Breaking the Reported Radio Silence...

Yeah I know. I've been mostly quiet for a long damn time. I have started several posts since the last one only they all started down the same lousy trail; Oil change morons overfilled the crankcase and I didn't catch it until I found the puddle under the truck... This broke, fixed it, that broke fixed that, this other thing is failing... can't afford to fix it yet...yadda yadda yadda.

They were all tedious and boring so the delete button got pushed every time. I'm weary of all that.

... I'm not in Missouri any longer and I didn't go north to the badlands like I'd planned. A few things came up that herded me back to Colorado to get taken care of. While here I got snared by the VA again, so though my other issues got took care of I've got to wait on multiple VA appointments. Mid July should see me rolling free...

Then I'm intending to move on up into Western Montana for the rest of the summer.

Just now I'm sitting back, doing my waiting and writing in a favorite camp a half hour or so east of Steamboat Springs. It's only fault, which I'm beginning to see as Not a fault at all is; there's little to no signal in there... so to even send this post I'm sitting in the cab of the truck a few miles up the road...

I actually came here when I first hauled out of Missouri...

I Frequently refer to Arlo as "Bat Shit Crazy" ... well... don't that face look a lot like a Bat??

Well... that there next one is... Bat Shit Crazy!!!

It was nice and nigh on to nobody around ... but had to fall back to the front range for that dinged fix this repair that dance. I'm back now and sequestered in the rig banging away on the next story.

Same beaver pond, maybe ten days apart, and a slightly different angle but... spring works fast in the mountains...

*Arlo Tasting the remains of one of the last drifts left*

Anyway...Working on that story and spending a lot of time sorting out and conjuring up what the devil I'm going to be doing when I wake up and the future has arrived.

I've always read that when you find you've wandered down a wrong fork go back to where you turned wrong and go the other way... I'm leaning that direction... just fairly indecisive about just where that wrong turn lays... and so the working to sort it out... It'll come... I'm grumpy ( I know because ever' damn soul tells me so) and stubborn enough that one way or t'other... I'll find a way.

I've come to realize that how I see me and how others see me is how it is and ain't ever gonna change... Trying to gain their approval is how you end up looking back and realizing you did way to many things to please their opinion and far too little to please your own. Making it all a muddy mess that nobody is happy with. I also have a bad habit of falling into the same traps I try and warn ever'body else about because I'm payin' attention to them and not my own feet... so yeah... I keep the stew boiling between my ears... which is what caused the overheating that burned off all the hair...

In the mean time...

Me and Arlo seem to have turned a corner. Getting his architecture modified while we were in Missouri seems to be helping tone down his Wild Eyed Bat Shit crazy episodes. He's even finally in the last week begun to respond much better to the discipline training I've always required of all my canine cohorts.

I've begun to get some control of him at a distance. All my other dogs I could drop on the ground even if they were three hundred yards away. They'd sit right there until I gave them the signal to do otherwise.

Crazy Arlo ain't near to that yet... but I can drop him, with so so reliability, at twenty or thirty yards now... which before all I could do was tie him to a rock or turn him loose to do his Ricochet Rabbit imitation...so we're gaining.

Part is the missing cajones I'm sure. Part is that for the past several months in Missouri and still here in this boondock camp in Colorado he's able to run and run and run a great deal... burning off the energy he carries in his Hyper active skull. Then on top of that is the fact that he has managed to survive to the point that he's on the edge of maturing... yup... I didn't just get driven fruit loops and shoot the crazy mutt!

So... I run my circles and keep finding myself starting over... again... with me it's more like a continuous spinning spiral than a circle! I think that's why I'm dizzy about half the time!

Time will tell where this latest convolution takes me... I'm hoping it is in the direction of more simplified minimalism (to climb out of those traps I mentioned I often blunder into)... but what the hell, I'm just along for the ride anyway!

Brian

Finishing Up and Getting Ready for Yet Another Leaving

Seeing the end of my stay here coming on in a rushin' hurry I've been peckin' away at the chores I need to button up before I haul.

Finished up that more permanent generator mount...

Taking this pic I discovered I need to tighten up that muffler a touch. I'm thinking it shouldn't be moving over against the fuel tank that-a-way. ;)

Also added a small water tank to replace the jugs I've always carried. It holds some little bit more than the jugs did and should be a mite more convenient.

Along the same lines of that muffler (Things burning that shouldn't) when I was pulling that conduit out of the fiver I discovered maybe the way the water found it's way in... though... that part should have stayed dry too... so the mystery is still not resolved...

We ran the conduit for the power cable from the solar panels on the roof to the solar controller down through the Refrigerator cooling shaft.

It was the common and recommended way...

Welllll... I don't think so any more. The conduit had a hole burned clean through it, where it had got in contact with the exhaust of the propane burner side of the refrigerator.

The only part still connected was that little bit of white you can see by my second knuckle... not so good!

So... with the install on the "New" rig I chose to run the conduit over the side and avoid any such conflicts...

Running it down along the awning arm "sorta" hides it a little. Either way it's just not much of a thing. Another bit of flexible conduit to run it from where it goes through the wall and then into the compartment right under the awning arm.

That's where I put the controller. Hopefully it's all weather tight and burn protected!

I used #4 welding cable to take the power the ten feet of line needed to get to the batteries. Took a bit of gymnastics to crawl around under the frame of the rig... with one wing still being kinda iffy... but got it done without a spark... well... not any big ones.

Running the control wire was pretty simple... Just followed where I'd run the batter cables on top of the frame; zip tying it in place here and there to keep it where it's supposed to live.

When I plugged the Control monitor back in and bolted down the ground cable on the battery... all worked just like it always has.

 Only a few more small odds and ends to lock down before I leave.

The Coop is pretty much done.

 She still has some cosmetic "stuff" she's gonna do up on the gable ends and some flower gardens I guess she's gonna plant around the front, but the chicks that are now mini hens have their house and their big run. Hung a "game bird" net over that to keep the chickens in and the hawks out...

Another very few sunrises and it's back down that lonesome highway for me...

Brian