Lavender

Didn't get rained on last night but have a stretch of 30% chances coming up so made a quick Alpine run this morning. Sorry I didn't get a chance to visit with any of my city friends. Did stop by Big Bend Telephone to pay my bill and chat up the girls in the office - they all remember me because I brought them a bottle of champagne right after my phone got hooked up. Got home just in time to unpack the goodies then go meet my friend RB at the GrubShack for lunch. He came out for a brief updated tour and had a chance to bond with Benita. Just after he left another visitor showed up for the full tour....Jim Maloney. A real swell guy who has been following the blog and is interested in this kind of lifestyle. Had a great visit with him. Last up for the day was receiving via FedEx, a care package from my new friend Dr.DK. Lots of very useful stuff for the Field Lab - THANKS! Like Christmas in August. Photo of the day is part of one of the many flowering bushes that are coloring my desert for now. Nice to see something other than green or brown for a change.

welding wednesday

Made a morning run down to Study Butte....we got lots of showers floating around out there and I was almost out of coffee. Also picked up 5 gallons of H2O to go from H2O to Go. Missed Carolyn but stuck my money in the envelope and came back home. A bunch of longhorns followed me up the driveway and I had to show them some tough love. I gave them a scare and they stampeded out of here. Benita followed them out and got into it with some of them to make sure they stay away. Then she slowly made her way back and got her reward.

Late lunch at the GrubShack and didn't get to welding until about 4PM. Finished up all the welds by 8:15. Now the official tally is in: each truss takes 18 pieces of 20' rebar. Time logged on the generator which has mostly been used for the welding is 15.4 hours. Next step is to get 'er mounted on the containers (I think these are going to work just fine) ...then 5 more trusses to fabricate. Photo of the day is a funky bug that eats flies for me.

To Seth, the 100,000th blog viewer - fire off your address to my email and I will send you a special Field Lab prize!

9 1/2 hours...

more cuttin'

Had enough time off and the eyeball feels back to normal. Built a jig so I could finish cutting the rest of my cross braces for the two truss halves. Strapped on the new safety goggles and chopped 40 more 6" pieces so I am ready to mate it all up tomorrow. My eyes felt safe and sound. The one chunk of shade cloth I hung up came in pretty handy today as I worked out in only 20% of the typical blazing UV.

Tourist Day

Had another excuse (my eye feels back to normal now) for a leisurely day today - a Field Lab visit from my new friends Trent and Courtney from Odessa. Unfortunately, their visit began with a bang...only got about 1/8 of a mile down my road when their tire blew out. No way to fix that hole. Now the bad part is that he has a locking lug nut on each of his tires and his Toyota dealer apparently did not return the "key" to him last time they rotated his tires....oops. So they came to my house to call AAA for assistance but had to wait 3 hours for help to arrive, which was just fine because we had a chance for the full tour and more time to just hang out and get acquainted. The flatbed arrived and he loaded up Trent's truck and we bid a fond farewell.

This is the third time I have heard of this happening out here so I decided to investigate the situation ( sorry, but a bit too late for Trent and Courtney). I pretty much figured out by searching the web that these lug nuts are fairly simple to remove without the "key". Next trip to Alpine, I will add the necessary parts to my tool kit so I will be ready to assist the next stranded motorist. If I could figure this out in less than a 1/2 hour, you can bet that the tow truck driver knows the drill but preferred to get the towing fee. I fired off an email to Trent suggesting that after he gives the Toyota dealer hell for not returning the key - have them remove the locking lug nuts because they only inconvenience the unprepared motorist - not the criminal that really wants to steal your wheels.

just resting my eyes

My dad used to do a bit of snoozing while watching the evening news and waiting for supper. He would always say he wasn't asleep - just resting his eyes. Took a cue from my history and decided to spend the day resting my eyes. The old eyeball is healing and feels much better today - thanks! for all the comments and concern. I managed to sleep a nice long 10 hours last night which felt really good.

Next work on tap at the Field Lab involves lots of metal grinding and welding...and the thought of all that molten metal and tiny steel shard hazard doesn't really appeal to me right now so I took the day off to heal and watch the grass grow. The brown patch of earth across the road at the end of my driveway is growing quite nicely now and I'm starting to miss the riding mower I had back in NY. Only progress of the day was the delivery of a food tote from my neighbor BM. This will be used for an aquaponics experiment in the greenhouse.

Eyeball Mining

All afternoon yesterday, my right eye was bothering me. Not sure what was caught in it but by midnight it was driving me crazy. Even when it was closed - it throbbed. Needless to say, I didn't sleep very well last night.

When I got up this morning, it didn't feel quite as bad but my eyelid was swollen and the ol' ball was very sensitive to light. First order of business was to find an optometrist - I take my eyesight very seriously. Both offices in Alpine were closed today (of course). I struck gold with an office in Ft. Stockton that could take me at 3:30. Left the Field Lab at 12:30 and made the 2 1/2 hour trip north. Arrived at the office a little early so I had a chance to catch up on 2 issues of People Magazine - it made my eye throb more.

Got ushered into a room by an "eye tech" and she took down all my info, tested my vision, did a glaucoma test, and took photos inside my eyes through the pupils and shot microscopic cellular level photos of my eyes (I have good cells).

Shifted to another room and Dr.Urias came in to give me the once over. I showed him the photo I took of my eyeball with the little offending brown spot left of my pupil. Stuck my face into his eyeball microscope and he took a close look. Then he gave me some numbing eye drops. He then folded back my eyelid and swabbed the eye and the lid with an official Qtip. The real fun started when he actually dug out a hunk of something using the tip of a tini hypodermic needle. Photo shot from his computer screen of the magnified needle with the little blob of stuff he removed. Didn't even feel any pressure much less any pain. Next up was Dr. Pass to do the final pass. Another drop of numbing fluid and he actually took a little Dremmel tool like thing and extracted the final offending bits. Again - no pressure, no pain. The beauty is that my new health insurance just kicked in after the mandatory one year wait for a pre-existing condition so 2 hours of professional eyeball mining only cost me $30. Hopefully all is well now but have to wait a couple of days to be sure - with antibiotic eye drops to pop in there every 4 hours. Aches a little tonight but its a healing pain as opposed to a damaging pain......I think.

Stopped my the hardware store on the way home and bought a new pair of safety goggles.