I carefully laid out my gear for the trip the night before departure. In the black plastic is a wool blanket and my .44-40 Winchester. On top of that is my "waterproof" jacket, sombrero and a bit of cord. The jacket as I learned the hard way is no longer waterproof. The next row has a can of tuna, dry meat, raisins, freeze dried apples and a water filter bottle. The following row is my Cutco folding knife, mini-maglight, two lighters, cash, Cold steel knife, cell phone, belt. Not pictured are the third lighter I carried and a couple pounds of cheese and a bag of fresh biscuits my wife sent along.

It rained all day and we were unable to make it to the village where I had work to do because of an arroyo that was in flood stage. So we spent the day enjoying the outdoors. We did a little scouting for deer hunting and found a scrape but most tracks were washed out by the heavy rains. I think we got more than 3" of rain. At midday the radio was saying we had recieved 2" and it never let up for more than a few minutes at a time.

The temperature was in the 60's and I got soaked to the skin, but was never cold. The gelding I was riding was a bit out of shape and thin so I ended up running up the mountains to give him a break and not slow down my friends any more than I had too. I was pretty beat by the time I got home. We spent about 6 hours on the trail. I like the horse quite a bit. He is very gentle, doesn't spook for anything and has a lot of heart, even when he got really tired he was ready to go again after a bit of rest. On top of it he is smart about picking a path through brush and rocks. A friend of mine owned him for several years and sold him a year ago. The current owner underfed him and didn't exercise him enough... I think with some good feed and proper care he will be a good horse. He is about the easiest horse to shoe you could ever hope to shoe. He even guesses which foot you want to lift next and raises it for you!! I can buy him for $150 and am giving it serious consideration.

Tightening the cinch.

Ready to go!!

On the trail.

My friend at his families ranch, way off the beaten path.

Ready for a feast! Fresh corn on the cob.

Pictures from the garden

Little Marvel Dwarf peas

Mesclun Mix
This stayed tender and tasty until the end of August!

This year I grew the best cabbages I have ever grown up to 16" diameter and not a single cabbage worm. I didn't spray either. It is all organic.

Small potatoes. The vines died early due to late blight.

One of my gardens.

Stuff for sale

I needed two hooks for harnessing a team of horses to a harrow, so I pulled out my tools with the intention of using a simple dirt hole forge with my 12V blower. Only the blower was shot. So I made a quick change of plans and used a couple pieces to build a quick natural convection dirt hole forge. A lot slower than with a 12V blower but it works. One of these days I really should build a forge with hand cranked blower but... I only need a forge a couple times a year. However if I continue trying to stretch my supply of Oxygen and Acetylene I will use a forge more often.


A better view of the forge and my first rate helper.

A completed hook. I made two and they came out almost identical.

This object was brought to me by a fellow who claims it is either a moon rock or meteorite. He found it buried about 3 feet deep while witching for gold with two rods. According to him the local Indians saw it fall from the sky a long time ago. I don't know if I believe his story. One thing of which I am quite certain is that it is neither from the moon nor a meteorite.

It is strongly magnetic and appears to be low quality cast iron. Not show in the photo is a scar from an attempt to cut the ball with a cutting torch. The scar is typical of attempts to cut cast iron with a torch. (I was not the fool with a torch, that was done before they brought it to me.) A mold line is clearly visible in the second photo. The object was not found near a mine or I would suspect it was a ball from a ball mill, but another factor against it being a ball for a ball mill is that the mold line is so obvious. All the balls from ball mills that I have seen are worn completely smooth and generally smaller than 4" diameter.

The most interesting thing about the ball is that the surface has some gold colored stains that do not rub off nor do they react to concentrated nitric acid. These stains are iridescent showing red, yellow, blue and green.

Any Ideas?

I made the generator starting with the Changfa diesel engine, dynamo and a Chevy 10SI alternator. A friend welded the frame up because I didn't know how to arc weld yet when I started this project nearly a year and a half ago and didn't want to burn up all my acetylene using the torch to weld the job. The brown step pulley and driveshaft adapter which is bolted to the engine flywheel is a special casting. I made the pattern for the casting and then took it to a foundry where they poured the casting for me. I then machined the casting all over cut a keyway in the shaft and centered it on the flywheel. I used a lovejoy L110 42mm coupling and buna-N spider to connect the two shafts after a very careful alignment job the maximum angular misalignment allowable is 1degree. With a little trepidation I tested the generator in March 2007 and found that it worked great. After our return from the USA in May I mounted the Chevy 10SI alternator only to have it fail after relatively little usage, it just couldn't handle the heavy work of battery bank charging. Two days I ago I replaced the Chevy alternator with a Lecy-Neville 145amp alternator that I took off another battery charger that had a engine with a cracked head. This time I welded a heavy duty alternator mount onto the generator frame. (I learned the basics of arc welding in June.) Welding the mount onto the generator frame was a bit of a challenge due to the vibration, diesel exhaust in my face etc.. but I managed to pull it off without getting any of my body parts tangled in the flywheel. So we now have reliable power just over 6Kw 100% duty cycle 220V 110V and 12V. When I replaced the alternator I had to split the coupling to put the new alternator belt on and found that the spider showed no sign of wear, I must have done a decent job on the shaft alignment.