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Snow on the Sky Castle

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One of the things I enjoy about the area where we live is we get all kinds of weather, even some extremes, but none of it lasts very long, our winters are mild compared to the rest of the country. We get snow a few times a winter, it’s usually a few inches and doesn’t last very long, it’s just enough to turn all of us into children again.

Last week we had such an event, fortunately I didn’t have to venture out in my vehicle and was able to stay home and enjoy the snow while it lasted. Our biggest “problem” during such times is making sure we have enough wood to burn in the woodstove to keep warm. PB kept us well stocked and kept the Sky Castle toasty warm.

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Community

Deep winter for the Sky Castle

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This is our 8th year living out here, we have fallen into a comfortable routine, the summers have its advantages, longer days, warm weather (cool nights for sleeping), getting more done during the longer daylight hours, but there are downsides, such as the critters, bugs, spiders and other creepy crawlies that are active in the warmer weather.

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Community

How to grow a Sky Castle

Ever wonder how a sky castle grows? One room at a time :)
In this case, this “room” was a semi enclosed deck between the bedroom and the laundry room. Like many homes out in my neck of the woods, people will build a deck, then enclose it, creating a new room, them add another deck, and enclose it, that makes for some interestingly organic homes, I know, I’ve been in many of them.

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Community

Spring in the Sky Castle

Sky CastleI do my best to see the bright side of life and everything in it, take winter for instance, the cold temps means there are no bugs or other creepy crawlies out and about, it’s nice to snuggle up next to the wood stove. Now spring hits, the warm weather is great, don’t have to worry about bundling up over night, but with the warmer temps comes the critters, snakes, squirrels, mice and bugs.

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Community

Grilling in the sky castle

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I love cooking, nearly anything, but until very recently I have kept my cooking adventures within the walls of the sky castle, a few weeks ago I got bit by the BBQ/grill bug. It all started out innocently enough, we had a small, very small table top charcoal grill, it wasn’t really large enough, but it was a good start. Next we dusted off the tall smoker that could be used as a grill by moving the charcoal pan up to the top, it wasn’t much better than the smaller grill, but by then I knew I really wanted to have a more permanent setup so PB went to work building a grill for me.

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Community

Sky castle in early fall

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It’s Sept 1, summer is all but over, the days are still warm but the nights are cooling off quite a bit, I notice the cottonwood trees in town are starting to turn that crisp yellow color, in a few more weeks it will be a riot of yellow with some reds, rusts and burgundy from some of the other trees.

The animals are putting on their fall into winter coats, adding weight to make it through the cold winter that is about to beset us. I just saw a fluffy squirrel looking in the window at me, this year has been a banner year for the squirrels, they are still fearful of us, but don’t get too concerned over our daily coming and going.

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Community

Life in the sky castle

I sit looking out the window, my view is magnificent, I am looking down across a high desert mountain valley, words cannot describe the beauty of the landscape that falls below me, but this is a harsh beauty, full of plants, bugs and critters that poke, stick, sting and bite. Some might find this a torture, I find it to be my Heaven on earth.

PB and I moved out here 5 years ago this last December, in some ways it was a huge move, in other ways it felt like coming home. After buying up just under 6 acres on a mountain side, in the high desert of far western Texas, one of the first things PB did was build our cabin, what would become our sky castle.

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Community

SkyCastle wall and updates

The last few weeks has been quiet around the SkyCastle, spring is here, flowers are blooming, the days are warm and the nights are generally cool, making for great sleeping! Speaking of sleeping, it’s something I should be doing right now, but being the night owl I am, I am still up messing around on the internet.

I do have to work tomorrow, but work has slowed down from the insanity that ensued for a couple of months, now it’s down to a steady pace. I was offered a second job, and it came at the perfect time. I’m now the Foster Grant gal in far west Texas. It’s really a simple and easy job, I already knew the district manager from about four years back when he trained my friend who used to work with me. I was essentially already trained, I just needed to learn the administration part and I was good to go. Fortunately it’s in stores I’m already working in as a merchandiser. This will help get me through the lean times that hit during the holidays for merchandisers. Most stores don’t want us in there doing major projects, or really much of anything else during their busy season so our hours get cut until after the first of the year, when reset season hits for us and it starts all over again.

PB is still working on the wall, he has dug a trench around the outer perimeter and is pouring concrete in the trench as a base for the wall to rest upon. I am continually amazed at how quickly he can do something with just hand tools, and he did most of the digging while I was asleep so he not only got the trench dug, he did it really quietly so as to not disturb me, he is so sweet.

I assume he is going to move the wall to cover the concrete, mortaring the bricks into place one by one, it’s really looking good. He still had a lot more of these papercrete bricks, I asked him how tall the wall will be and he said around 6 feet tall when it’s all said and done. I don’t doubt anything he says about building, previously he said he wanted to build the SkyCastle up a couple of more floors, we already lived on the second floor, he has stopped at 4 floors tall, the 4th story being the observation deck, as I said, I don’t doubt anything he sets his mind to do.

Oh I almost forgot to mention, he and a good friend of ours built a carport, putting the roof on it just today, the roof was reclaimed metal from another neighbor, the one I mentioned giving a haircut to last week, bartering in action! All that needs to happen is a few finishing touches, moving more stuff …

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Community

SkyCastle photos

Sometimes, you just have to shut up and let the photos do the talking :)

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This is how the SkyCastle looks currently.

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The following pictures are PB’s version of photoshop, trying to decide how to make the SkyCastle look…

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I think I prefer the old shield we had, will have to talk to PB about this :)

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Some of my photography

 

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Late summer 2016 SkyCastle update

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Things are happening at the SkyCastle, as you may or may not know, late last winter I spilled a very large, very sweet cup of coffee (complete with melted marshmallows) into my laptop, I was able to get it rinsed out and dried pretty well, but things did not operate correctly after that, my keyboard pretty much died, I limped by using an external keyboard. Other things quit working or didn’t work right, I really hated to give that computer up, I had it set up just the way I liked it. Fortunately I had a Square Trade drops and spills accident warranty on it (I HIGHLY recommend them), I contacted them and they shot a prepaid return box to me, they had my computer the following day, then a few days later then let me know they couldn’t get parts quick enough so they cut me a check for what I paid for my laptop.

I hung on to the check for a while, not ready to buy another laptop yet and not wanting to take the chance of touching that money, I realized it was getting dangerously close to the time when the check wouldn’t be any good, I deposited it and began the process of picking out another laptop. Fast forward to now, and I’m writing this on my spiffy new laptop, an Acer Aspire E 15, 15.6 Full HD, Intel Core i7, NVIDIA 940MX, 8GB DDR4, 256GB SSD, Windows 10 Home, E5-575G-76YK. Not having my laptop meant I had to do everything on my tablet, that’s why my articles here have been so thin on words, it’s not easy to type on a small screen, especially the amount I like to write. :) I’m still getting this setup like I like it, installing my old software and getting used to Windows 10.

So now to the rest of the update, this will be a video update of the west side of the SkyCastle, PB has been busy working on the roof area over the laundry room, it’s also the deck area (3rd floor) where the round tower is situated. We have wanted to make that a small nook like place where we could sit down and survey the neighborhood, maybe even have some friends over and some meals. The original roof leaked, and leaked badly, whenever it rained we would have to go in there and move things (my clothes mainly), put out buckets and plastic to protect what couldn’t be moved. That is all fixed now, PB used a product called Redguard on the new plywood he laid down, that is a paint on coating that is used in shower pans to waterproof the wood below it, the idea is to keep the wood from rotting should moisture get to it. Then he used wide flashing as the next layer, now we have to …

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Community

SkyCastle upgrade

 

SkyCastle Upgrade

The SkyCastle is getting a facelift, or an upgrade, however you wish to look at it. This all started out from PB needing to repair the roof over the laundry room, it has leaked pretty much from day one, that’s one of the drawbacks of using used/recycled materials, sometimes it works great, other times, not so well.

The big round tower is actually a water tank, PB converted it into a storage closet, put a pointier roof on it and placed it on the 3rd floor deck over the laundry room. He had to break it loose and move it out of the way to replace each roof section. He pushed it over the front about 2 feet and decided he liked it there, it gave us more space on that deck area and he could make it look more castley (I know that’s not a word, but it is now LOL).

PB has worked the last few days to cover the area where we will be able to walk around the tower, I have another edited picture of what the west side will eventually look like.
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I would say Photoshopped, but PB uses Paint to do his Photoshopping :)  Now we will have to get PB to work on the other side of the SkyCastle, it’s starting to look lopsided…

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Community

Updates on the SkyCastle

Building up and across is what PB (Primitive Bob) likes to do, here is an update on 2 of his projects, works in progress, or Bobbage as we like to call it around here.

The first of the two is the bridge, it had been put on hold for most of the winter, the plan is to eventually be able to drive across it, for now it’s a walking bridge. To recap, the frame of the bridge was made from the frame/chassis of a defunct mobile home that was being dismantled up the road from us. It was pulled across the seasonal creekbed, PB added some plywood decking so we could walk across it. The support beneath is concrete that is dug down quite far into the creekbed, it has already withstood some heavy storms and the accompanying water deluge.

We had a shorter trailer that was used to bring the last load of our stuff from the DFW area of TX to our west TX home, PB hauled that frame over the bridge and extended the bridge quite a bit. As you can see from the pictures he didn’t have any room for mistakes, the wheels were only touching the edges of the bridge by a few inches. But in true Bobbage he did it, all by himself, he tends to wait until I’m gone to work to do these things.

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You can read more about the bridge here
https://off-grid.net/a-bridge-to-bobbage/
https://off-grid.net/bobbage-bridge-update/
The second project is hardening the front door, making it even more castle like. PB wanted the stairs to draw up and by golly, he has done it. Not only do they draw up, you can do it one handed thanks to the counter weight. Of course, like everything else, this is a work in progress. There are essentially two doors, one glass door, then the stairs then a heavy wooden gate, the stairs-once raised become sandwiched between the two doors.

Here are PB’s own words describing this feat of engineering
“This was a test to see if I could raise the steps and film it all without falling off the porch. Success! A little refinement and clean up and it’ll be in the history books. The chain and sheave blocks will be replaced with a streamlined counter weight soon, probly a 4 inch pipe stub,12 inches long filled with sand. The ‘C’ clip came loose in one bearing. The glass door in the video is dirty/foggy, so that birds and dogs and old white guys can see it. I’ll try to get a better video soon. (the glass door must be closed to raise the steps)”

Watch the video and enjoy, I especially love the sound of the stairs moving up and down, sounds like a creepy old scary movie :)
https://youtu.be/4xjEDz2d52k




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