Flooring system

The next step was to put in the 'girders' (I'll call them) or the horizontal supports that are attached to either side of the poles and will hold the floor joists. Getting the poles squared was difficult and time consuming (and didn't yield any cool pics) so I'll skip to the girders:

 Essentially it's like this - run the 2 x 10 girders between the poles, hang the 2 x 10 joists between them (I picked 24" on center for everything, which I'll explain in framing later), and screw/nail/bolt everything together. Using both nails and screws is a must on the desert since the constant heat changes creates contractions which have been known to eventually pop the nails out......

Next step was to add insulation to the floor before sheeting it with plywood. Close to a foot of insulation in the floor should give the house a big advantage in both the chilly winter nights and the hot summer days, if I figure right...
So I attached a thin water resistant ply to the bottom of the joists and filled them with R-30 before installing the 3/4' CDX subfloor.

Gotta seal it up really well so the critters don't get in, silicone, foam etc should do the trick....
Next up, finishing the floor and finding the last two poles..............

Starting to build!

In November of 2010, we had decided on a design for our cabin. It was going to be an old-fashioned Pole House. (Rather than have me explain what that is here, google Pole Houses and you'll see some great sites) So the hunt began for poles - I assumed going in that there would be poles laying all over the place, right? Well, no such luck, apparently when power companies take down old poles, their current way to dispose of them is to cut them up into small pieces, and I needed 20 foot tall poles. So after searching craigslist for a while, I found a guy with (3) 50 poles which he cut in half and delivered for me. With the help of a backhoe and a few friends, the project began!

The digging was ridiculously hard as the ground proved to be basically solid rock. It took about an hour to set each pole:

But perseverance paid off and by the end of the day we had 6 poles set:

After a day like this the beer sure tasted great, and it was a beautiful sunset!

The Desert Sky

The sky at Sunrise and Sunset can be glorious, actually it usually is.... Due to the distance from any large city combined with the ultra dry air, visibility is unlike anywhere else. Here's some sunsets, sunrises, moonrises, etc...

Hope you enjoyed!

Wildlife

Big (1ft) White Lizard

Brown Lizard

Cottontail

Oooops

Tarantula!

Desert Oriole

Coyote laying in our driveway, large one!

While we're taking a break and getting ready for the upcoming cabin construction, check out some of the amazing animals we see. Hard to get pictures of all of them as they come and go pretty quickly, here's a few!

Some fun in between the work...

All work and no play.......
So we also love to hike, camp, explore, 4 wheel drive and there's no place better than the 50 or so miles in any direction from us. One interesting trip is the an old (5000 yr) Indian mountain where they used to live. Fairly simple compared to the Anastasi, but fascinating nonetheless. It starts with about a 5-10 mile off road trip whcih takes one past the old San Diego/Arizona Railroad tracks

followed by a mile hike in. Pretty easy hiking, take hiking sticks, hats, backpacks, water bottles and just watch the cactus!

Once at the Indian Hill there is a lot of exploring to do. Climbing it is fairly difficult, but worthwhile. You can see the mortreros where they used to grind the food, and many hollowed out spots in the rocks where they slept/meditated/whatever.

and then you have the pictographs which are hard to find, but an awesome experience. We ran into a couple from Europe looking for a particular one they had heard about. These are hard to make out and not the best, but most are inside the rocks and hard to get a good picture of.

More side trips later, back to work......

Developing the property

We're still in Season 1, which is winter of 2009.
 (side-note: the seasons here run the opposite of most places. We can start coming out in late September which is barely tolerable at 100 degrees plus during the day and 80's at night, and keep coming out through most of May)
No firm plans had developed yet for building a home, so most time was spent either relaxing, hiking, playing games or working on the land itself. First we needed a firepit and I had heard that an old washing machine drum made a great one due to the small holes allowing a natural draft. So I scored one, dug a hole about 2-3 feet deep and lines the bottom with small to medium sized rocks. The metal drum went on top of those and then I filled in around the sides with more rocks of the same size to allow for air movement. The hole was backfilled with sand and then I dragged some larger rocks down from the hill to make a surrounding hearth of sorts. Boy does this thing do fires! Easy to start, draws great and s tough to even put out when you're done!

So then we found an addictive activity to spend the hours which seems to be a popular desert hobby: building rock paths ...... did I mention that half of our property is mountain? So we have an abundance of rocks. Large, small, medium, we got 'em..... anybody needs rocks, let me know!

Next up was water, which as we know is critically important in the desert. So with access to a well not far away we started digging and running pipe. well it didn't seem all that far until a couple days of digging.... Some of the digging was sand and very easy, some was rocks and a bit more difficult - we had ibuprofen standing by and it was welcome! The missus was areal trooper and did her share of the backbreaking work...

You'll notice the small shed I built in the background which is where the shower is going to go, came across an old tub, got a small flash heater, a tank of propane and voila! Dead Ocotillo stalks for a privacy screen and there isn't a nicer shower in the world!