RAIN!!! / 500 gallons of catchment!

Should have gotten about 800 gallons of catchment if the catchment system wasn't still leaking. Unfortunately the roof is still leaking to and I got a few gallons in here to. I'm up to 1100 gallons in the 1550 gallon catchment tank and its supposed to rain through Friday. Now if I don't have some other disaster that should hold me a long time. I spent the night without power because its been so dark the solar just isn't cutting it. All the parishables out of the fridge are now in an ice chest.

Terlingua Dreams / MsBelinda

Well the chili cook off is over which meant that the heat is gone to and I was able to go down south today for some much needed  supplies and a shower. The shower will probably make a lot of people in this area happy. ;) I've got to get another water pump!

MsB stopped by bearing gifts as usual and part of that was Nestle's hot coco mix with mini marshmallows which I love to put in my coffee in the mornings. Also water, cans of tuna and a number of other things.

She said she doesn't have internet service at home anymore because they raised the price way high so she dumped it. She asked me to tell the bloggers that know her to say Hi. She also said she would try to stay in touch by using the internet at the library.

Jerry (Modern Day Redneck) didn't make it back by, but I'm sure he will post on his blog before long to let us know how he scored cooking chili. Hope he made the grade!

Hope everyone has a good one...

Been a while!

Well once again the Chili Cook Off is going on down here and as usual the flow of RVs and traffic headed south on 118 has been Quazuppled (New word to add to dictionaries and it means a lot more than quadrupled) We have been having some beautiful weather lately, but as you might guess the weather has changed. Fairly high wind, cloudy and and cool now that the cook off is going on.

Also as usual I'm sure Study Butte and Terlingua are inundated with the usual heat. DPS, Sheriff's department and about every other known state and federal heat you can think of. Personally I'll be glad to see that reversed. I stocked up as best as I could so as not to have to go south during the event, but supplies are running a little low. I'll make it though.

Some of the stuff I stocked up on was beans, chili, pancake & waffle mix, onion and I already had potatoes (Which I need to fry up.) I've eaten so many pancakes and burritos made with thin pancakes that they are running out my ears so to speak. Actually the burritos turned out pretty darned good considering I didn't have any cheese to put on them.

I have one more can of Spam left along with spaghetti and sauce so I'm debating on whether I'll use the spam for that or maybe make another batch of fried potatoes, onion, beans and add the spam to it. In any case it will make enough to get me by until after the chili cook off is history for one more year.

BTW I haven't been south since I came back from Odessa I think on the 24th. Had another bout of leg infection, but this time I wasn't hard headed and went soon after I discovered it. The VA actually came though and I'm well on the way to being mended. They also got me back on the medication they had cut me off of so that helps a lot to.

For those who follow Modern Day Redneck's blog him and his wife stopped by a couple of days ago on their way to the chili cook off. He said he had finally gotten enough points to cook at this one. Hope they have good luck and win! They were both impressed with my view from here and he said they had never been here before and couldn't believe the size of the mountains down here. Haven't seen any sign of MsB yet, but hope she stops by on her way home.

While I was in Odessa the International Oil Show was going on. You think the chili cook off is big? Well the oil show which takes up the whole Odessa Colosseum and all the grounds around it fills up with high tech oil drilling equipment and about everything else oilfield related.  Of course with all of the oil $$$ there (can you say Dallas the TV series?) Vegas show girls are brought in to spice the place up. It used to be open to the public and I loved to go out there for the scenery ;) and also all the free stuff given away. Usually left with a couple of large cloth shopping bags full of all kinds of cool stuff and an urge to go to Vegas. Unfortunately its closed to the public now days.

The pictures above was a new one! Four high $$$ airplanes were flown in to the airport about 2 miles away and towed to some parking areas across from the Colosseum by some of the mules like the blue one seen in the last photo. No trailers used and the planes were not disassembled. Need less to say that made sort of a parade with police behind them escorting them back to the air port when the show was over. Sure screwed up traffic on the highway!

My Sureflow water pump had burned out when I got home because of a leak that sprang up and it pumped until the voltage got low and burned up. In a way I guess its good that it burned up because I didn't loose all the water, but probably another couple of hundred gallons. I think I'm jinxed as far as water goes!

Another landmark going away.

This old house has been here since who knows when. I've been told at one time it was used for the Terlingua Ranch's original sales office, but don't know that for sure.The stone work around the bottom portion of the house was really great and there was also a bath tub made of the same type stone in the bathroom. It sure looked uncomfortable to me though. Almost looked like volcanic rick was used. Anyway the house is slowly but surely being disassembled and will soon be gone. I don't have a clue what will take its place? This house is located catty cornered from the Legion and on the opposit side of Legion Road and facing highway 118.

And below is a picture of 9 points getting squashed by clouds. I wonder if it was foggy up there?

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Back When - Sage Blooming

My niece Amy and I at her wedding many a moon ago. My brother had passed away and it fell on me to be the one to give her away. John Wells asked who she was when my nephew posted this on FB and I've had several other people ask who she was since then. Now you all know. She is married guys!

Can't believe I was so clean cut!


And a few pictures showing the sage blooming. I had to enhance the colors to bring out the purple so all other colors got enhanced to. Too bad it doesn't really look this good around here.

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Water Water Everywhere, but not in my tank.

Got another .3 inches of rain last night along with a really nasty electrical storm. Lightning was hitting all around here and some sounded REALLY close. The inverter cut out twice when close lightning hit and I sure didn't know it would do that unless maybe it was a direct hit. Both times the inverter reset its self and the power came back on with in a few seconds. At least this time there was no high wind or hail.

I should have gotten about 60 gallons out of that .3 inches, but I doubt I got much at all because of the below.

The black stuff in there is gnats that have made their way in to the opening going in to the tank and with the very small screen filter had more or less completely covered the screen. I need to come up with a better filtration setup, but for now I have this cleaned out so hopefully when I get more rain I'll actually get water out of it.

I know the thought of this is probably gross to some, but that fine screen does at least keep the water inside pretty clean. Of course some people actually drink their rain catchment, but I don't. I add bleach to it occasionally, but just use that water for showers, washing dishes, flushing the toilet and stuff like that. I buy my drinking water separate from hauled or catchment water. I have heard of people finding lizards, mice and lots of bugs floating around in their tanks. I'll just have to keep the screen clean!

A gift from MyPalAl. He's back down here from Canada and was planning to sample some of our SUMMER temps, but he screwed up and brought the Canadian temps with him. Low last night was 57 COLD degrees. Well its cold to me and I guess Shelah to because now she is wanting in the cabin which is very rare now days. Three days ago the high was 106 degrees and today is supposed to be in the low 70s. UG! Now... About the whiskey its premo Canadian whiskey in a place where most people that drink Canadian whiskey drink the cheap stuff. This will be reserved for sipping! Considering a jug of the cheap stuff down here costs $19. it would cost a Canadian over $60 in Canada so I figured he paid an arm and a leg for the Wiser's. However, he wasn't missing any of his limbs when he got here so I suppose they made him take out a bank loan to buy it.

On another note there is going to be a fund raiser meal at the Legion today which I believe starts at 5:00 or 6:00 PM. The proceeds will be going I think to the Family Outreach Center so it will be going to a good cause. From what I hear, but am not 100% sure of the meal will consist of fish steaks and I'm not sure what else. If you choose to come and support the Sons of the Legion with this fund raiser and get a meal out of it then come on to the legion. You can bring a side dish if you like (sort of a pot luck) to go with the meal. The cost for the meal is I believe under $8 so it shouldn't break the bank and will support a good cause. There is supposed to also be a skeet shoot starting at 2:00 so you might want to bring a shotgun and some ammo for that. (That could be hampered or canceled because of High Wind though!) Its been blowing non stop since yesterday afternoon and shows no sign of letting up. It is also extremely cloudy here and still 59 degrees. You would want to bring warm clothing. There may or may not be entertainment also. Sorry for not having my act together on this, but I've only received a few "I think" comments from others about it.

Below are just some pictures for filler.

The moon shot was the night after the super moon and unfortunately it was too dark for the camera to capture the full view. It was rising over 9 points where there is a divot on top of the mountain. It appeared to be rising out of the mountain in that divot. It was awesome!

And as a warning to travelers. They are taring and graveling 118 from the Ranch Road to the ghost town so it s a mess from what I hear. I bought the last windshield repair kit they had at the little store at the Ranch Road. So far I haven't had to go south, but sooner or later I'll have to. Every time they do that I get more dings in  the jeep windshield. I took the Caddy back to my niece last week and it was a good thing!