Thursday, August 19, 2010

tour'n'visit


Met up this morning with my friend Kristinna to give her the full tour.  She is a school teacher in Albany,NY...just 45 minutes from my old upstate hood.  We met out here last year - she comes to the Big Bend every chance she gets.  Had a good time showing her the compound.  Lunch back at the GrubShack and a chance to introduce her to some of the locals north of the Ghost Town. (photo by Kristinna Blanchard)

OGT (budding Texas folk artist) and Rachel (his mentor) came out next for a drop in.  Rachel brought me an old bicycle to start rigging for a bike powered washing machine.  In exchange, I am building an adjustable camera stand for her still and video cameras.  We all hung out and chewed the fat in the shade for a couple of hours.

Got two circuits I ordered in the mail today.  One is a backup timer for my swamp cooler and the other is a DC motor speed controller for my new panning camera system.  I have ordered a lot of stuff over the years from this website  http://www.electronickits.com/  They have a great selection of electronic stuff and super fast service when ordering.

Topped off the day by grinding up a 3 gallon bucket of prickly pear fruit to make one more gallon of juice.  93,100,75,0,C

12 comments:

Jay P said...

Maybe you could figure a way to turn the prickly pear juice into prickly pear CIDER!! It even sounds good!!

S.A.B.L.E. said...

Also makes great tasting syrup and jelly!!!! Yummmm!

Pipsqeek said...

The kits look cool. We have a couple of organisations here in Australia that do similar kits. Though one of them has morphed more into an electronics department store rather than a geeky techno centre. Shame, they were the biggest and the best. Now the little guys are in control.

How you do take care of your beard? I've had one for years and only recently my skin under it has started to go flakey. I'm also terrible at trimming it and making it look presentable.

Wallace Hunter said...

Can you tell me what device you used to make the juice out of? Is it manual? Where did you get it?

Just link me if you got it online. Please and thanks.

John Wells said...

Jeep...the juicer is called Squeezo. http://www.amazon.com/Tomato-Strainer-Deluxe-Made-USA/dp/B001B89Q3C

Anonymous said...

Im on terlingua time now. So I guess morning is gonna be around 1030 for me today.

chempilot said...

that is a good 'lectronics site. i'm currently building a lightning detector for my camera.

i understand her addiction to Big Bend. I'm already looking forward to my next trip in spring!

Unknown said...

NOW, that's a funny picture of John and Kristinna....w/ John's eye ball peeping out above his sun glasses, and her leaning in, and all....lol

Always good to follow your posts/progress John, and particularly have me a laugh on this one, even if unintended.....

thxs.

Guy Hodges said...

Isn't it amazing how much JW looks like Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top?

edlfrey said...

jeepingetowah,

John could have also used his manual food grinder. Simply grind up the prickle pear and then strain the juice and pulp through a cloth. I have done 100s of pounds of pears that way, then my mother made jam and jelly or we drank it in a punch.

Stephen Peart said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Stephen Peart said...

Hi. Great blog! I hope you don't mind a couple questions...
How do you utilize this timer with your cooler? Do you mind me asking why a store-bought timer won't do? Maybe the fact that you said it would be a 'backup' timer has something to do with it? Finally - how did you hook it up? Thank you!

Steve