Glenn's Underground Cabin Update

[MountainDon]

Good timer. The programming of the typical multi zone can drive you crazy at times.

[glenn kangiser]

That's for sure... [ouch]

[glenn kangiser]

So... here is a roll of drip tape...




http://www.robertmarvel.com/Drip_Irrigation.html   6500 feet - $135    .5 gpm per 100 feet  others too.  This one listed in their site had emitters every 8" similar to what I am using right now.


I snip about an inch of tape, fold the end of the pressurized section and slip the cut piece over it to make a cheap end closure.




Saves buying expensive fittings.  Had a pro working for me who showed me the tricks years ago. 

[MountainDon]

never seen it before.

[glenn kangiser]

Used out here for years.  Beats buying all of those expensive emitters and easily replaced yearly if desired for very little cost over all..

I am going exclusively to it for the most part this year.  Mixed systems are harder to regulate.  Ideally you want everything that is on at once to run for the same amount of time and get sufficient water.  That makes it easy to leave home without worrying about the garden.  [ouch]


We have students visiting from Bakersfield tonight - going hiking with them in the morning.  Getting ready to put a drain through the cabin floor and remove a tree root or two so we are not hosting - just hanging out.

Not a failure -- it has served us for 10 years - just a remodel opportunity and time to upgrade to the CBRI light duty concrete floor - That should accomodate our changes and give us an inexpensive more durable floor. 

It is one of the changes I recommend to others when I advise them on ways to do their projects.  Otherwise...flat broke.... digging a hole with a shovel and covering it with plastic?  Dirt poor?  ..... it will work to get you by and could be repaired to work forever if needed.  It's just that we are going to join the ranks of the rich now and splurge for that 1/2 inch of concrete over the soil cement floor.  (Note that actually the cob floor with linseed oil over it is better than the soil cement floor).  With today's cost of Linseed oil the CBRI light duty cement floor is probably not any more expensive.

[glenn kangiser]

Though we did not host the students this time, we did go along on the Yosemite hike and dinner.

We had Sandy from Taiwan and Mako from Japan.  This group was from Bakersfield.





Yosemite falls was rushing pretty good even though our snow level was only about 40% of normal this year.  Tioga Pass is already open.  Mtn Don can come through from Mono Lake and Bodie if he wants.  [ouch]




A great bunch of people, we assembled before the hike to for an impromptu photo op then headed out. 





Seems like I can never get enough pix of Vernal falls during the different seasons... always have to get a bunch more...





Hmm hmm Look at that water streaming over to the right of the falls...





All the time my camera was getting soaked from the mist... had to keep it hidden and even then some pix had too much spray on the lens to be good...



People die every year here by not respecting the water and it's ability to whip them away and smash them to a pulp in the case of a missed step if too close.  We watch our guests closely to keep from losing any of them.





Something like over 600 steps to the top of the 317 foot Vernal Falls.  Some say going down is harder than going up.





I got to spend quite a bit of time with Betty and Jun from China as Sassy took some of the others to show them around the valley and Yosemite falls.  A super nice couple and their son from about 30 miles outside Beijing.  He is a housing contractor there and is here studying ESL.  He insisted on buying us all Ice cream at the store.  They plan to make a special trip with others of their friends later.  Hopefully they will stay with us then. 





Betty speaks good English.  Jun told us how to grow bean sprouts at home as we were having a dinner of "American Chinese Food."  They want as to come to their house for real authentic Chinese food as Jun likes to cook too.

Yosemite Falls through the trees I think....





Everybody made it back safe and another quick photo op then off to dinner... Where's Waldo.. I mean wheres Sassy... can you spot her in the pix? 





What a great time with great new friends.   

[Sassy]

It was so funny, Mako (Japan) & Sandy (Taiwan) ran over to our truck to ride w/us.  On our way to Yosemite Sandy explained that in Taiwan they only had small vehicles & one of her wishes when she got to America was to ride in a big truck. 

Guess she got her wish    I recently bought myself a Dodge Ram Cummins diesel 4x4 quad cab - so she seemed to think it was big enough 

[glenn kangiser]

I need to add here... about Sassy's new truck.... yes... she allows me to Chauffeur her and Esteemed Guests around in it.... 

[glenn kangiser]

Back to the drip review. 

My couple year old timer seems to have gone bad.  It has hung up on shutoff and drained the water in our tank rather than shutting off.  I will replace it with a new one of the same model.  None better I have found.  At least things were well watered.

Reading the instructions on the new one made me remember it froze and the plastic valve it was attached to broke.  Likely what caused the failure or binding too.  Supposed to take it off before the first freeze.... like I can remember that.... [ouch]



This pix shows how I go from standard 1/4 drip hose barb and hose into the drip tape.  A standard drip punch carefully used or a sharp pencil will make a hole into the drip tape that will self seal around the end of the 1/4 inch  drip feeder line.  Cut the end of the feeder line on an angle to make insertion easy.

[glenn kangiser]

The drip tape distributes the water over the entire length of the tape at whatever distances the emitters are placed in for the particular tape you buy has. 

I like 6 or 8 inch spacing for row crops to insure that all of the row gets watered.  Wider spacings may make harder to be sure all gets watered.

The emitters seem to remain clean the entire season.  I do put a screen filter on in front of the timer to prevent plugging the emitters or fouling the timer shutoff, etc.  Maybe not a problem but I'd rather be safe than wish I had done it. [ouch]




Got the new timer on this afternoon so at least Sassy won't have to worry about the lower half of the garden when I head off to work.  [ouch]

Another use for the Samsung note... Mapping out what I mix up in the garden rows and mailing it to myself on the computer via Photobucket to remember what I put where...




Yeah - it is a messy scribbly little map but it is better than the one that is in my head....

[MountainDon]

  Tioga Pass is already open.  Mtn Don can come through from Mono Lake and Bodie if he wants. 

Great to know!!!   

[glenn kangiser]

I suggest checking out the Travertine Hot Springs at Bridgeport on the way over if you might be into that sort of thing.  Seems I remember you are an old hippy....

Mono Lake is interesting with the volcanic craters and tufa you can check out, but I think Bodie is a must see. 

Keep us posted and we could meet you in Yosemite and show you points of interest.  Vernal is a rather strenuous hike, Mirror Lake and Lower Yosemite falls not as much.  Yosemite Indian Museum is easy and interesting - maybe you could meet my friend Ben.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LE0gYp06u4Y&list=UUTtzs303lg04jQ6_o12dm8Q&index=43&feature=plcp

[glenn kangiser]

Hmm .... wonder if this is why that mysterious bump appeared in the middle of our floor.





Well... at least the sink drain was where I thought it was.  Fortunately I had taken a picture ten years ago so I had a clue where it was at....

[Sassy]

Glenn headed to Walnut Creek last night around 9-9:30pm, I think after he cut out a bunch of the roots so I wouldn't trip on them    It's quite the construction zone    But glad it's getting done.

A friend & her son helped me pack some more stuff down at the house in the valley yesterday since closing is this Friday    Gotta go back on Friday, hopefully to finish up...  at least get stuff into the refer trailer or shop until more can be done.  Seems like we've been moving stuff forever! 

[Ernest T. Bass]

Well... at least the sink drain was where I thought it was.  Fortunately I had taken a picture ten years ago so I had a clue where it was at....

House construction pics have helped us out several times before as well.. You always think you'll remember where everything is..    I think every house should have all the walls photographed whilst open, the pics printed and put into a physical album that stays with the house..

Cool stuff with the drip irrigation! We might just give that a try.. Hope you don't mind if I steal some of those pro tips.

[MountainDon]

Ditto on construction photos. I dug out old photos I took 20 some years ago when I was planning the residing on the back of the house. That helped me figure out how the roof trusses were configured without a dusty cramped crawl through the attic...

[glenn kangiser]

It's guys like you who actually use ideas like the drip tape that keeps me posting them, Andrew. 

If you need any more details let me know and I will try to answer better.  You will find that hugelkultur beds with wood under them will use about half as much water as plain clay beds or possibly soil - I just have clay.  Soil types and mulch can really change water requirements it seems.

Yes - the pix I had of the plumbing were from the start of the digital age I think and maybe snagged from the first slide show on the cabin as I recall.  Old paper photos and me???   Good luck...


Plumbing.... wonder why they call it plumbing?


I have a program  - that is discontinued that handles photos up to 12 megapixel resolution.  Adobe Photoshjop album 3.2.  It is great ...but if I Upgrade to the new Lumix ZS20 - the next good one at 14 megapixels with a 20x optical zoom, I will need another cataloging program... now they want me to pay for a better one... need to look at options I guess.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_pipes#Materials

[MountainDon]

Old paper photos.....

Thanks to my organized dear Karen I went to the shelves in the office, found the appropriate labeled and dated album and after flipping a few pages found some color prints. Okay, I had to try a few albums as I wasn't sure of the year. Then I scanned and enlarged them and printed what I wanted to see.  Thank you very much my dear!!       Otherwise I would have been lost.   

[glenn kangiser]

I understand that, Don.  I mess things up.  Sassy organizes things..... [ouch]

[glenn kangiser]

Moving ... I hate it.

Getting stuff out of the other place so the new owner can take over.  And I said I would never move it. 

Pulled the 45 foot reefer trailer to the front to load it.  Parked for 28 years at the back of the property.  The tires don't look so good, but I think it may be almost big enough to move most of the stuff.  [ouch]

[glenn kangiser]

Sassy and I and 5 church friends attacked the house today (in the valley).  Got everything out of it and into the garage or trailer.. Oh yeah, and 3 off duty workers from the buyer next door....and they loaned me a smaller forklift ..that didn't leak oil. 

We are all about dead beat but the rush is over - escrow closed and now we have 90 days to get the outside stuff moved and cleaned up.

We had two helpers from Mariposa that remained until tonight so we stopped at a Japanese restaurant in Madera - found it searching Google maps on my phone.  It was highly recommended on reviews, and it was very good as they said it would be.    We had a great dinner after the long days work. 

[Sassy]

Got home 8:30-9pm last night from finally getting everything moved out of the house.  Things were looking very hazy up towards the mountains/Mariposa as we were driving up.  Then Whitlock called this morning & told us about this...   



This is what it looks like today...  several businesses gone - a big part of historical Mariposa downtown up in flames...  lots of young people out of work, no place to go.  The Pizza Factory started 1st - seems someone put a lit cigarette in the cigarette disposal thing they had out front & it started on fire & then the whole block went up...  at least that's the story going right now. 

[MountainDon]

Crap!  They got it out though?  Anyone hurt?

[ben2go]

That is so sad.Hope everyone made it out OK.

[glenn kangiser]

I heard everyone got out safely and no injuries I have heard of so far.  More pix and video here.

http://goldrushcam.com/sierrasuntimes/index.php/component/content/article/61-photo-of-the-day/5163-photo-of-the-day-may-12-2012

Pix by my friend, Gerry of the Sierra Sun times - online news paper.



It was still burning good this morning actually.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoBhzgdYsVQ