Come & Gone, New Storage building & More

Dale & Dwight (Nephew & Grand Nephew) came for another visit. Had a blast and I sure hated to see them leave. Between the two of them the trike is running again, but there is still a carb problem, but it can be lived with. Yesterday we went and picked up an old trailer from the legion that had been given to me by the legion for a donation. It wouldn't have been easy go get without them, but with a little ingenuity we managed to get it from there to here even though it didn't have tires and wheels. I had a set of old spindles that the bearings wouldn't fit so we removed the bearings and put them and some tires on it anyway and it was no trouble to tow it here after that. I did get a cut on my head though when I walked in to the sharp edge of some cut chicken wire. No big deal. The trailer WILL be my new storage building as soon as I can get it built so I can empty the storage building and dungeon and turn them both back in.

 More pictures of this and other things we did which were more fun as follows.

Yep.... BBT is getting closer all the time.

Picture of the rifle range here. Before that Dale & Dwight loading the various toys for the fun.

A Mexican General Grasshopper behind the target. Guess he didn't know that wasn't a good place to be. Note the clipped branches and limbs behind the target.

Dale & Dwight packing.

Had another visitor that decided my shoulder was the place to be and I didn't disturb it for a good 10 minutes. It finally flew away.

See more

Its on its way. DSL and phone that is. Why it will be Jan 6th when it gets installed is beyone me since the cable will probably be across the road from me by tomorrow? This morning I saw a BBT vehicle drive in front of this place. It went down the hill a ways and then backed up in to my driveway. I thought Ah... this is it where the engineer comes out and finds some reason not to install it. That didn't happen and he pulled back out in the road and headed toward the legion.

Later I saw the truck with the ditching machine pulling in to the legion parking lot so I went to investigate. Yep... They were about to start trenching up this way.

(Re Visited) BBT

Photo provided by Big Bend Telephone

I got confirmation this morning that I will be getting the DSL and phone. I'm not crazy about the delay in getting it installed (Jan 6th 2011), but I guess I can deal with that. 

Now it appears that IF you meet their requirements then you can get the DSL and phone and if you can't meet the requirements you can't. I'm still not clear on what the requirements for the charging system are, but evidently 600 watts of solar and 500 watts of wind fit in there. The requirements other than that are 800 AMP hours of storage batteries, a 1500 watt inverter, a 15 AMP 120 volt breaker and plug for the equipment inside your cabin, RV or what ever. This is for an alternative energy setup. I assume if you are lucky enough to be on grid (Maybe that's unlucky down here) then you should be able to get it. Note I said "Should be able to"

As you can see evidently they don't supply a WiFi router so if you wanted one then that would either be extra through them or have to be bought from somewhere else. 

Anyway I'll revisit this IF anything else comes up about it and will post pictures and an update when it gets installed.

Stung on the Tongue?

Yeah... It really happened. My neighbor Bob was over here earlier in the day and I suggested we go over to Big & Littlefoot's place for a visit so that sounded good to him. We headed that way and  Bigfoot had a new toy he wanted us to shoot so we did that. I LIKE IT! After that we fired a hand held cannon and then retired to the shade of the back porch.

Jackie had given me a beer and I was sitting there drinking on it and didn't notice a bee fly in the opening. I picked the can up and took a swig just to gasp as Something besides beer hit the back of my throat. I felt a slight stinging sensation and started spitting the gulp out. When I started that the bee stung me about center of my tongue. A good snort of Bill's whiskey did wonders after that, but it still don't feel too hot!

Paula Faye Howell - Mitchell

Oct 30, 1968 - Oct 22, 2010

She will be missed!

This morning's photos 

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How big do they get?

Snapped these pictures of a Whirlwind the other day. At first the main body of it was hidden behind the hill seen in front of it and the way the sun was shining on it it looked just like a road going up the mountain. I thought to myself Now why haven't I seen that before and I bet it would take one hell of a vehicle to climb it. Of course out here people put cabins and RVs in placed you wonder how in the heck they got them there to though. Anyway I noticed a bobble in it and then figured out it was just a big whirlwind. How big do they get? I don't know, but I've seen considerably bigger down here. Having been raised a little further north in West Texas I've seen them all my life, but nothing to compare to the size they get down here! These things are bordering on being small tornadoes in the destruction they can do. BTW this has to be AT LEAST 7 or 8 miles away from here.

Filler

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WOMEN! What makes them do it?

I'm not talking about all woman, just the ones who have abusive boyfriends or husbands and keep on taking what the guy dishes out! The women have them thrown in jail and then go drop all charges so they can endure more of the same crap later.

Case in point: And we'll call this a fictional case to protect the UN-innocent... A woman gets beaten up and left in the desert. What follows is that 3 deputies, two border patrol, one park ranger and two helicopters get involved in a search for the guy before he is apprehended. Then the woman makes it to the county seat to drop all charges including kidnapping. This boggles my mind as well as the minds of most non abusive males. The age old question is "What makes them do it?"

I've seen stuff like this happen too many times in which cases it usually ends in tragidy with the woman getting killed before the abuser gets his just reward.

Perhaps some of you women following this blog can help us guys out by explaining why those woman do it?

TLBM or (Techno Land Border Marker)

Well I had to call them something didn't I?

Got the 4th corner marker put up when it was cool this morning. (Too cool for the rattle bugs to be out) I had to go through some heavy brush to get to it and didn't feel like playing hop scotch because of snakes. Note the super high tech corner markers! ;) There is one on all four corners now. You can't see the markers from here at the trailer and you sure can't from one marker to the other, but I hope with the solar lights at night they can be seen. Even at that a person would have to walk down the hill on the road to see two of them. It should give a perspective of just how big 10 acres is. Well its bigger than five or one isn't it???

And on another note and as a Brit might say:

Ye gads man! A snake in the It'll Du!

 

Well it was just a little one and non poisonous one.I wasn't in a position to do much about it so I just watched it. (Very carefully) I guess you could say it helped me do what I went in there for. ;)

Not to worry ladies. By the time the party gets here they will all be under ground somewhere else.

Shafted!

I'd always thought it was odd because Google Earth showed the front two corners of my property to be on the other side of the road, but I took it as a mistake. However, some time back I noticed an ancient stake about 9 feet on the other side of the road and about 80 feet south of where I have the property line marked on the other side of the road. Yesterday evening I got the idea to take my GPS to the old stake and with the land coordinates in hand also I took a reading and found that the stake is in fact the Northeast corner of my property.

Ok... that shifts my property line a total of 27 feet east and 80 feet south of where I thought it was. I now find that the road actully runs through my property rather than in front of it. Then I go in search of the Southeast corner and about the same distance across the road from where I'd marked the Southeast corner before I see a red volcanic rock setting there. Once again I took the GPS and took a reading and that red rock marked the Southeast corner. It was even further off the road though because the road actually runs a little to the west.

Of course this doesn't really effect me because everything here is still well within the property line, but its  the fact that the road splits my property that bugs me. I guess I can't complain too much though because the land bordering mine to the north is split in half. 5 acres on one side of the road and 5 acres on the other side. Just makes me wonder about the way the ranch is laid out!

At least now having that straightened out I took the time to find the Northwest corner and will find the Southwest corner tomorrow and mark it.

Are we becoming a Police State?

Now days it seems that the Border Patrol numbers have at least doubled down here. I've had two different incidents with them myself and have seen them pulling over a number of cars lately to. A while back I was driving from the legion to here on the ranch road in front of this place. I'd just pulled in the drive and was getting out of the car when a border patrol vehicle came speeding up and the driver slammed on the brakes and skidded to a stop blocking the driveway. He bounced out of the vehicle as I got completely out of the car. I gave him a What the hell look and he said "Oh I'm sorry sir. I just didn't recognize the vehicle." and then left.

A few days ago I was coming back from Study Butte and had just gone over the hill out side of there when a border patrol came flying up behind me and got real close to tailgating. He maintained his close distance behind me (I assume just long enough to get my license plate numbers) Then he fell back maybe a quarter mile and followed me for several miles. Again I assume long enough to check out my license plate number and then he turned around and went back toward Study Butte.

Yesterday evening while sitting on the east side of the trailer enjoying the shade and beautiful weather I heard the sound of a helicopter approaching from the south. You don't see a lot of those down here so I kept watching it. Next thing I know it is circling over head and then increased the path to an oval including here and the legion. This went on for maybe 10 minutes and then it moved away and a second helicopter came in and took its place doing the same thing. Shortly after that they started playing tag. One would move away and the other would move back in. This all went on for at least another 30 minutes.

Then I noticed that a sheriff's pickup going down 118 turned in to the legion followed shortly by a border patrol and then a Park Police vehicle. Shortly after that the two helicopters headed north and left the area.

Curiosity got the best of me so I went to the legion to see what was going on. By that time they had made an arrest of a customer there and I found out that the border patrol and park police are now backing up the local sheriff's department. That is TWO federal law enforcement agencies now getting involved in what in my opinion should remain a local or at least local/state.

I think its always been understood by the sheriff's department that if they got in a scrape that there are plenty of well armed citizens down here that would back them up if needed. The deputies have always been good people and pretty easy to get along with. I hope that doesn't change. At the rate things are going you might be better off staying in the Big City.

Telle/DSL Update / other news

The guy from Big Bend Telephone made it out early yesterday morning and said I had everything I needed to get the phone and DSL installed. He took pictures of the wind genny, solar panels, gas powered charger, battery bank, RV and It'll Du. I suppose the last was proof of a permanent structure? ;) He also put up  wooden stakes where the pedestal is supposed to be placed and one across the road where it should be run from. He also went to the trouble to do the same between here and the legion and at the legion to so... I assume that means I'll get it installed within the next 90 days? That isn't necessarily true though because they have done that in other places where they later said they wouldn't install it. I'll keep updating as this unfolds. If they do it then I suppose I'll be getting a second driveway out of the deal (If they do like they did with John Wells) since they will be coming straight across from the road to the RV. That should make it easy to use it and the other one as a circle driveway which I don't have a problem with at all.

Family news goes like this:

Some of you may remember my Nephew the retired Colonel I posted about some time back. Well his youngest sister just died and considering his mother died just before his retirement I'm sure this is a double whammy for him. I went through a similar experience several years ago and it was really bad.

Paula is still hanging in there and Dale is still waiting to find out how they will treat him.

As for me... I have a tooth ache from HELL that is really making life rough right now. Two different types of tooth ache medicine doesn't seem to be helping at all and neither does eating Advil like candy. I think its time to get DRUNK!

As for weather? Well it was windy as heck all night and still is now. That's actually good for me though because its partly cloudy and hazy so the wind genny is taking up the slack that the solar panels are loosing.

H A P P Y - N E W - Y E A R ! Party that is.

Yep... Its a little early, BUT there is a New Year's Eve Party planned here. I lost all of my contact email addresses in the hard drive crash so this is about the only way I have to get in touch (hopefully) with those that I had the email addresses to.

I think this will be another joint effort between JustMe and myself again, but I may find out its all going to fall on me. She did say she was in though. ;) Now the way this is planned for now is its to be a late Pot Luck lunch (Starting about 3:00 PM) on New Years Eve. It will also be a BYOB event so its requested for those who show bring some sort of prepared dish of food or maybe bring something prepared in a store. If you can't do that then I don't think you will get shot or anything like that though. BYOB means bring your own Beer or Booze in this case or you probably won't be drinking.

Disclaimer

You must be 21 years of age or older to participate. No children are invited. Sorry adults only.

Who's Invited?

Anyone that was at the brunch, My blog followers who happen to be down here at that time and some of the locals around here. So far the people that I have been able to contact and who have gotten back in touch with me (as far as Blog Followers) are:

Abby & Hopefully Jim

Frann

JustMe

Myself
~mc~ (Hopefully)

the Desert Rose
Bigfoot
Littlefoot
James Jackson (Probably)
Nick Cooper (Maybe) 

I hear that the desert rose will be down at that time, but I don't have her email address to invite her so if you read this you are invited and I'd ask that you all do an RSVP to tffnguy AT gmail.com.

A number of local locals have been invited and plan to come so at this time I know of at least 20 people that plan to be here. If you want to come don't be shy and email me. You are welcome to BYOT "Bring Your Own Tent" if you want to stay over and it will hopefully be setup where there won't be any drunks from here running up and down the highway. Space will be provided as best it can be.

Entertainment will be from my Zune and stereo speakers. I have a very wide selection of music and we'll play a game I came up with when my grand-niece was here called Kill it or Keep it. The way this works is if enough people don't like a song then it gets dumped and goes on to the next one. There should be more than enough songs so that you won't hear the same ones more than once.

Hopefully it will be a lot of fun for all. I'll update the list of people as I get notifications.

Will I or Won't I?

Get a phone and DSL that is! Big Bend Telephone is real bad about nit picking their way out of installing DSL and phones on the ranch. We'll see how this goes next Tuesday when one of their people comes out to check the power requirements and determine whether they will install it or not. If so then it could take up to 90 days to get it in.

I say they nit pick and I'll see if they pull that on me or not. After all I have 600 watts of solar, 500 watts of wind power, 800 AMP hours of batteries, the 130 AMP gas charger, a 5500 watt generator and a 1700 watt inverter. I know that the requirements for batteries is 800 AMP hours and the inverter is 1500 watts, but have never heard what the requirements are for keeping the batteries charged. For you who plan to move down here off grid I'll give updates on this as I get them so you can see what you may have to go through to get a phone and DSL. Most people just settle for a satellite phone and satellite Internet if they even have Internet.

The worst part of all of this is that they actually give you a phone number and email address as soon as you call in to order it, but that doesn't necessarily mean you will get it. I personally know three people who this has happened to and they were turned down later when the guy came out to check the requirements. From what I hear it is a real common thing.

And in other news:
You may remember a few threads back that my cousin Paula has cancer and her hubby left her after finding a out about the cancer, They are now just giving her two weeks to live and that was several days ago. She is going down fast and doesn't think she will make the two weeks. 

Pepper is back 

Thursday Oct. 7th. Pepper decided to pay me another visit. I fed and watered her and took her back, but there was no one there and since she is missing a collar I didn't have a way to tie her up. She chased me for about a mile before I picked her back up and brought her back here. I guess I'll take her back later.

Fun Fun Fun / Pepper & Local News

My member and I went to the legion to watch the Cobras come in. It turns out that the Sheriff really did shut down 118 for them to race on, but it was only about a 17 mile strip starting at the hill where the two roadside trash barrels and the legion was the stop at the other end. The fastest car there was the Ford GTX1 and it got up to 200 miles per hour.

kine

 Ok Guys! You're supposed to be looking at the car not the lady!

The Ford GTX1

Shelby Cobra (Kit Car)

The Falcon with the GTX1 in the background.

Cobra Mustangs in the Legion parking lot.

Only a few on this blog know who Sunny is, but this is her dad posing with his Linclon with some of the Cobra owners. I think he is liking it. Note he is sandwiched between two good looking women.

Lots of Cobra Mustangs.

I couldn't stand letting the Cobra owners get all of the limelight so... I pulled out on 118 and did a burnout with the falcon. When  I returned I expected the cobra owners to be looking at me like I had two heads, but... I received a standing ovation instead.

I was sitting in the It'll Du this morning when a black nose stuck around the edge of the It'll Du flap door and it startled me at first, but when I opened the flap there stood Pepper. I enjoyed her visit for a while and then two Harleys stopped on the highway and one rider got off to take pictures of the arrowhead and bow sign on 118 coming up to the dungeon. Pepper's head raised up and she headed that way. I assume she thought it was Dale, Rhonda and Jean and decided since she was visiting she would visit them to? Anyway I called her back, fed and wattered her and took her back where she belongs.

Oh ! and the new Steakhouse in Study Butte burned to the ground night before last. I don't think it had ever been opened?