Written by brad on March 3rd, 2009
Yesterday afternoon, Karen and I went to the property to measure for the site map and to work on the sheet-metal numbers for the address. As we were driving up, at least a dozen quail ran across the road in front of us. It makes you laugh out loud watching them scamper across the road in such a disorganized fashion with a lone straggler running twice as fast as the rest just to keep up.
Karen jump out at our gate to unlock it. Just then I saw something to the left of the gate (Karen being to the right). At first I thought it was a feral house cat. Which seemed odd because there’s nowhere for a cat to hide from the coyotes out here. Another look and I realized it was the local bobcat we’ve heard about from P.D.-Our nearest neighbor. I started calling for Karen to look, but the truck windows were all up and she couldn’t hear me. The bobcat walked lazily into the brush and stopped. Karen came over to see what I was fussing about and I could only show her where it had been. Karen climbed up high in the truck rack and we drove around a little hoping to see it again, no luck.
Later, when I was measuring the perimeter, I noticed the bobcat’s tracks on Sunrise road coming from P.D.’s direction. There was also some scat that looks like others I’ve seen lately. Maybe our rabbits are tastier than P.D.’s this time of year?
The other new thing we spotted was a wild fire off in the distance; not nearly as nice as a bobcat–not nice at all. Just before we decided it was time to go home we climbed up on top of the storage container with a couple of chairs to enjoy the view; I was also hoping to spot the bobcat again. It was lovely except for the fire in the distance. The fire is in Hog Canyon near Douglas, AZ, about forty miles away according to GoogleEarth. I don’t think it’s going to be bad as there’s no wind to speak of at the moment. They are setting backfires to fight it, so it probably looked worse than it was. After it got dark, the fire was easier and eerier to see.
View Larger Map
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Tags: bobcat
Written by karen on March 2nd, 2009
So, as promised, here is a picture of our mailbox in its native habitat, complete with the new locking box we installed:
So the funny thing about the whole locking box is that after we were told that we *must* have a locking mailbox, we were also told that no one here locks their house. My question: Where do they keep their mail?
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Tags: mailbox
Written by karen on February 26th, 2009
Willcox (a town about an hour away and where our furniture is in storage) has a huge farming community that includes orchards and vineyards. This is a schedule of when various things there are in season. We’re looking forward to going there for the various “u-pick” seasons.
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Tags: food, willcox
Written by karen on February 25th, 2009
We’ve made some decisions on how we’re proceeding with construction.
A big one is that we are going to use SIPs (structural insulated panels) for the guest house (which we’re now calling Tumbleweed). You send the manufacturing facility your plans and they crank out these panels. They are very energy efficient, relatively inexpensive, and easy and fast from a construction standpoint. Amazingly, there is a manufacturing facility (KC Panels) for this just a few miles from us. Brad visited and was impressed.
For the main house (no name yet; any ideas?), we’re going with a combination of adobe and wood frame walls. The adobe will be in places that catch sunlight to add thermal mass. The wood frame walls will be double 2×4 with plaster on the outside, 10″ thickness. The style will be eclectic southwestern, with Moroccan styling. Small and simple.
Hopefully, we’ll be submitting our plans for permitting very soon. In the meantime, we’re doing some excavation on the existing slab since everyone involved in it seems to have either vanished or forgotten everything about it.
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Tags: adobe, design, sips
Written by karen on February 25th, 2009
Cochise County has a green building certifcation program. I’m not sure if we’re going to pursue it, but this document makes interesting reading and will definitely inform some choices we make. A lot of things we’re already planning on like SIPs, solar, etc. are covered in it.
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Tags: construction, green, solar
Written by karen on February 24th, 2009
I had a lot of work to catch up on yesterday after traveling last week. Gradually, through the day, I watched the temperature outside rise into the high 80s and thought, “Man, I have to get outside.” I had planned to go for a walk around 4, but with just a few chapters to go in a vocabulary book I was working on, I kept working past that.
Finally, at almost 5, Brad and I decided to go out to our property and have a picnic dinner.
Before eating, we took a walk. It was wonderfully warm and breezy and really a stunning night. Over the course of an hour or so, we watched the sky change.
(As usual, click to enlarge the pics.)
It was really an amazing night. The air was warm, and it was so quiet. It seemed magical.
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Written by karen on February 23rd, 2009
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Tags: movie
Written by karen on February 22nd, 2009
A few months before we moved here, we toured around some places in NM. One of the places we really liked was Hatch, the chili capital of NM.
Our local Safeway in Douglas carries Hatch chiles. Last week, I bought a bag, and today I used them to make Fiery Tofu with Red Chiles, Orange and Ginger. Yum!
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Tags: chiles, food
Written by karen on February 14th, 2009
Brad and I spent all day today working on our land.
For a long time, I’ve been working on this project. (We bought the sheet metal a couple months before we left LA.) I’ll be doing more of these to put up on various corners, etc. of our property.
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Written by karen on February 14th, 2009
We are planning to do the floors in our new houses as acid washed concrete. I was worrying a little about the environmental aspects of the acid wash. (I’m much more sensitive to what we throw in the trash, down the drain, and on the ground here.) Then we found SoyCrete — an environmentally-sound alternative. We also talked to someone about doing it, and she said it’s really easy. We probably won’t even have to etch the concrete on the existing slab. Now we just have to pick a color.
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Tags: floors
