Welcome to the Rockin' P Ranch

Welcome to the Rockin' P Ranch, our own little slice of Texas heaven in Edwards County, TX. The main purpose of this blog is to track the conversion of a 40-foot shipping container into a hunting cabin that even the wives will want to visit every now and again.

A few details to get started.

The ranch is located in the northeast corner (panhandle) of Edwards County, TX, on the edge of the Edwards Plateau in an area of rolling terrain with prairie grass, juniper, mesquite, cedar, and some oak trees. Elevation at the ranch is about 2,000 feet, and the climate is dry -- Edwards County receives about 22 inches of rain per year, most of it in brief thunderstorm downpours.

It is also home to an abundance of wildlife, including deer (white-tail and exotics such as axis, sika, and black bucks), Rio Grande turkeys, wild hogs, doves, coyotes, fox, and jack rabbits. Probably some snakes too. Probably lots of snakes. We just haven't seen any. Yet.

We got this place primarily for hunting, shooting, and beer drinking (not necessarily at the same time, and not necessarily in that order), and to just have a place to get out of town and work on outdoor guy-stuff type projects. To that end, it has exceeded our expectations so far.

Our ultimate goal is to have a comfortable cabin with power, water, and all the amenities of home. The property came with a shed that the previous owners had been using as a cabin.

But it was in pretty bad shape, lots of evidence of rodents, water damage, etc., and overall it did not fit with our "cool comfort" design aesthetics. The wives would not ever be spending the night in this dump, and we really didn't want to either.

So we started with a 20-foot storage container to use for, well, storage of all our equipment, tools, whisky, etc.

This is where we are also sleeping for the time being, with a set of bunk beds pulled out of the shed.

Its nice and dry, but quite cold when the weather is cool, and heats up quickly in the sun. Like oven-hot even when its only 70 degrees outside.

After setting up the storage container, we had power brought onto the property, courtesy of Pedernales Electric Co-op. Gotta be able to charge those iPhones and run the margarita machine.

The first weekend in April 2014 we took delivery of a 40-foot container that will become the real cabin.

Since we knew we wanted to install doors and windows, we had the container company (TexStar Containers, Miles, TX), cut the openings and install a frame.

Saved us a ton of time and effort to have the openings cut and framed out, and all we had to do was install the windows saved from a previous home remodel, and a set of french doors from Lowes. The results were pretty good, and every thing went in easily, except for the french doors at first.

Before we installed anything, we leveled the container with paving stones across the front to account for the slope of the ground from front-to-back. We jacked up the container with a 2.5 ton car jack and slid the paving stones under the edge. Except that we started in the middle, and the container sagged under its own 9,250 lbs of weight and slightly bent the I-beam running across the bottom. Who knew you could bend a steel storage container? Well, we did it. But a few shims under the door frame to even it out and we were back in business. Not that Bubba, the neighboring ranch dog was too impressed.

Next steps will be to frame out the inside, and run the electrical and water lines to prep for the container being insulated with spray foam. Between the foam and the two AC/heating window units we have, which will be installed in their own openings at the back of the container, the building should be comfortable in the summer and winter. Watch this space for more photos and detail real soon.