Table Of Contents:
I. Please Check Out My Bandcamp
II. One Of Our Chickens Was MURDERED
III. Studio Progress, Raising The Roof
IV. Astrophotography Segue
V. Music Studio Again
VI. Vacation Home
VII. Outro
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
I. Please Check Out My Bandcamp
YAY! Another day another blog about how I've been too busy to make new content! I'm not going to apologize for my lack of activity because one day I'll be just as busy as I was in January. I can't recall how much I promoted the Jamuary album but I participated in an audio portal event to write a song a day for an entire month. Please check out some of the tunes from that project in case you never did. I'm really proud of a few tracks from that:
That was a really good month. If you can't be bothered to hit up my BandCamp page then please check out this playlist I made for that occasion. I've been wanting to get a new album together but I've been so busy. I'm sorry to do this to you all but it's time to segue into some sad news...
II. One Of Our Chickens Was MURDERED
Technically they are livestock not pets but I can't express how much I love these girls. The other night a skunk found it's way into the coop and ate the head off one of our babies. I don't want to get too graphic about our revenge but Tom managed to kill the skunk after mistakenly asking me to grab the air rifle. Our problem with the air rifle: it's not powerful enough to kill a squirrel. Despite a perfect headshot the skunk managed to survive, walk all over Tom's feet, then stumble out into the yard where we had to finish it off with a handgun. Apparently my nose is wonderfully busted, I couldn't smell anything but Tom had to endure the worst of it. The headshot only managed to stun the poor thing which is why Tom then grabbed the Savage and the Sig Sauer. Eventually we ended it's pain, I feel monstrous about it. I'm sorry if this news bothers you or comes across as animal abuse, I absolutely love skunks. They are the cutest little things but if we hadn't dispatched her then we probably would of had four dead chickens instead of just the one. SAD TIMES ON THE MOUNTAIN, let's talk instead about something more positive...
III. Studio Progress, Raising The Roof
In my previous blog, I talked about the studio progress from the foundation to the beginning of the walls. I also talked a little bit about our solar array. If you have any interest in solar power I would recommend going back and reading that blog. Conservative politicians in the pockets of big oil will try to downplay solar energy by implying that solar doesn't work at night completely ignoring the fact that solar energy is charged batteries. Our battery power will last about 72 hours of night time before we have to switch to generator. Thank god we have sun light every 12 hours or so to compensate for all that night time. In regards to where we left off with the music studio, we had only lifted two walls. This is what the building was looking like after we put up all four:
This leads into the roof rafters and OSB, a project that proved far more challenging than anything else yet:
All the pictures are of Tom, I'm working too but mostly as support. The nature of the roof rafters is to create a slope that helps offload snow. It's skeleton is very similar to the floor (previous blog, go go go). Eventually I'll put up insulation panels, probably after it snows. We've got all the OSB board up, but had to retire early today because the wind was very aggressive, more on that momentarily...
Fuck, that last picture has a few dirty extra projects visible in the background. I never found the time to talk about our water supply & rain harvest. Maybe next time I'll get into more detail but we catch all our rainfall from roof gutters. After we fill up two 55 gallon blue barrels (visible in the above picture) a float switch activates a pump which sends the water to the above ground holding tanks (also visible in the picture). From the holding tanks the water gets processed in the basement via a slow sand filter, before going underground and up the hill into three 1,700 gallon cisterns where the water sits until we decide to take a shower, clean dishes, or flush a toilet. We have several more filters to help deal with possible contamination or bacteria including R.O.D.I., blacklight, and some other shit...
Those are the underground cisterns. You can't see them because they are underground but the PVC pipes are attached and necessary for upkeep, monitoring, and pressure. Under the tarp is a pile of concrete bags that stayed outside over the winter and are now totally solid, ruined, rock hard, and not going anywhere. Don't ask, it's another project that never got finished. Also visible from two pictures up is the skeleton of our astronomy dome. We built a foundation for Tom's telescope dome in Tennessee when we thought we were going to live there but moved away after some not-so-neighborly drama. I could go into detail about that drama BUT FUCK THAT, HERE ARE SOME MORE NEAT PICTURES INSTEAD!!!
IV. Astrophotography Segue
Tom is a mad scientist. I can't believe I never blogged about his astrophotography hobby but the years have gone by so fast and maybe I was always nervous that our relationship would wither and die? Regardless, if you've been following my blogs you'd know that we're engaged and getting married next year. At least two other Newgrounds users are invited, let me know if you're interested in coming. We're going to marry on our homestead in Colorado near Groundhog Mountain:
V. Music Studio Again
Don't worry, the wedding will take place in the summer when there is no snow. I just really love that picture. I've gotten so off topic, I forgot about the news of the music studio. As I said, we called it early today. There is a storm coming in tonight, rain and snow. The snow probably won't stick but we only got about 1/4th of the work done that we wanted. The wind got very aggressive and was making the job dangerous. We weighed down the roofing with anything we had on hand:
The wind on the mountain can get brutal from time to time. Under the metal panels is tar paper to act as a second water barrier in case the metal panels decide to stop preventing water from hitting the OSB wood. It seems a little silly to protect wood with paper but totally necessary. The tar resists water, it's science. The walls will get a layer of tar paper as well before we apply some cheap T-111 siding. For a quick glimpse of what the studio is looking like from the inside:
I just realized, there are so many pictures of Tom in this blog that you might have started to assume he is me. In case ya'll forgot what I look like, here is this older picture from our temporary Georgia home:
I exist too aside from Tom but with the added burden of holding the camera most of the time. Life goes by so fast that it can be hard to remember to document all the happenings. We recently got a pop up camper and trailer but these blog posts are so erratic and all encompassing that including every cool little thing just feels braggadocios. I've hinted at some of my darker experiences in past blog posts, I even recently deleted one particular post about witnessing a drive-by shooting when I was living in Oakland in my early 20s. From trafficking small amounts of marijuana during United States prohibition, to flirting with sex work, to dealing with suicide; I haven't always been a good role model. It feels really good to post these updates, even if I'm not particularly active with my art or music. I'm secretly an introvert, so don't expect to see me on Discord unless I'm uploading music daily. I'm sorry to some of you that may have felt close to me, I'm just not a very reliable person when it comes to sitting still and making out with my computer monitor. I'm still here, I just get very lost from day to day. I don't talk about ADD much but my attention span is terrible. My fiance will notice that my eyes glaze over almost immediately when he starts talking to me. I'm not present in my own life 90% of the time so I'm grateful that he's so patient with it...
VI. Vacation Home
VII. Outro
I'm at my picture limit, so no more uploads for this blog. Maybe next time I'll talk about Tom's office which we plan on building on top of two shipping containers next year after the wedding. We recently got the shipping containers dropped off in our driveway after we decided to abort a garage. We will still build a modest garage under Tom's office & in-between the shipping containers but we have so many random projects in the air at the moment that it seems foolish to even mention Tom's office.
(edit: just realized that picture with the water processing equipment also has the shipping containers in it)
I suppose you can look forward to that build next year, I'm kind of excited to work on it. Tom will have a really nice view of the valley from atop two shipping containers. It kind of sucks that I reached my image limit, I was going to include one of those goofy chibi-Quarl drawings but I saved it for last, ran out of data, and regret nothing. Please have a great day people. I hope these posts serve as some kind of inspiration for you misanthropes and angst babies. I love watching Newgrounds users grow, especially the youth. I see a little of myself in all of you. Sometimes that's a good thing, other times it isn't. Do your best, focus on progress, make some crazy shit, become a better version of yourselves.
~love Quarl
Malachy
Woah those are a lot of projects! I can't even finish building a fence these days! I've had a fence I've been working on since 2020!
Those are some killer astrophotography pics!
Your water reclamation system sounds complicated but really interesting. Do you really get enough precipitation to use for showers and whatnot? How do you keep it from freezing up in winter? With all of the excavating to bury cisterns and water pipes why not drill a well?
Thanks for sharing your life with us internet denizens when you have the time and energy. Mental health and life can get in the way and people shouldn't be so judgmental about it.
Quarl
Life is life, people should embrace their failures and learn from them. I know I have. To answer your water questions, we used a 300 gallon tank on the back of a trailer when we first moved out here. A lot of people out here do something similar. The original home owner had an underground cistern but there was something wrong with it? We never heard back from the original owner so we quickly dug trenches with a rented excavator, dug in three underground cisterns, built a manifold to swap the cisterns to the house... we were very busy last year but water and power were the first projects we hustled.
Normally the surrounding area is drought stricken but there was a lot of rainfall to reclaim this year. At one point last year we topped off our cisterns with a delivery, a few companies will do water deliveries in the summer. Most of our water is deep enough underground that we don't have to worry about freezing. When we top off the underground cisterns it leaves enough room in the above ground cisterns to let the water expand when it freezes. We don't empty the underground cisterns over the winter so we can top them off again in the spring when stuff melts. I was a little worried about it last year but everything worked out.
To be totally honest my fiance is the wizard that engineers everything but it's just the two of us up here so I'm learning everything, helping Tom in case of an emergency. No one plows ours roads when it snows, we're about an hour from town and people go missing in the San Juan all the time. Tom and I are a team. The only thing Tom is doing that I'm not is elk hunting but I'll be keeping track of his location and communicating via satellite phone.
Thank you for taking an interest and participating! The questions keep me on my toes :D
I almost forgot to answer your question about drilling a well. We considered getting a survey but others in the area said it's not worth it. Not a lot of water at our altitude. Also if you drill and find nothing you still have to pay the cost of the drilling. It was less risky to build our system then to sink money on a gamble :)