Updates in western Texas

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Lately I have been working like a mad woman, and I’m not complaining, much ;), I would like to have a little more time around the SkyCastle, especially with the latest projects that PB has been doing. This blog post is an update on what has been going on, with summer sliding into fall, the nights and mornings are getting cooler, almost cold, it’s funny how 50 degrees F feels so cold right after summer, yet next spring that same temperature will feel quite nice. The picture above is a volcanic plug, the hardened material that stays put as the rest of the softer material (dirt & rocks) washes and erodes away over the eons. My friend calls these thumb buttes. I like the dead tree in front of this butte.

 

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This is a picture of a building PB started a couple of years ago, he tends to be a little ADD on projects, starting things then getting distracted by another project, eventually returning to the first one to finish it. The idea is to use this as a guest house, and for us to live in it while the SkyCastle gets an overhaul, mainly the roof and perhaps rearranging some of the living spaces that are more easily done when we aren’t LIVING in it. :)

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This is a late evening picture of the SkyCastle, just under the peak roof on the left side of the picture you can just make out the windows PB installed.

 

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My drive home, I’m in my “neighborhood” here, we have 70 something miles of unpaved road, I’m a couple of miles from the SkyCastle here.

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A rare picture of myself, PB snapped the picture in the fading light of evening time.

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Here are some pictures of PB’s chicken rotisserie in action, of course this is still very much a work in progress, but as you can see, it has actually cooked a chicken, and we ate it. The fire in the box needs to be hotter, something that is about to happen very soon. He also improved the tick-tock clock pendulum mechanism, I’ll write about it soon.

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Some of the views I get to see when I’m out on the road traveling from town to town doing my job. I pulled over, jumped out of the truck, crossed the highway and tramped through the grass to squat down in front of this prickly pear cactus encrusted in tunas. This is a well known mountain in my area.

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The sky out here is magnificent, we are at the tail end of our rainy season, it clouds up every evening, sometimes it rains, sometimes it stays dry, either way, the sky is impressive.

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One of our “neighbors”, a big bull, he kindly posed for me when I whistled loudly to get his attention. I have no idea what breed of bovine he might be, but he is gorgeous and I think he knows it.

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A smaller neighbor, I saw him or her on the way down the hill today, I shifted the armload of laundry I was carrying and snapped a few pix of this beautiful tarantula, who apparently didn’t appreciate the attention. I’m glad the dogs didn’t come with me on this walk, Casper would have ignored this, but Zoe would have been very curious, my laundry would have ended up on the ground.

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This is one of our resident frogs, they are “sticky” and can crawl straight up nearly any surface, they really like the SkyCastle and thrive here. Sometimes, in the evening, one will be right outside a window and begin to croak, they are surprisingly loud for such a little creature, fortunately they either move on or don’t croak for very long.

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That’s my update for now, if you have any questions you’d like to ask me, please feel free to post them in the comments, I’ll answer what I can as soon as I can.




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