just a couple of photos of my kitchen

On the menu, patty melt on sour dough with provalone, grilled onions and mushrooms. On the side country potatoes... Yum...

Been really busy...

And haven't had much time for posting. Hope everyone enjoys the tweets though. I have a ton of photos from the flash flood a week ago. I'll post them when I can. (I need to make sure I don't double post any) for now though let me leave you with a view of the sunset after the storm.

It's all about working hard...

Well not always.

New critter watch update.

Critter watch.

8/20/09
Found a baby Diamond back last night. The forty dispatched him nice enough.

8/25/09
Saw our first official Scorpion today. it was outside by the drive gate. looks as thougj i ran over it comining home last night! it may be what bit one of the dogs the other day. One of the pups was bit on Monday, her face swelled up like a pit bull.

Also spotted a Blue Jay this morning. With the changing weather, so do the critters.

Well...

It looks as though the road is going to hold up a while. We've gotten a few light showers the past two days, so it hasn't dried out much. With wheel rolling it with the truck I think we've gotten some compaction. It may hold up a lot better this time.

The trip to the gas station.

And they said I shouldn't have a problem going to work this morning... Ha ha

Some pictures from earlier

Soo many pictures so little time...

Last nights storm

Ok I see documents to go dosen't want to work to send emails... The last post was in say:

What a great storm we had last night! It lasted about 4hrs, and had some of the most intense lightning I can remember seeing. It flashed so much that it looked like a strobe light was going off. I tried to catch it on the camera phone, but it just didn't want to cooperate last night. We also got some much needed rain, and with any luck we'll get some more today. There is a another round coming from the south according the weather service.

-------------------------------------

What a storm we had....

A lot of work to do today...

Been on the tractor most of the day. Worked on the road, moved a lot of sand, but didn't accomplish a whole lot. I guess soft is soft no matter were you move it. Also did some more work on our trail, very fun on in the Samuri!

I also started working on the gun range. It is a hundred feet long, and when it's finished, it'll be great for smal cal., BB, and archery. It'll have a shooters bench, and spotters perch. With three targets fixed at fifty, seventy-five, and a hundred feet. It's what's needed to keep us in practice. Just leave it to us zonies!

Lots of tractor work ahead...

Church site

Church Road

Gun Range

Been out on the tractor all morning, a lot more to go...

You know you're in az when

Your job entails chasing roadrunners out of your store!

Critters!

Oops, documents to go doesn't send in a readable format....

Now I know...

So the orignal post was to read about the critters we've seen. I'll update it later.

A quick update

I really didn't know that Documents to go, would not be able to email directly to the blog. I'll have to remember that for the future, if it happens again let me know with a nice reminder. :)

Just an update...

This last weekend went by too fast. Friday we spent the whole day in town getting supplies and running errands. Saturday we had a B-Day breakfast for myself then went into town for a coworkers BBQ. All in all we had a good weekend, but didn't get to spend much time out at the ranch.

What time we did spend, we spent planning our building strategy. I think we did come to a conclusion. We are going to finish the room in front of the fifth wheel first (it will have a school room front. Painted red, and will house our schooling materials and have work stations for the three of us. We already have a few cabinets and a counter top for the main working surface. We also have a few old school desks to refinish and install.) After that, our next project will be the Saloon. (Every town needs a saloon. Ours will be no different. It will be a small room. Approximately ten by twenty. With only three sides, the fourth will be a quarter wall and screen. The board walk will continue in front.) After those, we will be able to start the framing of the main house. Only problem is financing, we just need to find a way to pay for all this :)

Oh, and we also need to start the church some time in all this. We had planned to build a small church on one of the ridges, using 6x6x10 lumber and building it like a log structure.

Another pressing project is the road. To get supplies in and out, we are going to have to do something with the road. During this dry period it has gotten so soft that our truck got stuck trying to get in. We do have a game plan. We are going to move the road some twenty feet north up the wash, adding a small dip for the water, eliminating the three-hundred foot drive in the softest sand I've seen since going to glamis! This should help.

So that is the plan. We'll see in the near future, just how much we will get done. Our building window is not all that long. We have about two maybe three weeks of the hot whether left. Our night time temperatures have already dropped to the mid sixties, but the day time highs are still touching the triple digit mark. Around the second week of November our temperatures will really drop, and the day time highs will be mid fifties, if we're lucky! So we do have a lot to do, in a short time. Like always I'll keep everyone posted.

Now I do want to add, that if anyone has the notion to donate money to all this they can send us Home Depot gift cards at any time :) Just in case...

Just a quick pic

Oops forgot to post something...

Been so busy I haven't had time to put a complete thought together let alone write an email, so today I'll post a quick pic, for now, and try to come up with something witty for later.

(just an fyi it's my B-Day today, and I will accept any and all $ especially HomeDepot gift cards)

Every ranch needs a little mule...

And here is mine....

Just going through some old documents...

I came upon this one written by my grandmother, which is a good perspective on who we are. It was written as an email sent to some out of state family that was coming out to visit, just thought I would share...

oh... The original title was "Melt down" :)

HI Everybody......enjoyed all of your letters and now I will tell you about my gene lineage......No one from my gene pool has a college degree, some have gone to college but never finished...... all of us have had Jobs but no careers....none of us own or operate any business of our own...... we all chose to have the number of children in our immediate families.......All of us married people of our social & economical status....Our extensive travelling is to city parks and local casinos....We all have lived in or still are living in mobile homes (you know the ones with wheels).....We don't smoke but we do social drinking......And for the most part we are blue jeans and tee shirt people.....near about rednecks you might say.....just don't want you to have culture shock when you come out here and if your real good we might take you to our 80 acres outside of town,with real flush toilets and running water from our water tank which has to be hauled in ,no electricity but hav
e generators.....This is just a synopsis of who we are, will tell you more later...By the way our mother came from the back Hills of Missouri what do you expect.....

Went to explore the country side by quad...

Just a short three hr ride...

Another week.

Just a quick pic for this early Tuesday.

Brunch...

When we got back from our ride, we decided.to make brunch. It was great. Getting ready to go back out....

Let's talk about the weather

Just want to start by asking 'it's still August right?'

It was 55 last night! I couldn't believe it. Not that I am complaining. It just caught us off guard. We had a good BBQ last night, chicken, salad, gralic toast, and grilled zucchini... It was so good, and if it wasn't so dark, I would have snapped a shot.

well, off to go on a ride.

How can I discribe today...

I'm searxhing every adjective I can think off, but I just can't seem to come up with the right ones.

It is 68 this morning with a sligjt breeze, just enough to ring the wind chimes. We can't hear any freeway noise, just the qual, krickets, and two bumble bees flying around. It really feels like it should Fall!

Sweet sun-tea

Still enjoying the morning, hasn't gotten too much hotter today, up around 92, with a nice breeze. Worked on the sand pit a bit (better known as our road) now I have to get ready for my mundane job.

What a difference a day makes

We have a nice breeze today, just relaxing getting ready for the rush of the day.

Good morning

There is a lot for us to do this Wed. we have homeschooling, dance, gymnastics, and work. But it all starts with a nice relaxing morning...

You know you're off the grid when...

You jump in to take a show with your wife, get all soapy, and the gen. goes off... Out of propane! finish your shower in the dark, go outside and switch the bottle... So much for a relaxing shower.

And good thing we went down and filled all the bottles... Even though the road took it's first victim, by sinking the Dodge on the way back! We also received our first water delivery on Monday.

That's life on the ranch...

What's on the menu...

Pizza bread....

Just another day at the ranch

A little later I'll have to run into town and get some supplies. For now just sitting back and enjoying. There is an excessive heat warning today across the State. And the neighbors were talking about stopping by for a cold one.