The Shady 80 Life off the Grid

New Chapter...New Blog...

2012-12-12T13:51:00.001-08:00

You can now read my new blog at gypsyjessjungle.blogspot.com The title is GypsyJess in the Concrete Jungle....hope you enjoy.

End Of This Chapter....

2012-12-08T20:55:00.000-08:00

Dear Readers,

This is the end of this blog and chapter in my life. This is a personal and private matter please respect my privacy. I want you to know that I am happy and content. I am thankful to Dan for all of the wonderful times that we had together and all of the adventures that we had. I care about him very much. I will probably start another blog sometime later and will let you know when that time comes. If you are to take away anything from my blog please note this...it's the little things in life that matter.

I will leave you with a funny story that I was told a few weeks ago by my full blooded Irish Grandma...Eileen Kelly. It should make you laugh....you don't want to mess with an Irish woman.

" I was 15 and I was alone waiting to go to school when an older man came up to me. He suddenly unzipped his zipper and pulled down his pants. He was saying look look. I started yelling at him and chased him down the street trying to beat him up and hit him with my purse." ---Eileen Kelly

Live....

2012-11-29T19:14:00.000-08:00

will be writing soon...

2012-10-22T16:17:00.000-07:00

I will write soon. sorry for the long silent pause in my blog. I am busy painting and will post some pics soon. Jess

Weather Station and Plants

2012-09-27T16:13:00.000-07:00

If anyone knows Dan really well you will find that he loves knowing and watching the weather. We bought a weather station the other day. It has multiple functions. It reads indoor/outdoor temp and humidity, average wind speed, wind gust speed, rain gage, wind direction, barometric pressure, relative and absolute air pressure, inches of mercury, and also shows a tendency which is similar to a forcast based on weather conditions. The weather station is powered by a solar cell and wirelessly broadcasts to our indoor touch screen digital display. We combine our weather station with a software program called cumulus. It stores and graphs a lot more information. It updates to the internet every second using "rapid fire" technology. And is compatible with NOAA, weather.com, weather underground, weatherbug, and any other weather site. I have added a gadget to the side of my blog that will allow you to see our current conditions at all times. By clicking on the weather gadget it will bring you to our weather underground page that includes 10 day local forcasts and other information. You can also have this weather gadget on your desktop and to do that just click "make this station a sticker" on our weather underground page.

Today we gathered up plants that we like and put them in places where we thought they'd look good.

Mountain Lion Activity and House Progress

2012-09-26T12:38:00.001-07:00

A few nights ago Dan wasn't home and I was out with our dog Marley collecting stone in our arroyo. I was singing songs and I got a weird feeling that I was being watched. I told Marley it was time to go home as it was getting dark. I let her stay outside on our patio. She started barking. I went outside and looked around and listened and I heard footsteps in the desert brush around us. It was dark and I couldn't see much. We went inside the house. I turned on the light and kept it on for a long time. Dan came home and I fell asleep. I told Dan about it a few days later.

Last night we heard some screeching from a mountain lion. We stood in the house listening for sounds. We could hear it breathing really loud. It sounded really big. After awhile it took off and I went to sleep. I'm going to have the camera ready tonight if it comes back.

Dan is almost done with the solar panels. We're excited to hook them up and give our house the extra boost of power that it needs.

Power Progress.....

2012-09-17T15:14:00.001-07:00

Dan has been working lately on building his solar panels. This panel is 400 watts. This is one of three panels that he is building.

Alpine Trip

2012-09-07T21:40:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Regina and I went to Alpine to do some shopping. We went to this cute thrift store. We both decided that Alpine is a fun girls trip to do. We went to the Chineese Buffet, which is great because they also have sushi. In our town there are no fast food joints and only two gas stations. In Alpine there's a bit more there. It's also a really pretty drive there. -----more tomorrow Jess

Big Bend Telephone...

2012-09-04T18:40:00.001-07:00

Big Bend Telephone came today and started putting in our satelite for phone and internet. They will be back on Thursday to finish up.:)

The Couch!!!

2012-08-30T14:44:00.002-07:00

Our couch arrived today. It is a sleeper sofa. It will go in the living room. I think the ottomans will arrive tomorrow. It's great when you live in a small town and the driver asks around where you live (Thanks Lynnett):) and people just point him to the right direction where to find you. Well, back to work.

just some pics...

2012-08-28T14:04:00.000-07:00

Naked Aqua Fria Trip???

2012-08-17T13:59:00.001-07:00

So, Dan and I went to Aqua Fria for the first time yesterday. We got lost along the way and went to the mine instead. Then we went the right way. We parked the car and there were a bunch of longhorn cows. Marley was with us and she chased them away. Then we started walking down towards where there is a swimming hole. As we got closer I saw that there were two people there and they were butt naked lol. So, I said Dan we'd better turn back they are naked and I don't even want to know who it is lol. This town is too small for that. I'm sure we'd see them around town later. So, we turned around and went home. But it gave us a good laugh.

More House Progress

2012-08-17T13:47:00.001-07:00

So, Monday I gathered 40 stones Tuesday I gathered 70 stones Wednesday I gathered another 70 stones and Thursday I gathered 40 stones. Dan started putting them in the ground permanently last night. Dan also has the bedroom almost all drywalled. Which means we can almost scratch these things off the list. I do wish that the weather would cool down it would help us get some pep in our step to get things done and not feel so blah during the day. We are headed to McCoy's again on Monday to pick up some more supplies and Dan should be able to make our solar panels some time next week.

Solar Install

2012-08-17T13:36:00.001-07:00

Last week Dan went with our friend Casey to help him do some work with a solar install. Casey's company is called All Energies. They have a blog at .http://allgreenenergies.blogspot.com/ . I really like the design of these things.

Living Room Ceiling Installed by Dan and Jess

2012-08-03T14:00:00.000-07:00

Our living room ceiling is up and done!!!!! One more thing to scratch off the list. I believe Sunday or Monday we are going to start studding out the bedroom and adding insulation to it. Yea!!! It's been really hot this week. I'm about to jump in the neighborhood pool. The heat has been making me feel slugish. Well, hopefully the weather will cool down soon!!!!!

Dan Kiss Gets Creative.....

2012-07-30T13:39:00.000-07:00

So, I've said before that Dan and I are musicians. Dan has written three albums this past year. He put two of his songs to this short film by Kibwe Tavares. The film is called Robots of Brixton. I think Dan is super creative and extremely good at music. He wrote these two songs and recorded everything in these two songs...they are all him....then he found this cool video and put it together. Enjoy....and please leave a comment.:).

Oh....also the McCoy's delivery was an absolute disaster!!!....but we are working hard on the house right now.

Audad

2012-07-25T14:41:00.000-07:00

These were in our front yard earlier today. We have seen a family of five audad before on our property. I haven't seen them in about a year. Today I was looking out the window and I thought for a second that it was my dog up the road...and then Dan shouted Audad! So, we went outside with the camera and got a pic. I'm not able to zoom in and do some cropping at the moment...maybe later. Our McCoy's order is coming tomorrow!!!

Name That Shrub.....

2012-07-23T12:10:00.000-07:00

On our property I have found two of these flowering shrubs. I don't know what they are. Does someone out there know what this is? Our big news for the week is we are going to Alpine to McCoy's tomorrow to place our building material order!!!! I have been mentioning this for far too long and tomorrow it will be done. Also, we are getting telephone and internet out to the house in the next few months. We are super excited about this.

La Kiva Update

2012-07-21T20:10:00.001-07:00

I don't really have time to write too much. Here's a clip of La Kiva. I had a good time. La Kiva is one of my favorite new places. I think Dan and I are going to go for an Alpine run this week. I'm looking forward to some Dairy Queen Ice Cream and Chineese food!!! Okay...gotta go...more later Jess

House Progress and Burro Ride

2012-07-17T17:42:00.000-07:00

Dan and I have been gathering stones from our arroyo to our house to make a path all the way around the house. We have gathered over 100 stones by hand. We haven't fixed our wheelbarrow tire just yet because we accidentally ordered the wrong kind. We just ordered the correct one today. Dan is in the process of building a swamp cooler and I will do a blog on that when it comes time. We went by the junkyard today and we ran into our friend Nick Cooper:). He has a burro named Jesse James. I got to ride Jesse James for a little while. He is a very nice friendly burro. Tonight we are headed to La Kiva for some Karaoke. Maybe we will get some video of that......:) Later Jess

Eggs!!!!

2012-07-15T10:51:00.000-07:00

Two days ago Dan and I found that our chickens have started laying their starter eggs! When I went in to look at the egg the female started pacing back and forth and back and forth with our Roosta right behind her pacing back and forth again as if to tell me that the egg was there. The female is the top picture. We have eight females and we have one male named Roosta. He is in the bottom picture.

Old Mine

2012-07-14T14:32:00.001-07:00

Dan and I went to the old mine that is near our place. It was pretty cool to explore. We went in just a few steps and then got to chicken to go any further. There was a lot of mountain lion scat where Dan is sitting.

Desert Lilac Shrub

2012-07-06T21:27:00.001-07:00

This picture is one of our wild lilac shrubs that have been flowering. It is one of my favorite shrubs around. I didn't know it even bloomed like this until recently. It's kind of strange how it seems that all year round the desert plants do some incredible things. There's been a lot of rain here lately, which has been awesome. The fourth of July was a fun day for me. Dan and I decided to go into the National Park by using Marathon Road. It started to sprinkle ...it was kind of scary because I didn't know if we were going to sink into some mud. It was fun. We drove through the park and back into town...stopped and had a bite at the Chili Pepper Cafe and then drove through some more rain on the highway....then I went to work. Overall I had a fun time. I'm thinking we need to get internet at our place so that I can be more punctual blogging. Laters, Jess

Fourth of July Party

2012-06-28T11:01:00.000-07:00

There is a fourth of July party at the Bad Rabbit Cafe in the evening. Pirates of Terlingua Creek are going to be playing. The food is really good there and the band is awesome!!

Flower with Magical Powers?

2012-06-25T15:19:00.000-07:00

This is a Turks Head cactus. I can't believe how it looks like it's glowing and all sparkling from the pollen. It looks like it posses some kind of magical power lol.