OH XMAS TREE...OHHH, XMAS TREE....!!!

Me and Lil' foot never got around to setting up a tree, so at the last minute I gathered up some decorations and actually fashioned one from recycled stuff. This is the best tree we've ever had (only one actually..so far).

Notice the stockings "hung with great care".

Christmas is finally OVER...and we hardly even got caught up in it...!!!

Cabin trip on the near horizon..and we can't WAIT..!!!

TINY TRAILER LOAD

Prepping for the trip out west/south....next week.

Not gonna haul anything large behind the Old Towncar this time....tranny was acting weird last big trailer haul out there....but fine w/o load.

Gonna take the baby-bear trailer....so small you can't even see it, and backing it up means an instantaneous JACK-KNIFE situation. Easier to unhook and push/pull it around by hand.

It was a $165 Harbor Freight special I bought back in the days when I had more money than sense....now I'm merely sensless. Sweet little kit trailer, but too small for anything bigger than my shoes.

Trying to maintain the back seat of the Towncar open and clear for Caren's nappytime on the way down. Nephew Joe will be onhand for the heavy lifting and actual work items at the TR place. AND Nephew Joe just got his drivers license and can spell me for some of that 8 hour one way cruise to TR Land.....yeehaaa.!!

Once I get this little Rubic's Cube loading deal figured out....I'll try to post a pic since inquiring minds may want to know....OR ..NOT.!

dang...lookat what time it is....nearly Whiskey time on this Sunday afternoon.

SEEYA...!!!!

ROCKET STOVE - DIY

Well, thanks to either blogger...or my lack of computer skills (or both)...the pics are in reverse sequence obviously.

This is a "rocket stove" some of you may have seen in various locations online. Supposed to be very efficient with the kindling firewood fuel for a very hot cooking area for a pot or pan.

You don't have to use a metal flue pipe, but I had one laying around and some designs use this, but others just use the brick interior with no pipe.

I used true firebrick (the kind used for masonry fireplace interior firebox areas), which I suppose is best if you use this stove often. I had saved these from a house remodel where these bricks were part of the central flue stack for the kitchen and various rooms that had wood burning heaters connected to a central stack as was typical for simple homes built in the 1920's and 30's. For occasional short term use I'd think regular clay fired solid bricks would work, especially if you used a metal flue pipe too.

Mine ended up being about waist high for me only due to the length of the vent pipe I had. Using old broken pieces of marble tile I made the final resting level for the recycled stove pot grate work with the top of the flue pipe. Takes about 50 regular sized brick, less if not as tall.

Supposed to work well with just a big handful of twigs and kindling. Didn't test mine today as it's damn windy out today.

This will be something we plan to build at the place near Terlingua, for summer outdoor cooking (don't wanna add any more heat to the kitchen during hot summer temps)

I set mine up one some old CMU (cinderblock) bricks just so I don't have to bend my

tootall-fatass down to the ground to load with fuel....could be built at ground level easily.

Now I need to load up some local kindling to haul down to Brewster County, cuz there ain't much of that down that way.

This deal only takes about 20 minutes to build, and as I finished it I noticed the brand name of the old firebricks..."KOOKEN"....someday we'll be a'cookin on our Kooken Stove...

Hardeee, Har, HAR!!!

Happy Kawanza to you all...!!

It's ALL about pissin' off the neighbors

Hey y'all...(bigfoot here)

We have some persnickity retired govt worker neighbors next door who gave us a buttload of crap when I lost my job 2 yrs ago and sold our home in FTW and moved slightly west of town to this paid for (and vacant) house on 3 acres that I built in '94. I had to move alot of stuff with a pickup truck and trailer and one helper over the Christmas and New Years of 2008/2009, at the same time we had to clean out this place and paint it entirely (EX painted everything bright yellow while she squatted here).

The lovely neighbors had previously called the EPA and some state agency saying I had storage tanks of poisonous stuff and gas etc out here. I got a call from an agency while at work one day with a report that after doing an onsite investigation at my place (no one was living here then) that the report was clear and they saw no evidence of illegal fluids being stored at my house. This was back in 2007 I think.

Once I we began hauling stuff out of my FTW home that was closing in Jan, and also all the stuff stored in the backyard garage apt I had to just pile stuff under the carport. Looked pretty junky for awhile I admit.

The A.H. neighbors complained to the cityhall out here and had gotten the handful of other homeowners on this street to sign a petition about our "junk". Luckily the mayor was a great guy and realized what a nut-case these 2 next door A.H.'s are. They gave us plenty of time to get things organized and cleaned up....but the neighbors still hated us. The city gave us a full "okay" and we have been good to go for a very long time, but the next door AH folks still hate us.

Another big bitch was the "untagged" vehicles....my 2 Packards and another couple....most are gone now.

This is why the only thing decorated for Xmas in our yard is my old pickup truck in plain sight of the roadway for our neighbors.

This is a rural area and they are the ONLY ones on this dead end road, with a manicured yard, concrete driveway, fully fenced yard, pool and planter areas all around the house (just like in suburbia that I moved way from). I left my place as brushy as I could with lots of natural scrubby trees and brush along the roadway. But in winter time it's not nearly as thick and private.

Rant over..!!..... ( but I sincerely hope the ongoing and worsening municipal budgets give them a severe crimp in their income, and they both get very ill and die a slow painful death)