Lif Strand

It's been a minute, as they say. Way more than a minute. It's been two years since I posted any photos. Partly that's because I've been busy (two novels published in that time, plus one new edition of a third novel). Partly it's because I've been swept away by politics. Partly because of drought. I have no garden, just a few struggling plants that I have to water every day. I am keeping them alive, but theya ren't really thriving. In the wild, there is nothing but a few super-hardy weeds growing near my house, and the pinon pines on the mesa sides are turning brown.

I no longer see cows every day. I miss them. My neighbor rancher gave up and moved to another state. Fortunately the land was purchased by another rancher, who has the financial resources to hold off doing any ranching on that land until there is enough rain for long enough for the grass to recover.

Unfortunately  he has turned off the well for the cattle tank near my property. The well is shallow, I'm sure his aim is to preserve what can be preserved. Unfortunately that means the wildlife that have depended on that water since 1934 when the well was dug, now have no water.

So I am tearing down my horse fencing that protects my own water trough so that whatever is willing to come close to the barn can drink.
My old stallion had to be put down a couple months ago and I am now out of the horse business, horseless for the first time in 50 years. I sent his companion goat back to her breeder, who has also gone out of business and sold her herd. The goat was happy to be back where she gew up (the goat is 10) and the goat's owner is happy to have a pet goat.

My best buddy pup, Bubz, died of cancer last year. He wasn't young, but that doesn't really ease the hurt. A new rescue dog is in my life. She is 10 this year, going blind, and has other medical issues. I knew when I adopted her she'd be a short-timer, but I'm her sixth owner and she is a good girl, deserving to live out her life in a home, not a rescue... or be euthanized before her time.

So many changes. It all seems to be happening so fast, but it's not all hard. It's just life. I'm letting myself look at the past and let it go. Here's a photo of a week-old Arabian foal born on our California ranch in the early 1980s. A foal grown old since then and no longer with us.

Also shown: the cover of my latest novel, COLD TRAIL

Too good a deal to pass up, especially when the $ will be used to keep permies.com going.
I'm downloading some of the goodies right now. Thanks.

Maxeem Konrardy wrote:This may be nuts but does anyone do open air insulation?

I've thought about it, but I can't come up with anything that wouldn't be an ugly industrial thing able to withstand New Mexico's increasingly frequent high-wind events (not just straight wind but powerful dust devils that can reach 85MPH).

Fred Tyler wrote: 1" of insulation is not enough in New Mexico,  so I went with about 18".  

Is the insulation between the decking and the metal, or where is it in the layering? Is it foam panels? Asking because all I've ever seen is 4" of the stuff.

Also, doesn't increasing from 1" (presumably what was there) to 18" make joining the new section to the old difficult? How did you deal with it around the skylights? Or am I misunderstanding how you did what you did?  Thanks.

Kara Ann wrote:I'm currently working out the acoustics mitigation while building out both a metal kit building (half work room / half greenhouse) and a hoophouse covered with PVC material.

PLEASE PLEASE keep us updated on your progress! I'm going to be curious about how easy (or tedious) it is to install materials above the already existing cattle panels (those are so useful for so many things, aren't they?).

Also, are the panels suspended from the hoop frame or are the support posts below permanent?

Thank you!

The roof on my house is over 4" of foam panel insulation, roofing felt, plywood, and R-11 fiberglass insulation. It's pretty loud when it rains - though we're in drought here in western NM so I don't care.

My barn roof has zero insulation, just the metal. Even a light drizzle sounds like a deluge.  I can't imagine what a hailstorm would sound like, but I know what it looks like: my horses would run out into the hail rather than stand under that roof when even the tiniest of white balls where slamming into the metal.

I have no idea how insulation could be installed underneath my barn's roof, but someday when I've got some spare $$$ I do plan to hunt around for some solution. I'd like to move my studio out there - as it is there's no way I could stand listening to that noise!

Dave Burton wrote:Even with going poo-less, I still don’t like showers...

I didn't know how to politely ask, so I looked up "poo-less" and was relieved to discover it means without shampoo. But even knowing that, what does not using shampoo have to do with feeling cold when done?

I've been thinking lately about pine needle tea, especially since so many local trees are dying from drought and beetle infestation. I have read contradictory information about already brown needles, so I plan to test fresh vs brown to see what the difference might be, taste-wise.

Pine needle tea is supposed to be rich in Vit C (more than citrus!) and Vit A, as well as other nutrients. Another bonus is that harvesting pine needles doesn't disturb the roots or the flowering/seeding parts. Not only that, but as long as there are pinon pines on/near my property, I'll have an year-round tea source for free.

While I generally am less than thrilled about teas, I do think about the price of coffee and the potential for unavailability the way things are going these days. Seems to me I could learn to drink tea.

Hank Fletcher wrote:
I ride 30 mile roundtrip to go to the grocery store. I have ridden 200 mile one day rides carrying groceries home with the last 30-50 miles, simply because they were on sale and I wanted them. I structured the ride around being able to get one of their nearest stores so I could buy the sale.

It's all about the wanton desire. You can get in shape for doing anything you want to do, you just have to want it bad enough.

I guess I don't have the desire. If I was only going to town for the groceries, that might be one thing, but my every-other-week restocking fills up the back seat of my car or the bed of my pickup depending on what I'm restocking. But even if I could juggle my budget to buy in even bigger loads so I'd only need to drive a vehicle once a month or even less, it would take me a year to become fit enough to ride a bike in that terrain. It's not 30 miles with mild hills, it's 30 miles of multiple steep 1000' climbs between 7000' - 8000'. The people I see biking it are either decked out in special gear and often have support vehicles following them, or they're pushing their bikes up those 'hills'.  You sound like you could do it with a load of groceries, but as a senior citizen who's not even thrown my leg over a bicycle in probably 25 years, and given the weather extremes here in the high country of western NM, it's not particularly enticing an idea for me.

My desire level is more the idea of biking out to the mailboxes and back. Crappy gravel road, but there's only a 300' altitude difference to deal with, and it's only a ten mile round trip. Now all I have to do is get serious enough to find a bike to do it on!

EDITED TO ADD: Note that I used to endurance race horses 50 and 100 mile trails over rough terrain. I'm not a stranger to what it takes to prep for that kind of physical exertation. But that was then and I'm not the person I was anymore. These days I'm happy I can jog 3 miles on my own two feet.

I would love to use a bicycle, but it would be a challenge for me. Aside from the challenge of taking up bicycling at 7000' altitude, I have nowhere reasonably close to go with a bike except to the cluster mailbox, a10 mi round trip over a gravel road. If I wanted to go to a store - any store except for a sometimes-open rock shop near the mailboxes - it would be a 60+ mile round trip with little carrying capacity.

Bicycles are great for cities and for fun, but not as useful for routine transportation in extremely rural areas like where I live. Even so, I would still love to ride a bicycle out to the mailboxes and back. I keep looking at bikes in the local swap groups, just in case one would pop up that didn't have a million gears and fancy suspension and all that. A sturdy three-speed built for gravel roads, with a basket on it for carrying mail ,would be perfect.  Unfortunately I know nothing about bikes (last one I owned and rode - 30 years ago - was a street bike that was terrible on dirt roads.