The summer heat is here, but with the unexpected “cool front” over the weekend (93 degrees) – Steve was able to place some of our water collection tanks. Should be ready to harvest some water for monsoon season, which officially begins June 15. It will be nice to have the tanks filled and waiting for the first two planting shelves I’m going to work on in the fall (along the back wall).

But, back to Steve. Most of his time, these days, has been spent in his new “ham shack” – i.e. the camper. He’s now an amateur radio dude, making connections all across the U.S. with his radio. He’s most proud of the way he MacGyver’ed  $10 worth of PVC and wire together to build his antenna. And he’s giving himself a special pat on the back that those materials allowed him to reach the USS Missouri in Hawaii. He’s also made contact with hams in Michigan, Florida, Texas and Maryland.

So, if you’re ever out for a visit and wonder what the heck is jutting 20 feet off the roof of the house, now you know! It’s just Steve’s new hobby.

Take a peek at photos of the water collection tank install, and the four new videos on the home page, featuring our showering “dog” Macho, and our pouncing girl, Niña.

On Feb. 5, it looked like the Tasmanian Devil had whirled around the new house, given the freshly dug three-to five-foot deep trenches. But within eight hours, Steve had all the drainage pipes installed, and our backhoe operator, Rocky, had backfilled all the pits.

Roof water that isn’t being collected in the local tanks outside the dining room and master bedroom is now being piped down to the pecan grove. Eventually we’ll add more storage tanks there so that the water isn’t wasted. But for now, all water is being directed away from the house – a big milestone for us!

Enjoy our pipe-laying and digging photos – plus the watering hole we asked Rocky to dig for the wild animals.

If any of you folks outside of Arizona have been watching the news, you’ve seen that we were bombarded with rain in January. Fortunately for us, we got our gutters, scupper boxes and downspouts installed just before the deluge. We didn’t have time to get our ditches dug for drainage pipe before the rain hit, but we were able to make a temporary drainage system, which Steve refers to as “The Alaskan Pipeline.”

We also didn’t have time to hook up our water harvesting tanks or paint some of the downspouts so that they blend in with the stucco color. Steve did, however, temporarily install our rain chains – in the rain. They’re these neat, decorative metal cups that funnel the rain into collection tanks. In one instance, we’ll have a rain chain go to the ground and empty into some river rock (because that overhang is so small, we wouldn’t collect much water anyway).

The goal is to use harvested roof rainwater from the four tanks around the house – to water plants, clean porches, etc. Any overflow from those tanks will be piped down to larger tanks in the ‘pecan grove,’ which we will use to water our pecan trees. Okay … so we don’t have the larger tanks yet, nor have we planted the pecan trees. Oh – and we haven’t hooked up the underground pipes that connect all the tanks together either. But that’s the future plan!

Enjoy our photos that display all the gadgets that will keep rain away from the house. Next step: trenching and painting some downspouts. And probably some cultured stone to go around our porch posts. And if you missed our spiral staircase install, check it out.

P.S. – During gutter installation, we were standing outside taking photos when we witnessed a U.S. Customs air chase (per one of the sheriffs Steve works with). Apparently the newest thing is to drop drugs low to the ground from planes coming out of Mexico. See our video of two Cessna Citations in hot pursuit – following so closely that they can’t be detected by the first plane’s pilot!

]]> http://thefryranch.com/2010/01/24/rain-drain-the-alaskan-pipeline-and-u-s-customs-in-our-backyard/feed 0 http://thefryranch.com/2009/12/05/rattlesnakes-and-rainbows-125 http://thefryranch.com/2009/12/05/rattlesnakes-and-rainbows-125#comments Sun, 06 Dec 2009 01:58:39 +0000 Steve http://www.thefryranch.com/?p=770

Even though we’re taking a short hiatus from construction now that stucco is complete, a lot has happened at the ranch.

On November 13, Steve pushed on the kitchen door in the evening so he could get some fresh air, only to find that it was ‘stuck’ on something. I was right behind him, and when we heard the rattling sound, we both jumped back, knowing what the door had ‘bumped’ against.

A very large rattlesnake (five foot?) was curled up right in front of the screen door. To our surprise, his rattle had gotten stuck under the door, and when Steve pulled it back, the rattle snapped off. Needless to say, the snake was very ticked off. Steve then hung out of the kitchen window taking pictures of the angry fella. We now have his ingeniously engineered rattle in our showcase. But now there’s one desert rattlesnake wandering the ranch that won’t make much noise to alert those near him the next time he’s ticked. (By the way … they usually hibernate beginning in October, but it was in the 100s throughout October, so they were late to go to their hiding holes).

We also experienced our first rainbow behind the house (they’re usually out in front of the mountains).

The Dunn Edwards version of the color we chose is called s’mores (and perhaps why I was drawn to it), but the Dryvit color is called burnt oak. No matter what you call it, it is done! Our house no longer sports the ghostly white Tyvek wrap, the striped lath, or the boring gray scratch and brown coat colors.

The Dryvit material, a synthetic alternative to traditional stucco, is incredible – and our stucco crew was meticulous. We absolutely love it! This material is not supposed to crack like real stucco mud.

So … Nov. 17, the first day of Dryvit, was a big day, since we’d been working toward our Step 1 goal for 13 months: to have the house “dried in” with stucco, windows, etc. We have also been fortunate enough to complete a few other steps that we thought would have to wait: overhangs, concrete stoops, in particular.

Visit our November 2009 Construction photos to see our stucco progress. And feel free to leave us a comment by clicking the “Comments” links below each blog. Next step: rain gutters/scupper boxes – and, money allowing – the spiral staircase to the star-gazing deck.

Scroll for sample images below.

Sixty-five windows. Two gallons of stain. Two gallons of Danish oil. Six sanding pads. A box of 100 rubber gloves. Hundreds of screws and hardware. Three tins of paint thinner and lacquer thinner. Two bags o’ rags. Two brushes, two gals, one husband and two professional Pella staining “teachers.” That’s what it took to complete our window-staining project on Nov. 8. But we’re done!

And our second coat of stucco – the brown coat – was completed Nov. 10. On Monday, Nov. 16, our final color coat is supposed to be applied (the two-week cure time was overkill, so we opted for one week of cure time and watered down the house 2xs per day for ample curing time). Visit our November 2009 Construction photos to see both our stucco progress and our staining progress. And feel free to leave us a comment by clicking the “Comments” links below each blog.

Scroll for sample images below.

Our first coat of stucco – the scratch coat – was completed Oct. 28, and for the next three days, we sprayed down the house to harden the base coat. On the second day of ‘house watering,’ the interior also saw some action as my mom and I began window staining. Wow … those windows have a lot of hardware and assembly. Thankfully, we had a professional painter who specializes in Pella windows working with us the first two days. Now, thanks to his guidance, we’re on our own – power tools, paintbrushes and lacquer thinner in hand… Oh yes – and with Steve’s muscles to take the larger windows out and reinstall them for us.

Visit our October 2009 Construction photos to see both our stucco progress and our staining progress. And feel free to leave us a comment by clicking the “Comments” link below.

Our house now has some color! Lath (tar paper and chicken-wire) was completed on Oct. 20, and the next step in the stucco process is the scratch-coat. Our giant pile of sand and Western One Kote (scratch coat) awaits! We’re applying stucco in a three-stage process that involves two week’s cure time in between each stage: scratch coat, brown coat, then final (Dryvit) coat. By the time the holidays are over, the outside of the house should have a ‘finished’ feel to it. Don’t tell anyone that the inside isn’t even close to being complete. Check out the October Construction Photos.

Thank you for your patience as we continue to recreate the website (you’ll see we added some construction videos back, and we’ll be working toward re-uploading our old flora/fauna images, etc.) Feel free to leave comments within each blog post.

Our apologies for the temporary website unavailability. Unfortunately, though, we lost the entire Fry Ranch website, my brand new work website and my old website when our host’s servers were ‘hacked.’ The company then decided to go belly-up the next week, providing NO backups for any of our pages (or refunds!). So Steve has been tirelessly working on completely rebuilding and improving this site. We hope you like it. And – oh yeah – he did all of this while building all the porch overhangs on the house.

In mid-September, Steve began installing ledger boards and posts as the first step on our four porch overhangs: front door, office, master bedroom, dining room. On Oct. 11, he officially finished the very detailed porch project that included 70 pieces of tongue-and groove, six gallons of stain, more rough-sawn lumber than we could image, 100 sheets of metal roof tile and accessories, hundreds of screws and lots of sore muscles. Special thanks to neighbor, Mark, who helped us get a man-powered crew in to lift the giant header beams instead of a crane. Next step is stucco!

Take a look at our September construction photos for wood staining, manual-beam-hoisting, joist placement and fascia boards. View October construction photos for final details, tile and electrical box placement.

Anyone who knows Steve knows that he is in love with White Castle sliders (mini-burgers popular on the East Coast). So – now that the house is wrapped in Tyvek and resembles a white castle due to the angular parapets, his eyes glass over, and he salivates every time he pulls in the driveway, murmuring dreamily, “Ummm…. White Castle….”

So – in between hunger pangs, we chose a stucco crew that wrapped the entire house in Tyvek. The roof crew also finished up, and our window installers worked tirelessly in 103-degree heat to “dry us in.” We did it! We beat monsoon season, and we now officially are waterproof with all windows and sliders in operating order.

Melissa was devastated when her hummingbird pets continued to get caught in the house. Their traditional window openings – which they’d been using for months – suddenly were covered in glass, and once entering through the still-open door pockets, they couldn’t figure out how to escape. Steve had to rescue the hummies with a plastic bucket, the poor tuckered out guys!

Check out our progress under New House Construction June 2009 and the great fast-forward daily progress videos on “New- Construction Timeline.”