December 31, 2014 - Enjoying life ...

Lots of photos ...

Decisions, decisions!  Scott must make a choice of which video he wants to watch.  On windy days it's not much fun to go outside so Scott ends up spending a lot of time watching videos.  When the wind is blowing we have lots of power from the wind generator so power use is not a problem.  Many times the battery voltage is so high (the inverter shuts off if the battery voltage is too high or low) that we must turn on all of the lights in the motor home to use up the excess electricity.  .

Time at the library in Overton.

Scott putting stickers on the Christmas tree at the Overton library.

The chocolate factory Christmas light display.

We swapped stoves in the motorhome.  The oven did not work in the factory stove so we got one out of another motorhome we acquired for parts parts.  Susan is cleaning it up.  I hooked it to the propane before she cleaned it and the oven and all the burners worked.

I had to enlarge the hole a bit but we got it installed and hooked up.  Then we learned that it had a gas leak in the oven valves.  (My eyebrows will probably grow back okay just like the hair on my arms that is now missing.)  So we're back to looking for a new stove.  We found that all of the new units have a large grill across the top instead of individual burner plates.  We're still trying to find one like we want but may end up going with the newer style.

The wood stove is great!  We learned that Mesquite and Tamarisk leave a lot of ash when they burn.  I had to clean it almost daily until we got some new wood.

Scott at the playground in Overton.

I brought my longbow with us this time and have enjoyed many hours of shooting it.  There's a lot of gravel around my target so missing the target is really hard on my arrow supply.

Scott has his bow too but likes to move in close when shooting.

Me and Susan on a bicycle ride.  We ride to the highway and back most days just for exercise.  It's three miles each way.  Mostly uphill going out and downhill coming back in.

Scott has his control center set up in the motorhome.  He sits up there pretending he's a pilot.  He has a toy computer and my calculator along with the television remote so he has lots of buttons to push (in addition to all the buttons, switches and gauges on the motorhome's control-console).  He has a plastic sheet of desert animal pictures that he refers to as his navigation chart.  He has a plastic milk crate filled with pillows for a chair with the barbecue tongs for a back rest.  He'll play for hours up there charting a path across the world.  It would be nice if I could record and play all the sound effects he makes (including radio transmissions to the control tower).

He's helping Susan play the keyboard now.

A nearby spring we occasionally visit on sunny days.

The water is about 80 degrees.  Not hot but warmer than the air temperature this time of year.

Scott loves playing in the spillway.

Our Christmas tree which had to remain outside due to there not being enough room for it inside.

Scott just being Scott!

Another day at the library.  This is the tree they had set up.  They had a couple of stuffed penguins which Scott pulled close while admiring the tree.  He was busy telling them all about the tree's decorations.

Scott and Santa in Overton one evening. Santa asked Scott what he wanted for Christmas and Scott said a motorcycle.  I think Santa thought Scott wanted a toy motorcycle but Scott wants the real thing.

Christmas morning and Scott is really getting into it this year.  He wanted to eat all the candy right then but mean old Grandma and Grandpa said "no."

He got some stickers for Christmas (along with a bunch of other stuff) and proceeded to plaster them on grandma's face and his own).

Not sure what he's thinking about here but he thought it was fun.  (He was "looking" in the mirror.)

Local wood for the stove and evening outside fire.

It was a bit windy for about a week!

One of our desert walks near camp.  The path is from wild burros and feral cattle.

Campfire time.

We found someone in Vegas who had about a half-cord of firewood for sale.  He wanted sixty-dollars for it so we made a trip in with the trailer.

We filled up the trailer and the back of the Expedition.  It's all smaller stuff which will be great for our wood stove.

Susan did her "polar bear" swim in honor of the New Year.  She challenged our kids to do the same thing at home but they declined (pansies!).  Seems that they didn't want to cut holes in the six inches of ice on the lake or brave the sub-zero temperatures.  They thought she was cheating because she used a hot spring with 80 degree water and the outside air temperature was around 45 degrees on the plus side of the thermometer.

Susan basking in the morning sunshine while writing in her journal.

Lest anyone think it's always a tropical paradise here we've had some nights when it got down to 38 degrees in the motorhome.  It was early in the morning and Scott woke up but decided he'd rather crawl in with grandma while grandpa got the wood stove fired up good and hot!

30 November, 2014 Venison, House Fires and Snowbirding

The last couple of weeks have been pretty busy as we prepare to head south for the winter.  It was tight but we headed out on schedule.  Of course a few things went wrong on the road (as they usually do) but we're now in Nevada.

Susan has been canning things to take with us.  Here she is canning up Cheddar cheese.  When things go on sale we often buy in bulk then can it for later use,  It saves money several of ways.  First, we got the food originally at a lower price.  Second, once it's canned or dehydrated we don't need to refrigerate it to store it,  Third, if we have it on hand at the motor home we are less likely to make a trip into town for food (either prepared at a restaurant or from the grocery store) which saves money on gas and the extra price of the food itself.

We were given this squash several months ago and finally got around to canning it.  Obviusly it had to be cut up for cooking.

Susan has cubed it and is preparing it for the canner.

I shot a whitetail spike buck to fill my deer tag with.  He is one of the best tasting deer I've ever shot.

I shoot it and cut it up and Susan cans and cooks it!

I put the sides on the trailer so we could use it to transport things to Nevada.  We had some tongue-and-groove boards on hand so I used them for the sides.

The dog knew we were heading south and couldn't wait!  When Susan got the dog carrier in the back of the car the dog jumped in and refused to leave.  Scott arranged a little "nest" of blankets to curl up in and pass the time.

The trailer packed and ready to go.

The home of some neighbors caught on fire just before the Thanksgiving holiday.  I seldom do things like this on my blog but they could use some help.  The home was completely destroyed along with it's contents.  To compound the problem, the husband was recently diagnosed with cancer in his pancreas and liver.  It's going to be a tough time for them during this holiday season.  I've included a link with more of their story and a way to donate to them if you should desire.  http://missoulian.com/news/article_0aa3a442-e444-5b71-867b-ac90cdc5be30.html

Departure time!  On our way out we made the first tracks in our new-fallen snow.

We tried unsuccessfully to get ahead of a snowstorm.  After a couple of hours of driving 30 mph on the icy interstate we called a halt and spent the night in a Deer Lodge motel, 250 miles from home.  It dropped about 6 inches of fresh snow after we forted up.  The funny thing was that the power went off for about thirty minutes the next morning.  Scott wanted to watch television and couldn't understand the concept of the electricity not working.  We live entirely off-grid and he had never experienced a power outage before then.

We took I-15 south the next morning.  Otherwise we'd have followed the snowstorm for the next 300 miles.  It was still a couple of hours of 30 mph driving until we began to hit dry pavement.  This is what it looked like as we entered Idaho.  Once we were on dry pavement we stopped to switch drivers.  I did a quick inspection of the trailer and found out that two of the four lug nuts were missing on one wheel.  One of the studs was loose too. I took  one lug nut off the other wheel so we had three on each wheel then.  We tried getting another stud and two lug nuts at the next town we hit but ours are an odd size and they didn't have any that would fit.  So we took it the rest of the way on three lug nuts per wheel.

We hit headwinds in Idaho.  We were going about 70 mph into a 25 mph headwind with gusts above 45 mph at times.  One of the gust must have been a little harder though because it ripped the kayak and the luggage rack off the Expedition.  We were fortunate that the vehicles following avoided the flying kayak and a section of the luggage rack.  The kayak skidded safely to a stop in the ditch. It sustained only minor damage and is still usable.

One of the cross pieces to the roof rack was still attached to the kayak.

I anchored it to the top of the trailer and we were once again on the road.

Things were looking better as we entered Utah.

This is 26 hours after the photo was taken of the snow-covered Expedition in Deer Lodge.  Palm trees and no snow! 

Our motor home is the one next to the fifth-wheel.  The battery was dead in it and we couldn't get enough power in it to jump start the motor home.  It was Thanksgiving day and everything was closed.  We didn't want to drive into Mesquite or Henderson to buy another battery so we just drove to our camping spot and set up the tent for the night.  That night it got down to 35 degrees.  We were thankful for warm sleeping bags!

On Friday we purchased a battery from NAPA for $112.00.  I put it in and it would crank over now  but wouldn't fire.  I gave it a shot of starting fluid and the motor fired up so I switched tanks.  The auxiliary tank has some issues with dirt (sabotage from a squatter the previous owner evicted) so it isn't reliable.  It got us the mile to the camping area though.  On the way the brake light came on and the pedal went to the floor.  I suspect that there's some fluid leakage somewhere but I haven't checked it out yet.

We'd been having problems with the air suspension on our Expedition as well but the warmer weather seems to have fixed that.  I suspect there's an o-ring seal that needs replaced on the left rear air bag.

Scott found some sand (it's all sand!) in the camping area to play in and got out his construction equipment and began moving dirt! 

Our first evening campfire!

I didn't have time to make the stove for the motor home before we left Montana so I brought the parts and did it here.  We made a trip into the Henderson Harbor Freight Tools store and bought a welder and grinder.  The welder was on sale for $85.00.  I'd planned on buying a 120 volt stick welder but the wire welder was only $5.00 more and is more convenient so I bought it.  For a cheap welder it works very well.  It only uses flux core wire and has only two heat settings but welds nice and functions smoothly.  It weighs only half of what my Lincoln welder at home weighs so I'll use this one for jobs away from home.

I'm taking photos so later I'll be publishing a small booklet on how to make one of these.  You need two propane bottles and some other items to make a dandy little stove.

In the upper photo I've cut the hole in the bottle I'll use for the stove and the door from the other bottle.

Here, I'm welding the hinges to the door (under Scott's supervision).

As soon as I stop he grabs the welder, hammer, or whatever I've been using and pretends to work.  He's making hissing/welder sounds as he runs a bead here!

This is what the finished stove looks like after being installed in the Motor Home.  The cement boards are heat shields.  It works very well in the small spaces of the camper.  We have to watch to ensure that it doesn't get too hot.

You might wonder why we have a photo of the milk and lemons.  One of the things we missed in MT was the lemons they sell here.  Ours are small and expensive.  These are so much better than any we can get up north.

This is at the camping area right outside of town.  We'll probably be moving to our more remote location soon.

I made a separate post for this book but will include it here as well.  This is my most recent book.  It evaluates muzzle loading firearms (modern, traditional, and handguns), crossbows (and crossbow pistols), air rifles and pistols, and bows-n-arrows from a prepper's perspective.