Homesteading New Mexico - Rancho Perdido

[GunPilot]

It's one of those Life Goals things, you know, like going skydiving (immediately) before you die, or buying a Corvette.  But infinitely more practical, I've wanted some land with some real trees and some elevation.

I'm an Arizona Desert rat, born and raised in the southern desert.  Same county as Desdawg is in.  Down here the locals all go up to the Rim country in the summer to cool off.  To me that seemed like renting happiness, and with the population of the metro Phoenix area, the Rim is about done to death nowadays.

Circumstances finally allowed us to buy 22.65 acres in western New Mexico, up on the great Divide in Catron county.  It's at 7800' elevation and I now own trees.  A friend had bought some property in the area and sent us a link.  What happened from there was like a clockwork dream; everything just clicked.  On the day the property was recorded in our name we went up there to camp, and the monsoons had opened the flowers to welcome us:


We have power and phone to the property line but I doubt we will ever hook either one up.   We are getting a well drilled this summer. I hope it goes well as water is life up here.  It's dry country despite all the vegetation.  We have pinon pine, yellow pine, and alligator juniper and white cedar.   I have been spending some time getting smart on forestry and wildfire mitigation.  I'm not a tree hugger but I've hugged some of mine. Kissed them too, and some have names.  In Arizona a tree means shade and shade is not to be cut down, but I've cleared a bunch of 'suckers' out to keep the larger ones healthy.


This is The Campground.  The fire pit was there. The land was apparently occupied in the 70's by some hardy soul; I found his homemade outhouse (since chainsawed) and some broken homemade well drilling apparatus.  Lack of water must have driven him out.


View from one possible cabin build site looking north.  Cute supervisor/wife wants a Victoria's cabin here.


A creek runs through it.  Mostly dry, it was running after the monsoons.  If we hike far enough upstream we always find water in it.  Even this past weekend when it was so hot.  Gives me hope for good luck with the well.


The World's Most Beautiful Picnic Table.  The first construction for the property.  Made of redwood and using all stainless fasteners.  15-year old son Dominic and I built it.


The homestead.  The 7500 GVW car hauler I hauled the pole barn up here with.  The Sutherland's guy estimated "about 2000 pounds" for all the materials.  I think he was about 9000 pounds off.  The concrete for the pole foundations was 2400 pounds all by itself. I estimated some of the 15 poles were close to 300 pounds by themselves (could have been the thin air though  I lost a 8-ply trailer tire on the way up but the mighty Cummins Dodge pulled it up from the desert floor just fine.  


Part of the pole barn kit.  Very green wood. I am paranoid about it all warping up so bad I can't use it. One pole already looks like a rainbow.


The work crew, never far from their video games.


The cute supervisor, setting up the work schedule for the day.


The well company provided free dowsing, and this is where the water is.  Apparently not one but two underground streams cross here.  Cute supervisor said to mark the spot with a better stake in case an elk ate the little flag, so:


I pounded one in with my bare hands.  Well, not really.  Then we had to get busy clearing out so the well rig could get in, so all hands were on deck chainsawing and pulling slash.



After I get the pole barn up, I think I want to build a Little House on the bank of the creek by the Three Wise Men.  These are three big yellow pines looking over the creek.  I think the smaller house would be a good starter and it is near the well site. I have the Enchilada plans so it's only a matter of loading the car hauler again.



I know it was long, but I've been holding it in.

-George

[glenn-k]

Great start there George.  Nice place.

I am also a Cummins fan.  99 3500 4x4 dually - unfortunately a cracked 53 block in it but it's still doing fine with lots of stop leak.  Almost got it stopped and Cummins is kicking in for the repair (at least they said they would.

Looking forward to seeing more of your progress.

Nice looking family -- looks like you have a team ready to go.

Try not to hold it in too much from now on -- It'll make you go blind.

[MountainDon]

Looking good George! Glad to see the pictures. Lots of nice green grass along the road; what time of year was that? In the Jemez the grass will begin to brown soon unless it rains.

[John Raabe]

Great photo story.

This will be fun!  

[GunPilot]

Looking good George! Glad to see the pictures. Lots of nice green grass along the road; what time of year was that? In the Jemez the grass will begin to brown soon unless it rains.

That was early last September after the heavy monsoons.  The creek was running good and everything was green.  The other photos were taken in November or just this past week.

The whole photo gallery is on my site here.

[desdawg]

Hey George, looks like you have it going on. 7800' sounds pretty pleasant about now with temps pegging 111-112 almost every day. But it is a dry heat, right? Monsoons are starting. When the dew point hits 55 three days in a row it is officially monsoon season. How many miles from Casa Grande to where you are in NM?

[GunPilot]

It's about 350 if I take the Salt River Canyon.  If I go by way of Payson it's something over 400.  I took the Payson route this time because I had the heavy load and no exhaust brake on the truck.  I made a side trip into Socorro to check out the Wally World, and ended up with over 1000 miles round trip by the time I got home .

[Sassy]

Beautiful area!  Looks like you & the family are all set to get started - really enjoyed the pics!  Keep posting more as you progress, we all like pictures  

[rdpecken]

Hey George, that's a great looking site. I'm guessing about 25 degrees cooler than Maricopa or Pima counties.
Since you have electric nearby, I'm guessing it's not too far from the nearest town either.  Looks like a great find.
Good luck on your build.  It does get to be a challege when you are hauling materials a long distance.  We haul 200 miles to our little slice of heaven.
Keep us updated... Randy P.

[desdawg]

George, if you are like me you will never make the trip without a loaded trailer. I get to making things at home or going to the auction and next thing you know I have a trailer load for the next trip. I think it's called obsession.  :-/

[GunPilot]

Yes, thankfully it's at least 25 degrees cooler than the surface of the sun - I mean, the desert floor where I live.  Gets real nippy at night in the winter though.  Where are you at Randy? Your site I mean.

Dawg, you know it about the trailer. I already have more than another trailer load to go up there this time - the 8N Funk loader tractor, a 3-point chipper I just bought to clean up that slash.  Not to mention some more lumber for the barn, the concrete for the barn, a little trailer for the quad to catch the chips in, etc. etc.  

[GunPilot]

I did manage to get back up to the homestead this weekend.  We carried Frankenstein (Frankie) the Funk with its brand new, just out of the crate, Better Than Jinma 6" chipper.



Frankie is an interesting tractor.  Made in 1950 as an 8N, he was modified, probably at the dealer, with a Funk conversion.  This replaced the 24-hp flathead 4 with a 95 (alleged) hp flathead 6. More info on the Funks for the interested or bored can be found Here.

Frankie hasn't had much TLC in his lifetime but everything still works.  The thing around him that looks like an explosion in a pipe factory is in fact a Wagner loader from the same time period.  More about the Wagner loaders for the interested, etc, here.  Why am I messing with this antique equipment, you may ask?  Well, I could go on about old-school methods and reducing carbon footprints by not causing new tractors to be made or something, but the truth is, it was in my price range.  I could probably make money on Frankie with nothing more than an aerosol overhaul, but as you may have noticed, I become attached to mechanical things, and give them names and worry if they are lonely or not.  

The Better Than Jinma chipper is the result of intense internet research on Chinese chippers and the reading of many chipper threads in various tractor implement boards.  I found an outfit called Betst(Ebay store link) that claims to have designed the chipper that Jinma ultimately cloned.  Now there are clones of Jinmas too I guess.  At any rate, I talked to the guys at Betst and ordered the chipper from them.  It arrived Friday, two days ago.  I had hoped to have it test run a bit before hauling it to the ranchita, but no such luck.  We had to unpack it from the steel crate, assemble it, and hook it to Frankie to go on the trailer.

 

The chipper is supposed to work with tractors from 24 to 40 hp.  I guess nowadays 24 hp tractors are bigger than the 1950s 24hp tractors, because it was evident that the chipper was really close to the back of the tractor.  On a hunch I tried to install the PTO shaft and hit snag #1.  No way would that fit between the chipper and tractor.  It's now 3PM and we have a 7-hour drive to the ranchita... some ad hoc monkey fab was required...

The 3-point attachments on the chipper were welded to some C-channel that extended them about 7 inches to allow the PTO to fit comfortably in place.  In addition, the top link of the tractor was mercilessly sliced in two and extended 11 inches to let the chipper sit level.  Obviously the 8N is a smaller tractor than this was designed for.  Ultimately, the chipper was attached and the whole lash-up made it up to Rancho Perdido at about 2Am Saturday morning.



The whole point of this trip was to make some inroads on the monster slash piles that have been accumulating.  A couple of fine points: I've never run a chipper.  I've never even seen a chipper run.  This chipper has never been run before. I've never run Frankie before, except to load him on/off a trailer.  Plus I think I had a rock in my shoe.

A fun characteristic of the N is the non-live PTO and the fact that the hydraulics only work when the PTO is engaged.  That means if you want to raise the 3-point, the PTO has to be engaged. So what you say?  Well, the chipper manual strenuously warns against running the PTO with more than 15 degrees angle on it.  So if I pick the chipper up, the PTO has to run, and it will exceed 15 degrees angle by a lot.  So, bottom line, to move the chipper around, I have to take the PTO shaft off every time.  I guess some advances in the last 60 years, like live PTO and independent hydraulics have been worthwhile.  

Co-located with the slash pile, PTO connected, I ran Frankie up.  It sure took a long time to get to the governed 2200 RPM spinning up the 135-lb flywheel.  Hmmm... maybe the fact that we are at 7800 feet has something to do with it.  Jetting is probably a mite rich too.  I'll have to Google the Bendix carb that's on it and see if I can figure out what is what on it.  Meanwhile, Frankie has smoothed out and it's time to see what a chipper does.



I fed it a branch about 3" in size.  It ate it, and chips came out.  Whoo hoo.  The Cute Supervisor took a picture.  Dominic is highly impressed, as he realized that dragging huge piles of slash is in his immediate future.  I fed some more branches. Some things came to light pretty quickly.

I think the 95-hp Funk is making about 18 or 20 horsepower.  The biggest piece of wood I fed was probably 3 1/2", and it all but killed the tractor.  I attribute the altitude, jetting, age of the tractor, and the fact that "95 hp" in those days was measured at the spark plug.

Power feed rocks.  I can't imagine trying to jam that stuff in there by hand alone.  Power feed is a must-have.  One attribute of the Betst machine is an improved power feed drive that kept breaking on the Jinma.

Chipping sucks.

[glenn kangiser]

That looks like some of my projects, George.  I cobbled many things together while well drilling etc.  I recognized the 8N part right away.  The Funk part threw me a bit.

It looks like a great chipper.  Power feed is great.  I have one with a 318 Dodge powering it.  Its called a Chuck and Run.  No safety -- feeds by pulling the tree in with the massive rotating chipper wheel and whatever horsepower the old worn out Dodge can muster -- maybe 150 or so.  Anyway - it pulls the tree - and anything else tangled up in the tree right in in about 2 seconds.   I've thrown up to about a 6 inch Eucalyptus tapering out to about 25 feet long to see if I could kill it.  Almost did but not quite.

It is one of the ones that claims an unwary victim every so often.  Ground beef, anybody?

[MountainDon]

Hmmm... maybe the fact that we are at 7800 feet has something to do with it.  Jetting is probably a mite rich too.    

Yep. Just remember you lose about 3% power for every 1000 feet above sea level... about 24% in your cae.  :'(  And that's considering everything else to be good, jets, age, etc.   Frankie needs a blower or nitro!

[rdpecken]

George, our place is about 15 miles northwest of Seligman, Arizona.  Up in the little pointy end of Yavapai County.
Elevation is 5700 feet, a bit warmer than yours, but still in the comfort zone. You can catch up on our progress at www.arizonaranch.org


Keep up the pictures and story, it's great reading!

Where are you at Randy? Your site I mean.

[Okie_Bob]

Hey Gun Pilot, really enjoying your thread, keep up the good work.
I was especially drawn in with the first pic you had of the 8N Ford tractor! It has to be
one of Ford's best ever products. I think they started building the 8N in 1948 or 49 and understand
they built several million of them They sold new for about $500 complete with some implements. You
can't buy one around here for less than $2500 today and a rebuilt one can run way on up there in price.
You can still buy new replacement parts at the Ford store in Ft Worth, I know, I've bought some.
Only thing I didn't like about the 8N was not having a live PTO as you pointed out in your thread.
Most all of them have now been converted to 12V electrical from the old 6V they came out with.
You just gotta love anything that is over 50 years old and the original mfgr still supplies parts.
Spent way too many hours on 8N's but, many fond memories!
Okie Bob

[glenn-k]

You just gotta love anything that is over 50 years old and the original mfgr still supplies parts.

Well -- BoB -- that's why my wife loves me so much--- but -- I don't think I want to check on the parts department. :-/

[MountainDon]

George, here's the solution to the altitude power drop off problem...  



builders webpage is   http://marvinbaumann.com/chevrolet.html  This is a 350 Chevy, there's also a 351 Ford Windsor and a Chrysler 318 and other tractor related interesting stuff there as well. I'll have to put this link in the Hot Rod Corner I think.  

[desdawg]

George, our place is about 15 miles northwest of Seligman, Arizona.  Up in the little pointy end of Yavapai County.
Elevation is 5700 feet, a bit warmer than yours, but still in the comfort zone. You can catch up on our progress at www.arizonaranch.org


Keep up the pictures and story, it's great reading!

Where are you at Randy? Your site I mean.

RD, I am in Bridge Canyon just out of Seligman. My main place is on Fort Rock Road. Pass the log home builder, the feedstore, one street, one empty lot and there I am. Look for yellow tractors,(Cat track loader and a little Massey gannon tractor). I haven't been there much this summer but it isn't over. 112 degrees in the Valley of the Sun and I am about ready. In fact I will be there Saturday night. I am in Flagstaff right now attending an onsite waste water seminar. (read septic system seminar)

[GunPilot]

Marvin build some cool tractors. I think he missed the boat though, by not putting in a Slant 6.   Frankie is waiting the arrival of his brother, Samson, who is undergoing a restification on my driveway.

I've already plotted an EFI installation for these things, and a turbo isn't too far away from that.  I think it would be easy to turbo-normalize them without hurting them too much.

In other Rancho Perdido news, we got our well permit, so now we are just waiting on the driller's schedule to get the well put in.  Water is good.

I have taken to browsing Craigslist, specifically the 'materials' section.  A lot of good stuff on there for cheap. I bought two nice solid wood pocket doors for $5 each, and another solid wood entry door for $10.  I don't know what I'll end up doing with them, but my guess is Glenn would have bought them and used them somewhere, so I did too.  

Samson:

[glenn-k]

OK - You get an "A" on your homework today.  If not usable for anything else they could be shelves or a plan table.

[GunPilot]

On Monday, a strange rig was seen setting up at the Ranchita...


Dan Lee out of Pie town, NM was hired to drill our well.


Mud, soap, and rock chips flow out of the diverter pipe as the bit goes down.


At 80 feet the mix thinned out and Dan declared that we were getting about 1 GPM of water. We kept on drilling down to 207 feet, where Dan estimated 5+ gallons per minute.  Plenty for our needs.

Dan and Greg cased the well with 5" PVC well casing.  This was followed by a gravel pack between the casing and the outer edge of the well.



Dan drilled the well on Tuesday and came back Wednesday morning to case it.  Looking in the hole, we were surprised to see the water close, very close.  Dan dropped a float tied to a string down in the well to measure the depth.  The water had filled up to within 24 feet of the top!



This is dry country, so it's pretty exciting to have 180 feet of water in a 200' hole out here.  It's also exciting because a dry hole costs exactly the same as a 5 gph hole does  

Dan is going to install a 5 gph submersible pump and a frost-free spigot to use while we are building.  Cost for the well is $27 and change per foot, including casing, pump, and everything.  Pretty good price as it is over $40 per foot across the line in AZ.

With water, we can carry on.  Without it, we are just camping.  Apparently a well is a big deal out here because three sets of neighbors showed up, having heard a well was going in.  The people from the lot next door were stoked that the water was so shallow.

[glenn kangiser]

That's great -- Good well.  Much better than ours.  We get 1 gpm.  What kind of seal did they do -- 20' minimum ?  Cement or Bentonite?  Thanks

[GunPilot]

They used Bentonite... but not sure about the 20' minimum comment - the seal was about 4' down from the surface  :-/

[glenn kangiser]

Fresno county requires 20 feet minimum from the surface down.  Many drillers don't like to bother and they are not monitored closely.  Determined by state or county apparently.


http://www.ngwa.org/PROGRAMS/government/issues/issgrout.aspx

To protect against contamination by surface or shallow subsurface waters, an annular space of appropriate size should be constructed and grouted to whatever depth is necessary to protect the ground water resource. In determining the grouting requirements of a specific well, consideration must be given to existing surface conditions, especially the location of potential pollution sources, and to subsurface geologic and hydrologic conditions. The surface seal depth may vary from as little as 10 feet to more than 100 feet depending upon conditions.

Surface water with contaminants can enter your well under the seal if not sealed well enough.  Maybe your state allows 4 feet - maybe they sealed below 4 feet and that is the top of the seal.  Bentonite is a great seal material.

I just mentioned it as some cut corners and it is your best interest to keep your water from becoming contaminated by surface runnoff.  If not well sealed, water can run from the surface - down the outside of the well casing, into your gravel pack then continues to your pump and comes out your faucet into your drinking water.