Some more Money

The electrican , who is that man ?













House without Hardy plank









Storms brewing !
working our way around ,but making progress'
these pictures were taken sometime in spring of 2007.
Joy , Sarai and myself did all siding on the cabin.

Infrastructure , this one was expensive!

rough-in on shower pan

The shower finished
on demand Tank-less propane water heater

shallow well pump and pressure tank.

this was the easy part for me , when possible most line company's will let you build your service on the ground , saves time!

Just thought I would share what you have to do , when your paying as you go , and doing the labor yourself , I can sometimes make this look easy , But when you go for it things don't always go your way !

So cheers to all the Do It Yourself people ! how do you know if you don't try ?

and that's the way it is !

See ya tomorrow .bb

The little cabin gets it humble start !

and to

think this what I started with

It was a glorious day when the truck showed up !

Yea the house is on the pad ,All we got to do is build it.

Dan Walker and close friend Harry and my self start-up a project that has become our main focus in ours lives to this date.

As i told yall ,were just going back in the computer files to find the trail to where we are today.

We still work and live on the Gulf Coast near Galveston and this story continues again tomorrow morning

The cabin dimensions started at the original design of 14 x 24 = 336 living area.

more to come , so stay tuned

and thats the way it is !

.bb

Raw land in the mountains Spring 2005

We choose to camp on our new land on Sarai's spring break soon after we closed on the land,

During this experience we developed a new respect how tough you would have needed to be back when Indians and wild cowboys and Pancho Villa really were ridding these hills as they did 100 years ago! note Pancho Villa was hanging along the border on the

Rio Grand River , near the old Trading Post in Lajitas. believe there were a few shoot outs on the border. I was doing electrical work for Rick at the post back in 98 and was shown actual bullet holes after a visit from Pancho , note; Pancho Villa was assassinated June 20th 1923 no one knows who or why as he had already laid down his guns three years earlier.

During our camping days witch where few , I think we camped on the raw land 4 times and then it was time to build a shelter!I believe the decision was made quickly after a night in the tent and temps that dropped into the 30 degree range and we woke up to ICE on the tent.

nice fire to keep the chill off!

Where the house now sits.

Digging through some back-up jpeg's i came across some shots of the start of our adventure, and acknowledged that we need a bigger pad !

The old driveway approach








South looking up our mountain








Started marking a rough out demo plan, found "Buster" in Ft Davis with an 850 Cat dozier w/six way blade to create some more pad and widen the drive approach from the access road.


This was starting out from nothing.
.

the existing pad when we bought it.

OF course you got to have a nice camp fire out here .

see ya tommrow

cheers

.bb

Where am I ?

Have you ever been here?


Or have you seen this critter ?











My home lies somewhere in the center of this one (new clue) its private property

Thinking about Fishing

Spent most of yesterday painting our master bathroom here on the Gulf coast .

Then some long hours bringing my daughters HP laptop back to life .!!! win/32 missing or corrupt file in windows start-up, Reloaded the OS and proceeded with 36 driver / software packs plus about 50 windows up-dates and MS office, and it breaths again .

If you have read my profile you know I like to fish the Gulf of Mexico during the summer months ,

My close friend and neighbor Barry go deep about once a month , after all I'm right here on the coast . included are some pictures from last years harvest . The odd looking brown fish is called a Triple Tail , he is a very tricky fish to snag because of his small mouth ,The one I'm holding was a little over 8 lbs, they are some of the finest tasting white meat creators in the Gulf . The cat represents the size of some great specimens of Red Snappers . the ones Barry holds were in the 12 lb plus category. Mixed in the "Group Shot" are kings , Spanish macks , red snappers , 2 triple tails ,

The shark in the boat was a Black Tip @ about 55 lbs . The other long skinny one is a small wahoo I released (top of the mackerel family) .

The boat is a Scarab 32ft Competition Sport Fisher with twin Merc 250s. Its made to get you out there and get you back even faster , we can run 35 mph in 3 to 4 ft seas , but on a good day try 50 mph with a top out of 70 mph in the glass.

I often have seafood several times a week depending on our luck at sea .

This is my "Life at Sea Level" going to be hard to give this up , but I can always catch a trip out with friends !

Will begin with the early days in the mountains next week from the days when we were sleeping in a tent on an unimproved dirt pad .

stay tuned see ya Monday.

cheers !

.b

Lets think about something to cool us down in the middle of this summer !

One of the most wonderful things I have found, loving where we built is the temperate climate in the mountains. Most often comfortable yet some days are just unbelievable. Here is one I remember ! My family and I arrived 1 week before Christmas 2007 and enjoyed a mild week of 60 degree weather. As it would just happen to be the start of mule deer season I remained behind and the girls returned to the coast. That night of December 27th I got some Snow ! Of course being from the gulf coast it was really the first time I had seen it snow all night. To some this would probably sound miserable , or unusual but it was beautiful in my eyes !

Yesterday I talked about how to beat the heat , Today let's put another log on the fire, The lowest temperature I have recorded at the cabin is 9 degrees. But sound building practises during construction have paid off. With a small wood burning stove and an abundance of scrub oaks and a chain saw, it stays comfortable with a little work and effort before the snow starts to fall.I use only wood for heating our home off our own land , during this storm I cooked a pot of homemade chili ,never lost power and had my first white Christmas in my life. It was a beautiful thing.

And to think that I figured it just did not snow in Texas. Wrong , just not where I had been living !