Fire!!!

So, I'm cooking outside, preparing a wonderful Cuban picadillo and I smell smoke.  So I thought, damn, I bet that Millennial kid up the street who just leased or bought a lot, has a camp fire going. (We are under a complete burn ban.) And this kid lives out of his car and it’s a long story but they are trying to have him removed. Well, I was half right. It was that damn kid but it was worse than a camp fire. He was burning trash!!! The next thing you know, the whole side of the road is burning and more!

 

 

 

Well before you know it, a couple of acres are now burning!!! Yikes! Time for total panic because it is just down our drive and we don’t think we can get out!!! Lucky for us, our neighbor, Curly, is a sheriff form Arizona and he drove to the club house while his wife, Tanya, called 911. Curly sounded the alarm and the Rimrock volunteer fire department came to the rescue!!!

 

 

Jose putting the water down

(Jose is one of the staff here at Rimrock, and a friend of ours. He is the best!)

 

 

I ran down to the road with my trusty rake and asked how I could help. Before I knew it, Curly gave me a hose and told me what to do!!! (Of course I got the limp leaky hose).

 

 

 

 

Pretty soon, with good directions, I got the hang of it and became a firefighter!!! Well, the mop up guy anyway!!! It took us about 55 to 60 minutes of work with shovels, hoses, and rakes, but we got it beat down!!!

 

 

Fireman Bill!!!

 

 

And of course, when we had it almost out, who shows up?

 

 

Grant County Fire Department!!!

Just kidding, I was sure glad to see them! They have a long drive to reach us and

 got here very quickly. Sure glad the are around!

 

 

 

They made it look easy!!!

 

I was glad they came and finished with those trucks. They had made quick work of it

and they dumped plenty of water to make sure it was out. Then they stayed for a couple of hours to make sure it was completely out. We were so lucky with this one. The wind had dropped from 14 mph, an hour earlier, to almost no wind at all. If he had started his fire earlier, we would have all been in trouble.

 

It's all good in the end. I'm so thankful for my neighbors and all the folks in the volunteer fire dept.

 

 

 

Wonderful September and Life on the Ranch

September is here!!!!

While our trip to Maui was absolutely magical, it was nice to be back at the ranch. Our first stop was to drop by Costco and pick up our new Champion Generator.

 

 

 Then we ran down to Home Depot and picked up our new Honeywell Evaporative cooler.

 

 

 Both have been great additions for us. We also rented a truck just before Labor Day weekend and picked up paneling, insulation, cabinets and flooring for our barn/workshop.

 

 

Lisa in the loft putting up insulation on the ceiling

 

 

 

Putting down the vinyl flooring

 

 

Adding a window

 

Finished for now (Lisa's office)

 

Bill's Office

 

 

We got everything done but the trim, which we will finish another day. Overall, a pretty good job. This should help us keep comfortable on hot and cold days and keep our stuff secure and safe over the winter.

The temps start dropping from the low 80s and upper 50s at labor day, to the upper 60s and upper 30s by months end. We can mark the passing of summer by how far south the sunset moves and by how early it occurs. In July it is 9:30 pm and the sunset is due west of us, and by end of September it is 6:30- 7:00PM time frame, and it is now setting southwest. I can get full solar on my moveable panels in mid summer until sunset, now, since it has moved so far south, the motor home blocks the panels.

The mornings are nice and crisp. Soon they will be freezing and that will mark the time for us to go. We depart on October 26th this year.

New toys:

For my birthday Lisa got me some fun stuff:

 

A nice survival knife: (For when SHTF, I can cut me up some goat or something, and cook me some dinner.)

 

 

A Weather Station:

 

 

And an Emergency Radio/Solar Charger:

 

Love the emergency radio which has hand cranks and has solar. This is the second one I have, and the flashlights are great and don't need batteries. Just crank it a few times and you got 15-30 mins or so of power.


One thing we didn't know but just figured out, is our little rice cooker runs off of our solar battery bank and uses very little power.

Aroma 6 cup rice cooker.

 



We cook oatmeal and other things in this as well. It's a great little gadget. This time of year electric usage is very important as we tend to have more cloudy days and less sunlight, so anything that can help us reduce is great.

 

 

 

We love this time of year and are completely enjoying life at the ranch!!! I Hate to even think about leaving, but we know it is only a month away.

Until Next time!!! Cheers from the Ranch!!!

 

 

Techie Stuff:

I know I have covered some of this before but let’s do it again. Folks ask me all the time about the technical issues we face and how we get around them.

 

The RV:

 

                We have a 1994 Winnebago Adventure that we call Maggie, named after Margret Thatcher because she is our Iron Lady. Tough and dependable. She runs great and while a bit aged-looking on the outside, she looks great inside.

Maggie towing the jeep

 

 

Water:  We live in a community that has a shared well that we can get water from. It's good, cold and clean. We go about once every three days and collect about 60 gallons or more, depending on the heat and such. We mostly use water for showering and washing dishes. We use bottled water to drink and cook with. We could use the well but we don’t have a filtration system so this is how we do it for now. In the future we want our own well, but that’s a maybe for 2017.

 

 

 

This is our 60-gallon water bladder that we transport our water with. We fill it up at the well and pump it into the RV’s 100-gallon fresh water tank.

 

 

Waste Water and such:

 

                Well, we have a composting toilet system and if you wish to read about it in details you can go to the web site: http://natureshead.net/  but for us it works and it is great. We never have to worry about dumping a black water sewage tank again.

 

We had our black water tank cleaned and now is our second gray water tank. (Gray water is relatively clean waste water from baths, showers and sinks) We can drain gray water onto our property. Later we plan to have a filtration system so we can water a tree or bushes with it.

 

 

Electric:

We have two means to get electric. The first is solar via our battery banks and the second is by our propane generator. We have no outside power resources and the closest pole is about a half mile down the road. The cost to run this to our property is at least 10k, then the cost to have it trenched to the shed, transformers and all, is just more than we wish to pay. We are very happy with our solar power and most days that’s all we use.

We have 3- 100 watt solar panels on the roof of the RV.

These panels charge the battery bank on the RV which powers the RV lights, fridge, and sometimes other items in the RV. We also have a Onan 4k Generator on the RV and a 45 amp charge controller that runs off of shore power, generator, or the coach engine. Usually the 3 panels keep the RV fully charged.

We also have 3-100 solar panels on the shed, charging our main battery bank which is two 6 volt Trojan batteries.

We also have several power inverters that take 12volts DC from the batteries and convert it to 120 volts AC for normal use with computers, tvs and such.

 

We have two additional battery banks in the shed that power our internet and security cameras

 

I know, it's a mess. I'm planning to clean up next weekend.

 

These get charged up by two small solar panels on the roof and when needed, by our two suitcase solar panels that we move around to catch the most sun.

 

We produce more than we use or can store and we plan to upgrade our battery bank next year to hold more.

Currently, we run three computers, monitors, a coffee put in the AM, our Evaporative cooler if needed, lights, two cell phone chargers, and sometimes a bit more. We run all this just on solar, but only if it is sunny. When we get clouds or need to run the AC or larger kitchen appliances such as electric oven or microwave, we have to use the generator.  Also, if we have steady cloud coverage, or heavy clouds, then we will  have to run the generator to charge the batteries.

 

Our new Generator is twice the size of the last. Much better for us when we have to run the AC.

 

Cooking:

 

We have many ways of cooking here at the ranch. First, we have normal RV kitchen appliances such as a 3 burner stove, propane oven, and microwave. But really, we use much of that for storage. We do use the microwave sometimes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We also have a refrigerator/freezer in the RV that operates off of propane or electric, which is where we store are perishable foods. It is on the small size so we can’t store very much.

 

 

RV kitchen is small:

 

 

So I cook outside!!!

 

 

This is our new Camp Chef stove, much better than the old one we have. We also have a

Cuisinart Grill.

 

Here I am cooking on both, at my mom's 4th of July party..

And of course we have the Pizza oven attachment for the Cook Stove:

 

 

 

It's great to have a little wine with our Pizza, and yes, it is Columbia Valley wine!!!

(We are on the Columbia Plateau)

 

 

We do have some Electric items we use that are kind of cool!!!

 

We have a Cuisinart® Oven Central™ Cook & Bake Oven, an induction burner,

and a rice cooker. They all use low power and will work off of our 2000 watt power inverter.

 

 

 

Due to cold storage limitation and the fact that the grocery store is 30 minutes away, we use a lot of canned and dry goods for dining. We keep the fridge and freezer for things like chops, chicken, fish steaks and salads. Lucky for Lisa and myself, I have a nice supply of spices to assist with making canned items pretty darn good. We dine on many dishes such as pork fried rice, chicken and rice, bean soups and soups of all kinds, lots of ham and green beans.  We even have spam and eggs!!! But mostly, we grill and we grill a bunch! Grilled pork chops, chicken, steak, fish, and we'll have those with a nice salad.

Some pics below of our food storage system!!! Try to make it mice proof.

 

 

 

Comfort and living:

We mainly reside in the RV, outside, and in our workshop-barn. The RV is where we sleep, eat, shower and sometime watch movies. Our workshop-barn is usually where we work, and we each have a desk setup so it can be used as an office. This is also now insulated and made much more comfortable with new flooring and paneling. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Most evenings we sit outside

 

 

 

 

 Watching the wonderful sunsets we have!!!!

 

But we do have AC in the RV and a window unit in the barn for hot days:

 

 

Also a wonderful Evaporative cooler which lowers the temp in the barn on warm and hot days, down by at least 15 degrees. But if it gets over 100 we turn on the AC.

 

 

And for heat we have!!!

 

MR. Heater Buddy!!!

 

Not much, but then we usually head back to Florida before it gets too cold. So this works for us in the barn. For the RV, we can just run the generator or turn on the coach heating system for a bit. But just in case, we also have sleeping bags designed for cold weather.

Well, that's all I can think of for now. I hope I answered some of the questions folks had asked me.