Monday, June 18, 2012

Karol and I have returned from a month in the desert.....alone....together....we are still married. Now that my lovely wife has retired from Kilgore, she has time to spend with me on the project. We made a lot of headway at the adobe which I have been neglecting since I started on the rock house. During one rather spirited storm out of the south, I discovered the metal building's roof moving like a drum head. My plans changed quickly to reinforcing the metal building. We were able to add on to it, which stabilized the building and gave me a place to put solar panels that would power the freezer so I could move it out of the adobe and into the trailer. It won't heat up the house now. The shade it provides is wonderful. I had an idea to whitewash the adobe to keep the walls from absorbing so much direct sunlight and heat. It really makes the walls much cooler. Karol, who only weeks ago was a powerful administrator at a junior college was reduced to grinding lime that had hardened, into powder that I mixed into whitewash and applied to the walls that had been catching the sun. We built a solar oven from some glass that was left at the rock house, some 2X12 some old v crimp roofing and fiberglass insulation that had been left behind. I did not want to deal with reflectors so I went with a design I cooked up to make use of the stuff I had laying around. It worked better than I had hoped for. Easily topping 300 degrees with no fuss. Just pop the food in the side door and get it out sometime in the afternoon!  I had to use the swamp cooler in the mornings to add cool air to the adobe and keep the walls cooler. Even with all we were doing the temps still crept from the high 70's to the mid 80's inside the house. Over all the cooler weather made it quite pleasent to work all month. Hope to return soon.....we are on a roll !..... The trip with Bailey coupled with the trip with Karol have jumped the whole project ahead by leaps and bounds.  Am happy. .............R