BBVVFD Meeting 08/29

There will be another BBVVFD meeting tomorrow (Wed, 08/29). A professor from Sul Ross that teaches fire fighting courses will be there to talk to us. If you are interested in joining us or are just interested in BBVVFD please be at the Legion at 12:00 noon. I believe Lee will be supplying sandwich fixings and chips for an after meeting lunch or snack.

BBVVFD web site / other stuff

http://www.bbvvfd.org Keep in mind that its under construction and will be for some time. All can read, but please either live here or own down here to register.

Bigfoot wanted me to go check on their cabin and get a cot he had forgot to put in the cabin. It's set out in the afternoon sun for months now. Note the sun fading where it was hitting the material while it was folded up. If anyone sees a picture of Jesus Christ and the word gets around it could be worth millions. ;)

This gal has been hanging around lately. Second time I've seen a toad up here since I've been here and that was twice in the last month. The reason I called her a gal is because there's a very small toad in the same area.

The road two roads behind me. It sure is good to see a lot of green around here now days.

Cabin Progress / Solar / Storm

Got the first half of the north window installed and dried in. I'll cover the metal frame I constructed with wood later on to make it look more like a window.

The inside which is temporary. I'll be adding the second half which is another two pane glass section later. This window will not be made to open and I want it to be as energy efficient as I can make it (With in reason). You see a one pane window glass only has an insulation factor of R1 and a dual pane window only has an R rating of R2. The walls will be R-19 or more depending on what else I do to raise that rating. I'm going to be adding another dual pain window to this to raise the R rating to R4 which will be considerably more energy efficient. I'll have two windows like this and the other one will be facing east toward 9 Points Mesa. A third window will be on the south side which will be the little bathroom type window that Bigfoot brought me. It will be the only window that will open, but it will only have an R rating of R2 so I'll have to figure out a way to improve that. I plan to add some type ventilation system that won't effect the overall R rating when it isn't being used, but at some times of the year it will hopefully keep the cabin at a reasonably comfortable temperature and will likely be used during the summer nights. I don't plan to put a window on the west side to keep the hot afternoon/evening sun from heating up the cabin, but I may add a small port window later. There really isn't much of a view to the west.

This is what I'm working with. The dual pane sections that came out of the two windows I traded Frann a new bathroom window for. The two windows I got from her were starting to fall apart because the sun had gotten to the vinyl that was holding the pains in the frames. Those windows were actually considerably larger than I wanted also so since they were coming apart I decided to build the windows I'm working on now.

This is the old windows the panes are coming out of. There will be a total of four (Just right to make two windows like I'm building.) I'd hoped to get the second window (outside section) framed in to the east side of the cabin today, but the high temp, lack of even a breeze at times and higher than normal humidity made me say to heck with that. Maybe tomorrow morning?

Solar
I did an accurate count of all the solar panels this afternoon after the storm (see next) and it turns out that I still am below 1500 watts. It is 1425 watts instead. This should still run the little AC unit during the day no sweat but hopefully my nephew will keep coming up with panels for me. I'd like to at least have 1500 watts and sure wouldn't gripe about 2000. ;) Of course at some point I'm going to have to come up with more batteries to use all the solar and maybe be able to run the AC at night.

Storm
We had another doozy of a wind and sand storm this afternoon. As usual stuff was blowing everywhere. I had a five gallon bucket of soda cans full of crushed soda cans I'd picked up and of course the wind blew it away and scattered all the cans out again so I get to pick them up all over again. Grrr!

One good thing about the storm is it brought in a lot cooler air and a few sprinkles along with clouds which also helped cool things down. The storm didn't last long, but it dropped the temperature from about 106 to 80 degrees real quick. Should be a real good night for sleeping. :)

You might have caught the comment about picking up soda cans above and wondered why I didn't say soda and beer cans. Well that's because I quit drinking any alcoholic drinks a good while back. That's good in one way, but I find I'm drinking about as many sodas as I used to drink beers and that can't be good for my kidneys! At least I am drinking more water. I also started taking vitamins and for some reason my eyes are getting better. Most of the time I don't have to wear my readers while on the computer. Real small letters still get me though. Hopefully smoking will be the next thing I quit.

Now to my friend and neighbors who come to my parties don't worry. There will probably still be parties, but I figure I will only make the acceptation of drinking at my own parties. I don't want to be a dull boy all the time. ;)

Oh BTW I also got the north side of the cabin sealed up and ready to finish painting it. I still lack finishing the west and south sides and of course I hope to start adding on the bathroom on the back before long to.

Little Red Rascal / BBVVFD meeting a success

After the meeting last night I came home and one of my friends (Daniel) came by and we sat in front of the cabin looking for the meteor shower I'd heard was supposed to happen last night and tonight. Didn't see one meteor which is unusual for around here. I had the party light set up for lighting and about 10:30 I noticed a small snake slithering by about a foot in front of my feet. My reflexes kicked in like the time I posted about the lizard I named Dog some time back and I lifted my feet well off the ground. Daniel saw me do that and the snake just after I did and he did the same. I'm not sure that was a good move because if it had been a rattle snake they strike on movement and it might have triggered a strike. I didn't have the camera handy so no pictures.

Anyway it turnout that is was a red racer and probably the same one I posted about some time back, but it has about doubled in size and length now. From what I've read they can get up to about 8 feet in length so if it keeps hanging around that could be a heart stopping event to see an 8 foot snake in faint light go slithering by.  :shock:  I guess I'll be calling this snake Red Rascal.

As for the VFD meeting yesterday it was a success. I'd asked Julianne (Just Me) to run for the board and she accepted my invite. I nominated her for a position as soon as I could and she was voted in. That seemed to lead to a domino effect and when all was said and done all board members were voted in. They then voted Julianne in as chairperson. No one from south Brewster county was voted in which in my opinion is a good thing because now all those local to this area are now on the board and a lot of the people from south Brewster county seem to think the north end of Terlingua residents are sub human for some reason. This is one more important step toward us having our own fire department, but we still have a lot of hoops to jump through before we are there.

It turns out that now that Lee has gone to the trouble and expense to get this going the Terlingua fire department wants to step in and sort of annex us in to their department. There already has been some resistance to us making it on our own and I suspect there will be a lot more as time goes on.

BBVVFD Meeting. Please come. (Vote)

Lee forked out the $$$ to get the ball rolling. The 501c3 is in the process of being applied for and a meeting will be held Sunday 08/12 (this coming Sunday) at 3:00 PM. The meeting will be held at the Legion this time and it looks like there will be a vote to elect the Board of Trustees. I sure hope who ever is elected can do a lot better than the Ranch board!

If you care to join us as a volunteer or want to throw your hat in the ring to be on the board or even the chairman (president) please come to the meeting. We were told that Lee can't run for any board position, but I could. I'm not in to that type of politics so will bow out on that. We have our first functional firetruck (thanks to Lee), but we find that the fire station will have to be upgraded some.

I checked in to the 911 address for the station (Not knowing whether the owner or previous owner had already done it and fortunately it turned out that one of them had so we do have an address for it.) One more step out of the way.

Like I said if you want to sign up to be a member or to run for the board please show up.

*** Update ***
I just got off the phone talking to the owner of the building  which will be the fire station and got the go ahead to request the actual mailing address for the station and to put it under the Big Bend Valley Volunteer Fire Department. The owner is A. G. Hays and he's a great guy! He has also given us the Ok to get a phone put in and to build a small office in it. He says he will add a septic system and get it ready for a  restroom to be added. Looks like things are moving right along.

Only other news around here is that I went out to the cabin about 10:00 last night to get a soda and it was sprinkling. Nothing shown in the gage though. Sure would be nice to have  a good rain to see how the pond does.

Pdiddl'in around

Haven't gotten anything useful done around here in what seems like forever. Too damn hot during the day and even though I have the will to work on the cabin I still don't feel like it. Feeling semi fair and feeling lousy seems to be a seesaw now days.

Anyway I've been staying out in front of the cabin pretty late lately because it takes this trailer forever to cool down and its much cooler outside. Its still 96 degrees in here at 10:30. Will probably be midnight before it cools down enough to sleep and that will be in the high 80s. It got to 110 again today that I know of. May have gotten hotter. there wasn't much wind at all most of the time. Or at least it was out of the wrong direction to do me any good. As usual the damn gnats were really pesky.

Now while sitting out in front of the cabin late I've been sort of fooling around with this idea and that. Taking a few pictures and trying things that aren't hard to do. The above and below pictures were taken last night.

One of my friends code named Hollywood had dropped me off a couple of 55 gallon plastic water drums a while back (One blue and one white.) I'd also bought a many many LED light from Ron (the guy that sells the cabins) and it puts out one heck of a lot of light, but is actually too bright to look at and the bugs love it! I looked at the white drum and got to wondering what would happen if I turned that LED light upside down on it and what you see below is what happened.

It actually looks pretty dark here, but it is much brighter all around the drum for a good distance and no glare and for some reason it doesn't seem to attract bugs. I think I've discovered my new party light! It sort of lights the area up with a warm glow. I actually got in the jeep and headed down 118 and it looks pretty cool and ghostly from a good distance. May decorate it up for Halloween? ;)

Added this picture after Bigfoot asked what the light looked like. Its 110 volts AC and only pulls 14 watts. It is one BRIGHT puppy!

Crud!

Yep... seems I have it. Been feeling like warmed over death for three days now. To add insult to injury the humidity has been much higher than normal and the days over 100 degrees with little to no wind. Got to 104 here yesterday and was only supposed to get to 102. Its supposed to get to 104 today so I guess that means it will get to 106. The flies and especially gnats are many and relentlessly pester the crap out of a person. They fly in your mouth, fly up your nose, fly in to your eyes and generally pester the crap out of you.

Are you real sure you'd like to live down here?