End of the Trail - Last Post - Moving to a Fresh Blog

I'm making the final move now. I can't seem to get the powers that be to let me hang the new blog on the nav bar of the website like has been done in the past... so the only way to keep up is to bookmark the fresh blog.

This blog will fade into being an "Archve"... all Fresh Posts will be on my New Blog;

A Fine Horse in New Country

If you'd like to keep up with where I'm goin' and what I'm about that'll be the place to do it. 

Hope to see you on down the trail a ways.

- Brian

I'll Soon Be Rolln' My "Bedroll" Out in a Fresh Camp...

I'm working on a "change of venue". That's one of those writes euphemisms for; I'm starting up a fresh blog. I came to thinking I needed something that was more fitting to how I'm going these days and what I'm about...

Onliest trouble is__As seldom as I set such things up, getting it done is a piece of work. There's a fancy bit of elektawnic dancing that has to be done... and nobody, especially the ones who created the system have a real working idea of how to go about it.

When you factor in all the eggheads sitting behind the keyboards for the big outfits running this show__(The internet) it gets danged messy. They repeatedly "Improve" things (That is - mostly fix what ain't broke just so they've something to do). The result is, it takes twice as much work and a week of blue smoke, bad names and dirty words to sort through the "Improvement"... and generally the beer brewers sales improve as a consequence... I needed an excuse... Right?

Been trying - and failing - to get a Fresh Blog linked to my RV Website... they've made it so hair pulling convoluted, and I've no hair left to pull... that I'm questioning the value of goin' through their exercise.

The hoops to jump through are way to disjointedly explained, with far too many "mights" and "sometimes" and "Ifs" used in relation to their directions. That gives them an 'Out' when it doesn't work and nobody knows why... (which is from my perusal of the forums where folks are struggling for help with the "new" and "improved" and "Easy" system...

The likelihood is I'll abandon that lil' enterprise and just go a different way with it.

Not a bad thing... it'd fit into the simplification I'm truly trailing just now. Much of the "Internet" has lost a lot of its shine for this old buster.

That said A Fine Horse in New Country will be taking over as my "Main" blog in the very near future... there's little to read there just now... only a paragraph or so and some page headers for pages I have yet to build... all just to give me something to post as an initial test and to lay the foundations for me to tinker with.

Soooo... I'd appreciate it, if you want to keep on trailing along, if you went there and "Followed" me again. The gadget to do that is right there on the right hand side... 'Course as always, you can just bookmark it too.

I've got all sorts of doodles and ideas I want to work on (and write about) in the future so might could be the 'Semi-sabbatical" I've been on for a while is winding down. We shall see.

This blog will remain... I'll write a "Link" post here when I make the final move (and this blog will remain (along with my very first blog) as an "Archive" and a way for people to find where I went!

Many Thanks
Brian

Sunrise on the Desert

I give her first feed before dawn. It's quiet then and the air is crisp.

Cora whickers softly when she hears me scooping her breakfast. It's a good feeling to be met at the gate.

It's a good time of day. Your lungs fill with a long slow breath of pure desert air... you just stand for a few minutes watching the light change. Listening to your mare feed. Feeling the cool breeze on your face...knowing a pot of fresh coffee is perking on the stove, all those small things...

Life slows down enough so you can see how it should be...how it should have been...

-Brian

Installation of Solar Power on My Lakota LQ!

That installation is making good progress... even if I do sit at the desk working on the book until way late in the morning__to give the sun plenty of time to chase off the cold from the desert night! 😆

Since I've no compartments up front where I could safely mount the Controller and breaker panel I had to track down a usable enclosure - and modify that with ventilation.

Since the enclosure is needed to keep the weather off the electronics, I'm hoping my ventilation fabrication doesn't fail me. ;)

I simply drilled grids of holes and then capped those with electrical boxes drilled in a similar fashion.

That I mounted under the goose...then managed to hoist the 270 watt Kyocera panel up onto the roof and got it secured to the roof bows.

Finished that off with a heavy application of Dicor self leveling sealant over the mounting brackets. That stuff will prohibit any leaks and serve as a secondary mechanical hold as well.

All the pieces are now mounted in place... well all except the remote monitor...

All that's left now is to get it all wired up and my Horse Camp solar power system will be up and running!

Future plans are to double my battery capacity and figure out somewhere to hook in a decent sized inverter.

Would be nice to be able to fire up the coffee maker without having to run the generator...

I figure to need at least a 1500 watt unit to do that chore. 

But it's all good. Steady progress comin' along on all fronts... If I can just get that elusive "Rider" locked down I'll be a happy buster.

-Brian

Let's See... Where Was I?

 Oh yeah... I was preparing to leave Missouri...

It's now been something like two weeks... and I'm 1200 miles or so away from where I was... In fact, I'm back at my winter camp quarters in Cochise county.

I left Missouri bound west for Colorado... stopped in a place called Kiowa for a few minutes along the way to put those side compartments I built up to use...

Yeah... you're right... that's not motorcycle fuel...

Been flip floppin' four times a day for weeks... the last lil' bit in Missouri something clicked and the decision got made.

I took Cora back. CJ had got sold much earlier, and for whatever reason she didn't...

Bottom line... I started back to find that trail again and on that trail I will finish.

So, from Kiowa I kept moving west and started climbing back into my beloved mountains... to bust the truck straight away climbing out of Denver... sort of.

I waxed another fuel filter on the climb... Barely made it over the passes... but still managed to limp into Grand Junction once I got down off the passes. A fresh fuel filter the next morning and I was good again and ready to pick up...

Cora...

*Cora came home with me to Cochise*

 I loaded her in the Lakota just west of Grand Junction on a Tuesday morning and lit out for Flagstaff Arizona... where I had additional plans.

We stopped in Flagstaff for a couple nights on the way down to pick up most of the hardware to do a Solar Power install... I'm weary of the grinding of a generator and the hassles of dealing with the buggers...

Then, Thanksgiving day we rolled the six hours from Flag to my winter camp below Turkey Creek down here in Cochise County.

... and set to work!

I wasn't even sure if the thieving nature of a lot of the human race would have left me anything at all since I pulled out last March... but luck was with me. The round pen I needed was still standing and even its Gate remained hangin' on the posts!

I've been scrambling too many miles just about since we got here. Lined up a good bigger cistern and had to go get it. Was planning on a trailer to haul it with but cogitation set me a different way. Assuming I take off on a summer circle, a water trailer is one more piece of something I've got to deal with to prevent it from growing legs...

The cost of delivery of the lil' bit of water we use actually makes better sense than all the expense and hassle of another trailer... so... that's done and I've water for nearly a month sitting in the tank outside.

Then as I was stumbling around doin' all that... I crossed paths with some furniture... to do a remodel that's been percolating in my head for some little while...

*The Couch - Before*

I decided that "writing shed" in the back is just too much awkward and inconvenience... soooooo... on the weekend after Thanksgiving I did a whiz bang change up of the interior of my Lakota LQ Horse trailer.

*Cowboy Writing Desk and Chair - After*

If thy couch offends thee... Pluck it OUT!

... and replace it with a slick used writing desk and a sweet new chair that is WAY more comfortable than the old hide-a-bed couch!

and when I'm not sitting in the chair reading at night... it spins around to sit at the desk working...

Plus... Arlo's bed swaps with the chair...

*Arlo seems to prefer his bed under the desk*

With this setup, I can get up in the oh damn it's early 3 in the a.m. when sleep refuses to co-operate and sit at the desk with a hot chocolate and work...

... while it was just too cold last winter with the desk out back in the horse compartment...

So with that all done, this week I'm working on the inventing I have to do to wiggle a 270 watt Kyocera solar panel setup into the rig.

I'm having to fabricate a protective box for the controller and small breaker panel up under the gooseneck... since there's no compartments on this rig like a "normal" person's rig.

Cora... well... she was at a trainer in July but she's not been rode since mid September... too long for a green colt and a buster whose confidence s bruised. That busted shoulder of mine still has a ways to go to be 'good'...

So, I'm searching around for a good rider here to put a half dozen maybe ten rides on her to get her warmed up and moving again for me. Then I can swing a leg with much stronger confidence that I won't be a non bouncing projectile.

... soooo... I think that's about all that's been happening... juggling so many irons I'm not truly sure at any partic'lar moment where I'm at or what I'm doin...

Still have to rework that heater duct that ran under the couch... complete the install of the solar... and get that rider locked down ASAP to get Miss Cora under saddle strong. (eating a little pride there will go a long ways these days...)

I'll try to keep things a little more up to date... but between the hustlin' and Microsoft/Verizon stuffing my data plan with never ending HUGE updates every time I turn on the Hotspot... They have me spooked a lil' bit... ate 4 gig in fifteen minutes last week while I was just checking my accounts and email! arrrrrrggggghhhhh!

a 16 gig plan evaporates pretty dang fast at that rate! Crooked as politicians!

*The super moon just before I left Missouri*

Time now for me to move the chair to the sittin' an' thinkn' spot and kick back for a bit before I turn in...

Till next time
Brian