My 15.75 x 30 Jemez Cabin

[MountainDon]

Alan, well, as for being in great shape, I try. Karen dances a lot, 2 times a week at least for a few hours at a time. We have a great dance club here which is fortunate. I was issued with two left feet and have been unable to find any trade ins that work any better. I don't bend and fold as well as I used to, though I do still mutilate / injure well.      I did get set back with the pre-Christmas hip, leg, lower back injury/pain though. I hope I have learned that it is always not wise to try and tough it out and avoid going to see the doctor right away. By the time I did and then by the time I could get into therapy too many weeks had gone by and I thought I'd never be limber or without aches and pain.

One thing that the X-rays indicated was the presence of arthritis in my hip joint. I guess it is elsewhere too as I do have more aches than I did three years ago, even one year ago. I'm sure the next time I see the Doc he'll have some pills to offer. I don't really want to go there though. I have noticed that the best thing is to keep moving. I should always have a project going as that is more fun than the gym. I have the window replacement and insulation project at home that will help with that. I'll spread that out.

Snow shoeing is not all that bad for the most part. Look into MSR snow shoes. They have some designs that are molded plastic that you can add extra length tails to for extra support. We are pleased with ours. It is also best when you have adjustable length hiking poles (with snowbaskets). Helps with the stability.

The distance is 1  1/4 miles with an overall gain of about 750 - 800 feet of altitude. Mostly up mixed with some downs and then up again.

As for tree thinning I believe that is one thing many folks leave to do later, and never get to it. Especially here in the Jemez that is a bad thing to do. There is a developed area we drive through on the way up the forest road to our property. At least half, maybe three quarters of the people there really need to address the trash trees on the land. Too many just don't like the thought of cutting trees. I don't have much patience with them. But then I'm a crusty old fart, according to some. 

We're not perfect on the fire safe zone, but better than many. There is info available online for best firewise practices. Google.

[MountainDon]

Rick, yes we are happy that the food doesn't freeze.  :We lug a few fresh veggies up on snowshoes and are glad we don't have to carry in everything or eat all freeze dried.     I'm waiting for later to see if we have a moisture problem though as the tubes collect a lot of condensation.

We've been up there a couple of times when the entire roof load of snow has avalanched off the north side. Quite the karump! And I definitely would not want to be under it. It pretty much all dumps at once although it may start at one end and work it's way to the other in segments.

[MountainDon]

Ever since we bought the property we have not been real certain as to where north-south leg of the east side was. Oh we knew where the north and south corner survey stakes were but because of the slope caused by the ravine that runs across the line and the clutter of trees we could not be sure where the line was. The survey, paid for by the seller and recorded with the county did not include marking the fence line. We had the pin locations and the angle off each pin. Using that I had walked a compass line a few times. Each attempt varied slightly. I knew I was close, but close was not enough for me.

Add to that, that I am/was to cheap to spring for paying a surveyor to accurately mark the line.

My solution began with completing the thinning and clean up. That was what we accomplished last fall and through the winter. With all that done we found a spot near the bottom of the ravine where we could see the north and south pins. I had a fairly accurate line of sight idea of where the boundary was. To get it as close as possible took some thinking.

I came up with an idea from shooting experience. I made a crude instrument, a sight from some 1x pine, 1/8" hardboard and some aluminum scrap, plus an old RV fridge level to add some professionality to it. 



There it is mounted on my Manfrotto tripod (aluminum scrap, drilled and tapped and screwed on the bottom of the 1x to mount to the tripod).

The black verticals are two pieces of painted hardboard. I cut a slot in the center of each by raising the table saw blade through the material. 3/32" slot.

The slots permit viewing/sighting up and down slopes while not needing to move the unit.

We had driven a t-post in beside the survey pin. I wired a 30 inch length 1x6 that had been painted fluorescent orange to each t-post top.

I placed the tripod on a spot near the bottom of the ravine I figured was close to being on the line. Then I sighted north until I could see the pin marker. Then without moving the equipment and moving to the other end and viewing 180 degrees I looked for the south pin marker. It was a few degrees to the left.

So I moved the tripod instrument over a little and repeated the procedure. On the third attempt I had each pin lined up in the slot just right. So I had a mid point on the line. then sighting along the north leg Karen positioned two more t-posts so they appeared right on the line. repeat for the south section. Ta-da I have a line I can use to string fence whenever I decide to.

Line looking north to marker (darn hard to align the camera up to get the slots in line)




Enlarged view... the marker appears white due to sun glare. The marker is the white vertical line on the right edge of the tree on the left of the encircled section. Darn near had to cut another tree.




Line looking south... can you see the orange marker?




and an enlarged and circled view. The orange is visible, just.




Thought maybe somebody else could use the info someday

[glenn kangiser]

Cool invention.   

[AdironDoc]

I came up with an idea from shooting experience. I made a crude instrument, a sight from some 1x pine, 1/8" hardboard and some aluminum scrap, plus an old RV fridge level to add some professionality to it. 

Ta-da I have a line I can use to string fence whenever I decide to.

Thought maybe somebody else could use the info someday

Great idea, Don! I just acquired some additional acreage which is crudely marked. With borders of 4200ft, I can't imagine the cost of getting the parcel professionally surveyed    If I can find the corner pins in the dense woods, and at least a few intermediary markers, I'll do what you did. Why not sell a cheap DIY kit?

Bravo!
Doc

[nysono]

Great idea, Don! I just acquired some additional acreage which is crudely marked. With borders of 4200ft, I can't imagine the cost of getting the parcel professionally surveyed    If I can find the corner pins in the dense woods, and at least a few intermediary markers, I'll do what you did. Why not sell a cheap DIY kit?

Bravo!
Doc

cost for me 2 years ago was $1500 (13 acres), surveyed, new pins set and all plotted

[hpinson]

It can be expensive.  Our cost for 46 acres, previously surveyed with only metes and bounds, and with some very unclear boundary areas in active use by neighbors, was about 4K (fortunatly paid by the seller). A lot of the cost was in tracking neighbors down and getting agreement on boundary and quitclaim modification.

[AdironDoc]

cost for me 2 years ago was $1500 (13 acres), surveyed, new pins set and all plotted

The piece I just got is 113 acres. I wonder if the survey cost goes up incrementally or you get a break for larger jobs. Since I'm not putting in roads or infrastructure, I'm not sure I'd really need to go to that length yet. If I can walk the borders, I'll start by painting trees or hanging new ribbons where the old ones are falling off. $1500/$4000 is a lot of beer...  Hope a few cold ones would overcome any border disputes! 

[hpinson]

Even at 4K I think he lost money on it.  Remote, bad roads at that time of year, dealing with missing section markers, multiple trips to the far away county seat,  researching the chain of ownership, tracking down neigbors to sign various documents, figuring out a quitclaim solution that everyone was happy with... the least of his work was actually doing the survey!

[AdironDoc]

Even at 4K I think he lost money on it.  Remote, bad roads at that time of year, dealing with missing section markers, multiple trips to the far away county seat,  researching the chain of ownership, tracking down neigbors to sign various documents, figuring out a quitclaim solution that everyone was happy with... the least of his work was actually doing the survey!

The way you put it, sounds like the fee was hard earned! Interesting job, huh? Sitting behind a desk up at county, wearing a shirt and tie. An hour later, slogging through bramble filled wetlands, slapping Jurassic sized bugs off your neck while lugging equipment. Makes me tired just thinking 'bout it..

[MountainDon]

I must thank Adirondoc for this next thing. There was some discussion about using a Rule IL200P bilge pump om his site, in an effort to move water from his springbox up the hill to his cabin. A light went on in my head. It occurred to me that such a pump might work to pump water from our cistern to the under the counter tank inside the cabin. The hand pump works fine, but an electric pump has a certain fascination.

So I got one of the 12 VDC Rule IL200P pumps from Amazon. This past week I did an trial run. When I set upthe PV power system I installed a 12 VDC power outlet in the charge controller enclosure. That's fairly handy to the cistern head. Oh, BTW, do you know what the holes in an electric plug prongs are for?

They are provided to facilitate Rube Goldberg connections such as...



The 12 VDC power outlet is the 250 VAC 20 amp style. With a uniquely keyed prong that makes it impossible to plug the wrong thing in as there is no 220-240 VAC wiring anywhere in the cabin. Rather than spend money for parts I might not need if this pump didn't work we did a temporary set up.

The pump works fine in our application. Flow into the tank in the cabin is about 1 gallon a minute; plenty of flow when used to simply refill the tank every other day or so. That is a total vertical lift (push?) of around 11 feet. That doesn't meet the listed specs for the pump. I wonder if the 8800 foot altitude has something to do with that? I think it probably does as I know it does reduce the height a manual hand pump can lift water.  Or there may be some voltage drop as I was using a 50 foot length of 14 gauge extension cord; the pump draws 12 VDC and 4.5 amps I think. My meter was not at hand so I could not check; next time we'll see.

When the power is cut water flows back downhill to the pump in the bottom of the cistern. That's perfect as if the hoses are all kept pointing downhill the water will drain back in freezing conditions. Or so the theory goes.

I had some plumbing parts on hand and setup a part of the water piping. The permanent electrical hookup will be done later.

Peering down the manhole...



The other end of the fancy electrical hookup... (plus the fancy plumbing... an electrical threaded box adpater screwed into the bulkhead fitting, std pvc pipe and the vinyl tubing forced into the PVC. Worked fine for a test.

[MountainDon]

Update on the guest bunkhouse that I mentioned we were thinking of building. Budgetary constraints demand that we downsize the cabin. Yes, I know it is already on the small side, but there are people who actually have small cabins they use all the time. So I took a day or so and put together a simple little bunkhouse.

Here it is not quite completed...



Okay, it looks more like a bus stop shelter.   

In reality it is a wood shed, a place to store some firewood out of the weather. We took a simple approach with a "foundation" of three 4x6 PT 8 foot timbers running in the long dimension. It is 40 inches in width, 6 feet height at the front opening and 5 feet at the rear wall. 2x4 framing, 24"OC across the back and roof with some extra studs in the ends to prevent the stacked firewood from pushing directly on the siding. Progress photos below.





Testing...




More later when it's finished including a paint job.

[AdironDoc]

Update on the guest bunkhouse that I mentioned we were thinking of building. Budgetary constraints demand that we downsize the cabin. Yes, I know it is already on the small side, but there are people who actually have small cabins they use all the time. So I took a day or so and put together a simple little bunkhouse.

Here it is not quite completed...

If your budget is that tight Don, I suggest you either rent the lil guy out or, perhaps, have each guest bring a hammer and leave a board or two on the wall! 

Actually, I've seen the local wood sheds built using walls of staggered boards which, having a full board's width between them allows for circulation. It got me to thinking of all the wooden pallets laying up the road which eventually rot. Perhaps I can put them to good use yet. A wall of pallets... Hmm 

[Sassy]

Nice little shed!  I have a picture of Glenn lying on cardboard under the 1st 8'x8' of the cabin...  I'll have to find it & take a digital pic of it & post    We can add those to the dancing pictures 

[MountainDon]

Faithful followers will know that our altitude and accompanying low average range of outdoor temperatures have combined to limit the degree of composting with our SunMar composting toilet. We have been removing unfinished product from the drum and incinerating it while burning slash piles. We're getting to the point where we will not be having enough slash to burn within a reasonable distance of the shed where the SunMar is located. Therefore we needed a solution. Of course, if we moved the SunMar indoors, into the space we built for it, our temperature issue would be moderated. At least during the late spring through early fall period the indoor temperature remains within composting temperature. However that still leaves the rest of the year when, because the cabin is mainly unoccupied and unheated, composting action ceases. We have just built the solution; a hole in the ground.



That's a six foot deep 30 inch square hole; the bottom half of an outhouse.

We built "frames" to be used as retaining walls or cribbing.





We used cedar fence pickets and 4x4 scraps to make the 11 inch tall segments. The 4x4 were offset to permit keying of the segments.

The hole has a 6x6 PT timber perimeter, 48 inches wide x 59 inches measured outside. We used scraps of ¾ PT plywood cut into L shapes to cover and reinforce the corners. A portion of the floor was framed and more ¾ PT plywood offcasts were nailed down as a floor in an outhouse.





The area where the bench/seat would be in an outhouse has been covered with a section of castoff ¾ CDX plywood. That is hinged at present.



The current plan is to use the pit as a depository for the unfinished product from the SunMar. At some future date we may complete the outhouse. If/when we do that we may see if we can sell the SunMar unit.

[MountainDon]

An Addition to the Bedroom Corner

I made 4 small corner shelves; 2 for each side of the bed. I used scraps of exotic hardwoods that I have hoarded for years. 





Purpleheart... I left one rough sawn edge

[MountainDon]

Outdoor Kitchen

We've been using a propane camp stove for outdoors cooking during warm weather. That keeps the cabin interior much cooler. We made a change in the hardware recently. These are Chinese made cast iron stoves; a single burner and a double burner, both rated ar 14,500 BTU per burner. They are much hotter than the old camp stove. The brass valves offer enough control. We use a 20 lb propane bottle to supply the fuel. A half inch lag screw is the bottle hanger.



A left over piece of plywood serves as a fold up/down windshield and burner cover.

[MountainDon]

Cistern Water Pump

I got around to installing a switch for the water cistern 12 VDC pump. Most AC switches are not able to handle DC current for very long. I found a switch in my collection of odds 'n ends and castoffs. It has a very audible click when operated. This type of switch usually will handle DC current. I guess time will tell. The switch is mounted on the cistern neck with a weatherproof cover.



I used 20 amp 250 VAC plugs on the cord that connects to the 12 VDC power outlet. That prevents confusion with the standard 120 VAC appliances and cords. They are known as a NEMA Type 6; 6-20P for the male plug and 6-20R for the female receptacle.

[hpinson]

Dang... I about thought you were starting a full blown outhouse.  I like the idea of the pit-- never thought of that.

We use a compost pile similar to what Joseph Jenkens describes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXcU-JQFdms

It is working well. No odor at all.  The recent rains have really helped.

The riser for the outhouse should arrive in a few days, and then we can claim two bathrooms?

[Barry Broome]

Don,

When you built your beams you used 4 layers of 2X10 - And you glued those together and used C-clamps to hold the wood together while the glue dried? Did you use any nails or screws?

[MountainDon]

No glue. No screws. Just nails from the air nailer. I believe they were 3 1/2" x 0.131". Two placed about an inch apart every 32 inches set in from the edges by about 1 1/2".  All joints located above a pier. Glue does very little as far as strength; screws are a no-no for this work as far as I am concerned.

I used Bessey bar clamps as well as large C-clamps to hold the 2x's tightly together while I nailed them. Started with two layers and then added one at a time nailing again but with the nails offset from the first run by 16 inches. Beams trimmed to final length after being installed/secured on the piers.

The Simpson T-brackets were later supplanted by 3/4" PT plywood plates (approx. 12 x 16"). There were also plywood plates added on the inside face, that don't appear in any photos.

[Barry Broome]

Ok thanks!

[Barry Broome]

Don, I'll be arriving Monday in Espanola for a project with the Jemez electric co-op for a survey of their system. Apparently we'll be accessing various Pueblo Indian Reservations and need permission from the tribal council etc, for access to reservation property. Is there anything/advice you can give me about the area or any cultural practices of which I should be aware? 

Here in MS I've worked in Choctaw Reservations without any issues. Just sort of came and went as I pleased. I understand that's not the case there in northern NM.

[MountainDon]

I don't know what to suggest other than follow the lead of whatever local guys you might be with. I drive through several different pueblo lands on the way to the cabin, but those are public roads. I am careful to observe speed limits as they enforce strictly.

Don't take pictures. You might get something sacred in them which is frowned upon. Sometimes it's okay, if you ask for permission. The riders of the train from ABQ to Santa Fe have been asked to not take pictures. Ditto a little more south where old Route 66 passes through tribal lands. Rules can vary from tribe to tribe. 

Basically they just want to be respected.

[hpinson]

I echo what Don said.  My wife works with various pueblos in the context of archeology surveys (they are up there today), and never has had any troubles. She always has tribal permission to be there, and is careful to follow whatever rules as she understands them.  Have permission to be there, be respectful, and let anyone who asks know what you are doing.  Jemez Electric has a big presense on the pueblos, so I would guess interaction would be routine.