency until I can get a beater 4x4. Now if I can ever get a decent connection here I'll post this and some photos. Unfortunately it will probably still be at least another month before I can pull off the move. The one Photo shows a natural drainage ditch through the property. It appears to be several feet deep and perhaps would lend its self to collecting rain water via pump like John Wells does to his road.

On another note today is my brother in law's birthday and Sunday is mine so we celebrated a good bit by tipping beer cans and last night went to the Ghost Town Trading Post for a few more beers on the famous Porch there. I recognized a few of the people from the 24 Hours in Terlingua video found on YouTube.

 

 

 

Had a visitor tonight. I call  The Beer Drinking Butterfly! I caught her drinking my beer (first picture) and had to send her on her way in the second one.

 

Power by Microwave

Pretty interesting reading even if you don't care about being on the grid, but the technology is there to be able to get power in places where it couldn't be done before and without having to put up a bunch of poles and wire to do it. I'd heard about them planning to put up massive solar arrays in space and beam the power back to earth so was doing some searching on that when I found the below link.
On Grid Via Microwave

As far as I can tell there wouldn't be any way to sell unused electricity back to the grid though. Needless to say unless you have an over abundance of solar, wind turbines and huge banks of batteries though this would be a good thing. It would only be backup when you need it without having a backup generator (which would also cost and pollute even if you were trying to be green as possible.) Actually with wireless technology I don't see any reason power, phone, internet and TV couldn't all be provided about anywhere including all of Terlingua Ranch! (Without the use of satellites) Will be interesting to see how long something like this takes to be a reality.

Progress?

Alida took a back route in to the property, but I couldn't tell where it was supposed to be. We finally went to Tennison (Sp?) Desert Trail and back tracked and found it for the second time. It turns out that there is an old barbed wire fence as my west property's boundary and the land on the other side of it is not Terlingua Ranch. (Belongs to a private individual.) The road is doable by the falcon (While dry), but I'd sure want a lot of green slime in the tires though. According to her it would be in my interest not to have the road graded, but they would do it if I wanted them to. I tend to agree since that would just turn the road to powder, but it could sure use a brush hog. Problem is they don't have one so it would have to be on me to get one. I think my brother in law is planning on bring his diesel New Holland tractor out the 17th so if he still has a brush hog for it that would be good. It does have a frnt end loader so that should do the ground work on the land.

Plans of mice and men

The pictures are of how I see this working eventually. I want to go with a single 12X16 to start with and then add the other one and eventually the car port. To understand the workings of the toilet you would probably have to be a Viet Nam era vet or older. My thinking is with a well vented setup (drawing outside air for the vent) and having a well sealed toilet door that this should be doable. I guess I'd have to do it to see though.

And for  Allen Hare Here are the links to my main site:

TFFN (The Fird Falcon News) Main Site

TFFN (Forums) Where all the action is

A New Leaf

Ok I've decided that I need to move on and start posting something positive for a change other than all of the gloom and doom. I'm turning over a new leaf. Not to say I won't post any other problems I may run in to along the way though. Below are a very small number of projects I've done within the last few years, but missing are a few go carts from scary fast to small utility vehicles. I don't have any of the pictures of that stuff here. Or the wind generators, solar panels and stuff like that I've built. Maybe when I can get my other computer here I can find pictures of those. Better yet maybe before long I'll be able to build more for the land.

I built the small chopper sitting by my X shadow some years back. Sold it as well as most of the other stuff some time back.

Built this from scratch to and sold it a while back.

Had a lathe which I sold before the move because it was too damned heavy to bring with me. One of the projects I did with it is the billet replica of a .50 cal machine gun round. The picture below that is of it and the real thing I modeled it after.

My X neighbor and friend's son named this thing "The Thing" of all things. I wonder why. It would have been great for helping clear the road and land, but unfortunately I cut it up and scrapped most of it to make room in the moving truck. I hadn't counted on the road or lack of it when I did that or I'd have probably left something else behind so I could have brought it. I actually built it for that reason because I was trying to buy land around the DFW area and missed the bid on it.

 

Forgot the PVC Greenhouse so here it is. I used it for the last two years and it worked great. I had to use mesh to cover it because of the squirrels, but it would probably be good to keep other rodents and more snakes out.

 

A new Month

Its been pretty near a full month that I've been on the way to my land and sadly to say the closest I've been so far is less than a mile away from it. This last month (October) has been a month from Hell and I can only hope that things will be better this month. Matter of fact with things going south back in Plano the last few months have been months from Hell! Right now November doesn't seem to be looking too good either. It seems the closer I get to the land and the dream of living on it the further away that dream gets. The rental on this RV space and the fee on a storage room 240 miles away are sapping most of the $$$ I could be putting in to the land and getting something built to winter in. Speaking of winter. I could probably come up with a way to get to it shortly and may do it, but then moving on it is a different story. About my only option at first would be tenting out and for some reason I just can't get enthused about freezing my ass off in a summer tent until I could  get a shelter put up and set up so that I could make the winter in it. I'll be a year older the middle of this month and that doesn't help as far as already over worked emotions from the split up of my long time mate goes and all of the problems that I've encountered on this journey. Having been a heavy smoker for the last 42 years and having quit that is also really getting under my skin.

One thing that has been nice about this is meeting new people all the time here at the RV park. I generally get new neighbors two to three times a week. Unlike living in a house and expecting new neighbors to at least stay long enough to make a rental agreement term of 6 months you can pretty well figure that if you don't like them you will still be stuck with them that long. When  people do rent next to you and you actually like them then they usually don't stay long. Then its time to worry about who will be next. Here they come and go in short order so it isn't easy to get to know them well enough to know whether you like them or not. (usually) That isn't always the case though because several have come and gone that we just seem to click and then I hate to see them go when they do.

Holidays are also coming up that for many years I've bought and cooked for the whole family (The x's family) and have enjoyed it each year. I'll miss the ones I've come to love over the years (especially the grandkids) who naturally think of me as their grand paw and love me as much as I love them. It will be real hard to take not being around them this year and probably for ever more. Note I said "I cooked for". That was because the X had a hard time boiling water without screwing it up so it was either cook myself or eat out all the time. At least she didn't mind cleaning up the kitchen after I cooked (Which I hate to do) so this always worked for the both of us. Sort of makes me wonder how that will go off now that I'm not there? I guess that will be their problem as well as where all of the groceries will come from. At least that should save me some real $$$ there. No more buying groceries to feed Cox's Army for Thanksgiving, Christmas, Mother's day and several other events through the year.

On the other hand my family thinks I should winter 240 miles away in the city, but the problem with that is I'm now setup for my mail to come here as well as a bank account and other things. Doesn't make a lot of sense to me if I can stay near the land because at least I should have a chance to do some work out there from time to time.