More Fool'in Around

While sitting out in front of the dungeon this evening it looked like we were going to have more storms. We did... A Sand storm. Looked like to the south they were getting hammered with rain. Perhaps JW got more rain for his storage. Looked like it was in his area. Once the rain storm got past us headed to the west it then turned north and missed us.

I finally figured out how to catch some lightning with my ragged old camera as seen in the last photo. That was when it was behind us.

Now! if I could just catch it burning out on a mountain (twice) like I saw it do night before last I'd be happy. Pretty cool!

Fool'in around

Still nothing to write about other than I'm still grubbing up a few weeds and bushes in the cool of the mornings to make way for Dale's trailer when it gets here on the 28th. Took some pictures after the storm the other night and the only one worth posting is 9 points mountain again. Has double rainbows on this one, but the one further to the left is hard to make out. Also snapped a picture of the local lizard. Nice colors on them and there are many. That is Peppers favorite past time trying to catch them. She hasn't had any luck yet. They are way to fast for her and always find a bush or something else to hid in or under during the chases.

That's all for now folks.

Local Eateries

For lack of anything else to post I decided to show off the local eateries. (Local to the dungeon that is) First most everyone has seen which is the Legion. The second one everyone has probably seen to either here or on JW's blog. That would be the Grub Shack. Third probably not seen so much and that is Susie's Snack Shack. Fourth is Tivo's Place and the Longhorn Motel. Note the monster Yucca in front of Tivo's! That sucker is HUGE!

And another sunset shot. This was after the storm last night. Had some heavy rain and sounded like small hail, but it was blowing from the east so I had to keep the door shut and couldn't see. Just Me dropped by for a visit earlier before the storm and was going to go out and tend to her bees. Hope she wasn't still out in the boonies when the storm hit. Enjoyed the visit Just Me.

The other toe curlers are of an accident Pepper had after eating last night. :( and then a tarantula crossing the road in front of the dungeon when I was headed out for the other pictures. Hay... With the good must come some bad. (Usually does for me anyway.)

Another Swamp Cooler!

At the legion to get ice and cool off now. Forgot my reading glasses so no telling how many mistakes I'll make on this. Anyway the generator uses way too much gas to be used to cool the dungeon so... I built another evap sort of like JW's. Actually I didn't get the idea from him though because I'd thought of using an ice chest to build one before he built his, but didn't have a spare and didn't want to have to buy one. On RN's last trip he left another large ice chest so I used my old one to build the new evap out of. It had already been butchered to an extent when I used it as the holding tank for the solar heating system I built a few years back in Plano. Unlike JW's swamp cooler I am building the whole thing in one cooler and not using a second for the holding tank. The small pump  OGT left won't need to pump water so high so should function better and probably use a little less electricity to do it.

So far I'm about 89% finished I guess. Still need to add the pump and manifold to circulate the water over the pad. For now I've been just dampening the pad every now and then with a jug. It seems to cool pretty good, but the pad area is a lot smaller than the one I built before which causes a good bit of restriction and the fan just doesn't put out a lot of air. I really need a small blower instead of the fan. At least now there is some ventilation in the dungeon where with the AC unit only I had the overhear vent closed up and there was none. That meant that when it was closed up and the AC wasn't running it got REALLY hot in there. The little evap should help a good bit with that and should do a fair job at night. At least with this new one I can keep the AC window unit in the window as well as the evap to so if I REALLY have to run the AC for short periods I can. Probably after sun down when there is still some light and just long enough to get the temp down in the dungeon. (maybe 30 minutes,)

Probably more pictures later. Hopefully after there is shade in front of the dungeon later I can finish adding the pump and get it fully functional. I will have to add water a good bit more often since it won't hold anywhere near the volume the old one did, but I wouldn't think over every three hours or so and with the smaller pad maybe a lot less often than that?




Update First night wasn't so cool! It was real humid because of storms in the area and then the lack of air output because of the fan didn't help any either. Had to resort to running the generator again after I woke up about 1:00 AM and couldn't get back to sleep because of the muggy heat. Code name for the new cooler is Haf'ta Du, but I sure need a small blower to get it to do that because a fan just doesn't have the static pressure that a blower does. Not much way to add more pad area so that is out. Maybe a cooler twice the size would have been better, but there wouldn't have been room for it.



Update2

Added my other fan inside in front of the discharge to act like a Turbo and it works well. Probably doubled the output of air. Problem is I loose the use of that fan for redirecting air on me and that's not a good thing. It isn't likely that even doubling the output will do the job of cooling this place during the day, but there is a chance it will at night. Guess I'll see tonight.

A couple of storm pictures from yesterday evening. Note in the first another rainbow over 9 points. For some reason that mountain seems to produce them. Also looks sort of like a pyramid with the  rain  falling toward the other direction.


Update3 The cooler did very well last night with the second fan boosting it. There was enough of the cool air blowing on my bunk that I didn't need the fan blowing directly on me. Of course day time comes and it doesn't have a chance, but will probably keep it a few degrees cooler, but very humid so I may switch to ventilation only during the day and turn the pump on at night.

They're Out there!

Went in the Study Butte early this morning to get more gas for the charger and genny and on the way back saw two more rattlers. One was alive, but on the far lane of 118 so I didn't want to cross the twin yellows to run over it. The second one had been run over and the vultures were feasting on it. One of them didn't want to turn loose of the prize so I had to hit the brakes and slow down before it finally flew off. With the one I ran over yesterday evening that makes three of them in less than 14 hours and that many that I've seen down here since I've been down here! As luck would have it I didn't have the camera along either time. I think the one I ran over yesterday was probably a Mojave because it had a gold tent to it. The two today just looked like the rattlers I've always seen before.

(Pepper update) I was going to let Pepper ride in to town with me, but she pulled a switch on me and refused to get in the falcon. I'm through trying to manhandle her so tied her up in her shaded hangout and she like to have flipped out when I got in the car to leave. Servers her right for being such a TWIT!

The storm last night fell apart before it reached me, but there were signs of heavy rain in SB while I was there.


Pepper the excavator

Pepper had dug such a large hole under one of the corners of the dungeon I had to fill it in with rocks. She's done that on the back and one side. No doubt the shady areas. Damn Dog! 

Got Cool!

Had all I could take of the evap (which was doing very little good) so I ripped it out and installed the little refer window unit. Its been running for about 35 minutes and has taken the temp down in here from 105 degrees to 98 degrees so far. Its already 110 outside and I think to match yesterday's high of 112. Needless to say with having to run the generator to be able to run the AC I'll only be running it until the sun reaches far enough west to make shade in the front of the dungeon and then open the door and sit outside. I'll probably fire it up late at night to cool the place down before I hit the rack and then cut it off. Unfortunately this AC doesn't have a vent setting where I can pull outside air and just ventilate so not sure how this will go over at night if it gets real warm in here, but I'll figure something out. Otherwise I could have probably been able to switch to fan only (Low speed) and run it off the batteries.

A side benefit of all of this is that I've switched the little fan back to running off of the solar battery charger and won't be using the water pump and second fan which were running off of the batteries so I should be able to stretch the run time on the charger to at least every 24 hours again since batteries will mainly be used at night. Since I've been running the evap I've been having to run the charger twice per day. I can also run the laptop off of the generator while the AC is running so that will help some to and also maybe run some power tools in short burst to be able to get something useful done and have a half way cool place to come to between doing that.  It won't totally offset the extra gas used by the generator, but will help some.

Below was yesterday's high in here with the evap running.

The storm is here. A futile attempt at catching lightning. 06/07/2010 10:18 PM

Pep Update

Told ya she was getting BIG. Looks like I'll be keeping her. She is doing much better and evidently her watching me drive off with her tied up where she couldn't follow me has paid off. I decided to take her south with me yesterday and expected to have to force her in the falcon, but I put the leash on her and as soon as I opened the door she was IN THERE. It works like that every time now. She seems to be settling down some to. Its getting fun to watch some of her antics to. We're at the Legion right now because the thermometer at the dungen reads 109 outside and 102.8 when we left. I expect it will be at 104 before it starts cooling down. We will head back that way when there is shade to sit outside.

The mosquitoes are really bad now and plenty BIG, but I hear they won't last long once it dries out. (If it dries out) Its still pretty humid around here and little to no wind so that sure doesn't help the heat situation. Its supposed to be even hotter tomorrow. :(

Picture from the other morning.

Now served at the Legion. :)