If These Walls Could Talk...

...You'd hear a lot of cussing and yelling. More on that to come.

After a bit of a hiatus with busy fall activities, including trips to Chicago and Big Bend National Park, we were ready to make some progress towards making the bathroom addition weather-tight.

We started with additional work on finishing framing the walls and adding the roof rafters.

Much of our day was spent trying build a small trapezoidal wall above where the addition meets the storage container.This proved tricky, mostly because we are finding out that the building is not quite square, with a bit of looseness in our angles. The result was much angst and consternation expressed through four-letter words strung together in creative sequences.

So things don't always line up right. Hey, we're not professionals, and a lot can be done with shims and roof tar. In some cases, we just needed to pull on a wall to bring it into true. Easier said than done with just two guys. That's where a little redneck engineering comes into play. Just pull on the wall with a rope tied to a truck. What could go wrong?

Luckily in this case, everything worked out just the way we wanted, and we didn't create any regrettable YouTube moments. So in a day-and-a-half we weren't able to get all the wall and roof panels on, but made some good progress.

We also checked on our feeders and game cameras to see what has been happening with the wildlife over the last six weeks. Things are starting to get interesting...

Of Mice and Men

Just two weeks since our last trip to the Rockin' P, and with the Fall getting busy with events and visitors, this was the last chance to get some work done for awhile.

It started with a little work securing the cabin. Apparently, lots of critters would like a peek at the hip design work we've done with the interior of the cabin, and some enough to chew through water pipe caulking to gain access for a private tour. No real damage was done, just a few calling cards left by a mouse. The lesson here is that steel container is only secure from pests until you start cutting holes in it. Some extra Liquid Nails around the pipe seal and a few glue traps should deter any future intrusions.

Saturday was spent re-starting our bathroom addition which has lain dormant for a couple of months. We started by framing and skinning a wall to attach to the container.

Next, we built out the rest of the framing, including openings for the window and door.

The view from future roof provides a bird's eye view of the ranch.

Speaking of birds, it was the middle of dove season, and with our work done Saturday evening, I took the opportunity to take a few pot shots and see if I could harvest some appetizers. I won't reveal my shot-to-kill ratio, but I came home with a few birds in the bag.

Making our Mark

Its been five weeks since we were at the Rockin' P, and this past Friday was the opening of the 2014 dove hunting season, so it was time for a three-day weekend to hunt, eat, and relax (not necessarily in that order).

On Friday afternoon, after driving through a rain storm that created a deluge on the highway and made the air miserably muggy, but somehow managed to miss actually raining at the ranch, I fired up the smoker for some baby-back ribs. Always good to start the hunt on a full stomach.

Late Friday night we hunkered down into one of the ground blinds to watch a feeder for any activity from deer or hogs. We heard the Axis deer bleating through the dark, but only saw a Whitetail deer at the feeder, and since Whitetail season doesn't start until November (and you can't hunt them at night anyway), we were left empty handed. Still, it was good to see deer on the property.

On Saturday we did a few chores during the day removing some cedar brush that was cut last time, then suited up for some dove hunting. This does include an actual suit, of sorts.

There were a few birds flying, but we only notched a couple -- luckily, brother Scott had brought some frozen birds from a previous hunting trip, and whipped up some real man food for an appetizer Saturday night: dove breasts in jalapenos wrapped in bacon.

Sunday morning was spent doing a little more dove hunting, and with a little luck, adding a few more birds to the freezer. Then we did a few ranch chores, including filling feeders with corn and setting up a water tank for wildlife, which we hope will attract more animals to the property since there is no permanent natural water source in the area.

We also set up another trail camera at a second feeder. If you look closely, you can see a hunting blind in camouflage up the hill.

Even though we don't usually see any wildlife during the day, the evidence that they have been active on the property is sometimes very clear. The bark on this small oak has been worn away from deer rubbing their antlers on it.

And this grassy area shows extensive damage done by feral hogs that roam the area. They are on our hit list for future hunting.

Overall, it was a great weekend to be outside (and inside) and enjoying the ranch. 

A Lull in the Action

Just a quick update from a couple of weeks ago. As summer winds down, we've been focused on continuing to make minor improvements. The weekend of August 16 was our last trip to the ranch, and the biggest accomplishment was moving the stove and fridge in.

So the kitchen is fully functional now, and we were even able to make a temporary water hook-up to the kitchen sink -- its almost like home.

We also moved the second set of bunk beds into the cabin, so we now have full sleeping for four.

The rest of the weekend was spent running into town (Junction, TX, about 25 miles away) to hit the hardware store for various plumbing and electrical supplies and to grab some barbecue, setting up a new feeder and re-positioning a hunting blind, and taking a few more practice shots on the clay birds to get ready for dove season. We won't be back up until mid-September, when hopefully the weather will start to cool off a bit and we can enjoy some early-season hunting.

Big Work and Small Game

This past weekend had a little bit of everything: finishing work on the container cabin, starting work on the bathroom addition, brush clearing, and even some actual shooting.

The weather was great, with temperatures in the low 90s and a cooling breeze. Friday was spent installing trim around the ceiling and floor, hanging window treatments, fixing a few electrical glitches, and bringing in some furniture. The results are starting to come together.

The addition of a few appliances and hooking up the water will just about make the interior complete. And in order to hook up the water...we have to build the bathroom addition that will house the sink, toilet, shower, and hot water heater. This will be an 8' x 10' addition on the east end of the container.

Our buddy Alex was up on Saturday to help lay out the foundation and start the decking.

We got the drain plumbing in place that runs underneath, allowing us to complete the decking and be set up for framing.

A ton of work was done and a lot of progress was made on our way to a functioning throne room. But it wasn't all work. We had time for some clay shooting off the truck powered trap machine...

...and brother Scott even bagged his first kill on the ranch, of which he was quite proud.

All in all, a satisfying trip. Until next time.

The H20 is Good to Go

Howdy folks, lots of activity on the Rockin' P Ranch over the last three weeks. One of the biggest things is that we've finally struck some of that sweet Edwards County liquid gold. Not oil (unfortunately, or I would be writing this post from a gold-plated laptop) but water.

Charlie McGuire from McGuire Drilling drilled the well, hitting water at 140' and drilling the well down to 200'. Mike Allison from Allison Pump Service installed the pump at the well head.

Then he used his rocksaw trencher and ran the water line from the well head to the corner of the cabin and installed the pressure tank.

We still have to connect the water line to the cabin and bathroom that we are building, but the heavy work has been done.

The past weekend was spent finishing the paneling in the cabin and prepping the kitchen. First, we cleaned up and repaired the 50-year old kitchen cabinets and countertops that came out of Jim Eno's (drummer for the band Spoon) house in central Austin and that he donated to Scott (thanks Jim).

Then we hung the upper cabinets and situated the lower cabinets and counter, including installing the sink.

We also installed and trimmed a refinished vent hood that Scott "rescued" from one of his home inspection jobs.

Finally, added some reclaimed pallet-wood trim around the air conditioners and door frames.

So it is starting to look livable at the ranch, and in a few weeks we hope to make a few more improvements that will really increase our comfort level.

The Long and The Short of It

This weekend was another blitzkrieg trip to the ranch, out late Friday night and back Sunday, to install the plywood paneling that we stained last weekend.

When we last left the cabin, the floors had been sealed and the walls were ready for paneling.

We started on Saturday morning with the ceiling panels, which should have fit together in a straightforward fashion, with a course of 4' x 8' panels and another course that was to be trimmed lengthwise to account for the framing that extends inward from the walls and makes the space about 7'8'' wide.

The problem was that nothing was quite square. Things had shifted, and I'm not sure the container was perfectly straight to begin with. So this led to lots of fitting, finding that there were gaps or overlaps, trimming, fitting again, maybe trimming, some more -- you get the idea. It took about five hours to put 10 panels in place. But the results were good, and we continued with covering the far ends of the container before finally breaking for sausages and beer around 4pm.

Then it was on to the wall panels. We had ripped 1' x 8' panels and stained them in three different colors to make a pattern for the walls.

Again, nothing was quite as straight or uniform as we had hoped, and the wall panels required some fitting and trimming as well, particularly around every light switch and electrical outlet. This went a bit faster, and by 10pm we had the entire length of the back wall of the cabin done.

By Sunday morning there were still a few spots that needed to be filled in on the back wall, and the front wall hadn't yet been started. But we were wiped out from Saturday's work and just decided to clean up and organize the site, and take a walk around the property.

This spring has been fairly mild and quite wet, and the weather has had a huge impact on this part of Southern Texas. With all the grass growing, we'll need to bring a lawn mower the next time we come out.

Who knows how long this greenery will last when the triple-digit heat returns to Texas, which it is bound to by July. The new undergrowth may be a concern when drought conditions return and it dies and becomes potential fuel for forest fires. We'll have to keep an eye on that, but for now its a nice change of scenery.