Good Morning all.
After a week of howling winds, I awake this morning to a "dusting" of snow, calm, clear and 12 degrees, here on the High Desert of eastern New Mexico. "Howling" winds means gusts to 60 mph while averaging 40 mph. Somehow we managed to get the roof framing and the plywood decking completed on my shop/studio building in the back yard. "Somehow" means we worked a couple of hours early each morning, before the winds came on strong, retreating for th rest of the workday to the shelter of the ridge and ditchbank that protects the site of the strawbale project down the valley, drystacking rock for retaining walls to hold earth against the water storage tank.
I want to thank borkitect and Spud1 for covering my ass last week when I was called away suddenly for water coop business.
I'll tell you more over the jump. I'll be updating this as I go.
I'm running late this morning, so I'll be adding to this as I go, but let me invite you home-owning and dwelling Kossaks who endeavour to repair your own home to share your projects and troubles, and we'll commiserate and advise as seems appropriate.
The water coop business involved going, with a group of village water coop members, to the Roundhouse, the NM State Capital building in Santa Fe, to appear before a committee hearing our request for money to do some badly needed repairs, upgrades and maintenance to our system that supplies drinking water to more than 100 families here.
Not a familiar venue for any of us paisanos, and we sat patiently for almost three hours, listening to other people also plead their cases for help. When our time came, we were rushed through, but politely and graciously treated, and heard. We weren't trying to get a tennis court, or a new dump truck or fire station, just 70 thou for things like the anti-terrorist fencing (yes, seriously, although absurd, given the remoteness of our village and the visibility of strangers in our midst) the Feds want us to erect around our well sites, money to refurbish the sanitary lining of our 60,000 gallon water storage tank, which is showing bad rust inside, and a bit to repair the automatic control that tells the pump when the tank is full. I have spent time each day for the past couple of months checking the water lever and turning on and off the pump as needed.
The strawbale home project is now running on solar power, a photovoltaic system with panels on the roof and a closet full of huge batteries gathering and storing power. The well is functioning off this power, filling a 2,500 gallon tank with water. The tank is recessed into the ditchbank and is being surrounded by a drystack wall of rock to hold the earth that will cover the tank to protect it from freezing and sunshine.