Happy Birthday Bailey. No post since Oct. A lot has happened since then. First of all let me thank Karol, Alex, Ayrton,Space,and Bailey for the tremendous help. With that team there, we just steamrolled through the problems. Strong backs and strong minds...."hey fugiddaboutit" First problem, move a 16 ft. conference table from the auction site where I got it, into the rock house. That was a gargantuan effort in itself! Ask me about it someday. Second, figure out where to put the monster so it looks right in the rock house. (You would not believe the arguing that ensued over that.) You see, the poles I put in the room to hold up the roof were in the way. I was going to have the poles go right through the table. Then I realized that I had six 2x12s just laying there from a carport I wrecked out. I decided to use those to support the gluelams instead of the poles and move the poles over to support the 2x12s. I could also incorporate them into the bar. I was riding high and strutting all around when we got that in. It worked perfectly! As we built up the bar I didn't like the look of the poles in front and decided to build huge brackets and bolt the two main support beams togeather and remove two of the poles. Now most of the weight of the roof is focused on the remaining two poles. It looked so much better that I began to strut again. (no kiddin) The ideas were coming and the execution of said ideas was implemented with extreme prejudice. Not stopping there, Karol and I applied white cement to the outside of the adobe to reflect the blistering sun and keep the walls from heating up so much this year. As if that were not enough(and believe me I'm trying to keep this short) Karol started finding all sorts of artifacts. Metates, manos, scrapers and to top it off on the last day we were there, late in the afternoon when we were loading up, she started finding petroglyphs! She looked in a book and discovered that one represented a comet and one a snake. We knew about the stacked rocks by the driveway but never took pictures. I found another large rock that must have been placed there. These are all right at the adobe house. There is a lot more but I have been trying to keep my entries short and pictures few so as not to bore everyone to death. (too late) I have been home less than a week and am ready to return asap. Maybe next week! Karol will come out later. She cleaned out much of the bus and is ready for me to knock the axles out and turn it into a shop/storage bldg. Maybe I will surprise her when she gets back out. adios......R

I have not updated this blog from the last trip, I suppose, because I have blocked out much if it from my already feeble memory. Karol, once again, was an incredible asset to the project. Painting the roof and picking up the giant mess I have left behind in the building process. Although before we got started in earnest we did quite a bit of rock hunting. Well now, that is to say Karol was hunting for the terrestrial kind while I was on the hunt for meteorites. I am pretty sure I have found one at least. You would not believe how many rocks will stick to a magnet. I also found an incredible scraper/ knife. It is very old (maybe 8,000 years) according to Ring. Karol found an awsome flint hand axe! We mounted a meter can and disconnect, ran conduit, pulled wire and hooked up the breaker box inside the rock house. When the electric co. came out to hook us up we were then told to rip the boxes out so they could install their meter and disconnect. That is the short version. We did more reinforcing to the metal bldg. to keep it from blowing away. Did more experiments with white cement as a reflective coating for the adobe. Looks like we are just going to use white latex paint. The image to the right that looks like it might be the surface of some alien moon orbiting jupiter is in fact my butt..........with shingles. Note to self...don't get so stressed out over what people think about you. You might just break out with something! The other picture is of the national weather service background reflectivity radar. If you watch it you will see wierd stuff that does not make any sense. I think it is from the spraying. I have a computer full of images of the chemtrails. The "haze" is everywhere. Check at commercials now, sky is almost always hazy in them. ...look into it.  I'm heading back in a few days to continue the work. Don't know if I can get the rock house on line by the end of the year. When you bite off more than you can chew.....all you can do is chew!

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

Bailey and the old man

My luck is holding. Bailey, the oldest, came with me to help. And what a help she was! Despite my chronic  lethargy and general aches and pains, she was able to get a tremendous amount of  wood on the walls all the while prodding dad to try and get to work before noon. Her job in the wood shop at college prepared her to work with the wood like a pro. A master cylinder replace on the 75 beetle solved the brake problem. We also attended Jerry and Eva's going away party. Lots of people were there. Followed by a great party at Phil and Regina's. Other than that it was mostly measuring, cutting and nailing. We used some of the cedar scrap from framing the windows to make a viga style support below the upper windows...a kind of catwalk to get to the roof windows on the inside above the kitchen. I, of course, forgot to take a picture. Bailey did a movie walk around with her camera that turned out great. Wish I could figure out how to put it on this site. Karol has officially retired and will probably come out to work with me, and prove once and for all that I indeed do have a wife!   We hung one of the doors that were given to me by Jo and Larry. Bailey's boyfriend Ryan let me have a fantastic front door latch that is so unusual and perfect for this house. I have to continue wrecking out the Wylie house for more material. Hope to return in a month. It will be on Karol's calender now so we will go when both can go.  Seeya .....R .

forgot to update

My mom reminded me that I had not posted any pictures from my last sortie. I mentioned that I had little to show for my last effort and explained the reasons. So she told me to write that down (I think she believes that if I practice I will get as good as she is at telling stories). OK so I gamble on the weather once again and head out in Feb. Everything was going fine....for three days. That is when it came time to unload the trailer load of wood we had wrecked out of the farmhouse donated by the Wylie's. I planned to use the backside of the wood because the other side had been painted. I took my time and spent a couple of hours at it so as not to pull anything out of whack right at the beginning of my stay. One week later I was able to walk around and start back to work. The picture of the closet is the only evidence of any work that was done on the house, although in my defense, that wall continues on for many more feet. I found myself drawn to my old weakness (not that!) Volkswagens! Got the brake parts out of Austin VW, thanks Johnny Davis. I spent a lot of time working on the Beetle I now call Eleanor (not to be confused another local by the same name). At some time after the back pain had subsided enough to work at least on cars I came to notice that my left elbow had that tennis problem. Anyway some work was done but I was not happy with the overall effort. We will get em next time. Oh yeah I took pictures of the planes spewing out the chemtrails. I had hoped that moving out to BB would get me away from all that here in E Texas. I have a camera full of that stuff, and one picture of the house. Karol was thrilled. and so it goes.........R

Just under the wire....again!

Well now then there, I just got around to the hardest part of this project, blogging about it. Not that I don't like talking about what I am doing out west, but typing is no fun for me. The title "just under the wire again" is in reference to the fact that for the second time I have barely accomplished the goal that I had set for myself at the beginning of the year. In this case it was getting the Rock house in the dry before the end of the year. Closing in the ends of the roof along with the area overlooking the lower roof, framing in new window sills, building and installing doors, and installing the windows. All along the way, bit by bit the work blocked off more and more of the wind that whipped through the place. Sadly, the Owls have had to find new residence. On a brighter note, just when I thought my good fortune of finding free building materials had played out , I recieved a call from a couple of very thoughtful (and quite attractive) women that live right here in Kilgore. Bobbie and Lisa Wylie . It seems that Lisa was perusing my blog , seeing that I was working with reclaimed materials, and thought that I might want to tear down and reuse their 100 year old family farmhouse not far from where we live! Of course I was very pleased and thankful for their generosity. Thank you so much Bobbie and Lisa! There will be pleanty of materials to finish my various projects. The wood is very nice, and straight! My good fortune held up around Thanksgiving. I was cordially invited to dine with the Foster family by Bennet, grandson to Eleanor. He, along with Mark Spurlock and Gene Foster did most all the cooking. And might I say, not as a cook, but as an expert eater, that it was absolutely delicious. Thank you, Foster family. I also had a couple of visitors right at the end of my sortie. John and Gem Hillier, from right here in Kilgore, were in Alpine to see friends and came out to see me. We had a great time playing cards, telling lies and having a few refreshing beverages. We all left for East Texas the next day. On a secondary note, I finally acted on an urge I have had for five years. I made an offer to my friend and neighbor Eleanor for her 75 VW beetle. After her counter offer a deal was struck and I am now the proud owner of yet another VW. I'm sure Karol will be thrilled. Well I don't know how much of what happens out there is going to interest any one but me. Or even how much of what happens out in Big Bend I can or will repeat. So for now I will bid y'all adieu.......R