Saturday, December 23, 2006 9:06 PM
I had a busy day, and I'll have a couple of pictures up in the morning. My trailer hitch for the bicycle trailer broke (not the factory part but an adaptor piece TJ and I made). I have designed and have the steel for a much more robust one and will have it welded at Leapin' Lizard's on Tuesday.
I also went back to the petroglyphs site (see yesterday's blog) and found the grain grinding bowls that are worn into the bedrock. I didn't have my camera, forgot it, but I'll get pictures tomorrow if the sun is good.
I met a man, Don, who makes and decorates walking staffs. He does leather and beadwork on them. I talked to him about my Barsik coyote stick. He is willing to look at it and give me a price to varathane it and make a hand stitched leather piece for it. I also intend to have a wire wrap done in silver and bronze done at the top.
Tomorrow several of us are eating prime rib at the Cyber Cafe at 1010 West Main for Christmas eve. There may be a bonfire later and there was loose talk about a potato cannon that can launch a potato over two hundred yards.
Solar Update: TJ picked up a set of those inexpensive solar panels for our test and has preliminary information - click here - it will take you to our solar small emergency power page.
I a picture of two in the morning. Have a happy holiday to all free chickens everywhere.

Saturday, December 23, 2006 8:09 AM
TJ and I have been emailing back and forth on a cheaper emergency solar system from Harbor Freight since before dawn. He is picking up one of these three panel sets for a test, and I think I will get one too. What appeals to us is that the after chicken wouldn't have to know anything to use it - is a 45 watt complete kit with charge controller and even 2 12 v lights. Currently they are on sale at $200 plus $12 for shipping. TJ sent me the assembly and owner's manual. You need to be able open pdf files to look at it. You tool fiends already know about Harbor Freight. For non tool people - it is often very crappy but sometimes NOT crappy stuff from China, usually at a fraction of other suppliers. TJ and I are going to take a shot and see if these solar panels are junk. I hear from other suppliers that the Chinese solar panels are poorly made. Well, I'll install 45watt set on my bicycle cart and just head out across the pucker brush and see if that is true. I'll move this and our results to the solar page later. Good morning freechicks! Merry Christmas and thank you TJ!

Friday, December 22, 2006 8:35 PM.
Last thing for tonight freechickies everywhere - first read Kunstler's take on "It's a Wonderful Life," starring Jimmy Stewart.

Friday, December 22, 2006 5:38 PM
Was anyone just watching. I'm trying to learn NVU, which is a new HTML (website) editor, and I so screwed it up that I lost the whole website access for about 5 minutes. Oops. Learning is such fun. I quick switched back to Dreamweaver and fixed it. I am hardly trainable anymore.
It was cold and miserable today until late this afternoon, so I worked on Phil Churchill's page, adding some biographical information. Check it out.

Also I've been working this afternoon on the introduction to the future section. Here is a snippet!

Friday, December 22, 2006 11:37 AM

I've been working on the simple emergency solar system this morning. One blog reader (TJ) is trying out a pair of smaller chinese panels (cheaper), I am running tests on a much smaller panel (35 watt). Not impressed so far. Click on the diagram on the right to jump the solar page with a larger diagram that you can actually read. Please let me know if you would like more detail. I will write more of the restrictions of such a small unregulated system later.

Let me know if you need a lot more detail about mounting, or making wire connections, installing car inline fuses, etc. Here is a link that gets way deeper and I respect and have used all of his essays on living in an RV (which is a lot like living in your home in an emergency situation). Fred's poop sheets, particularly his solar poop sheet.

Friday, December 22, 2006 7:43 AM
Lots of big pictures on this page today, so please be patient if you're on dial up. I finished the text to the pictures of my desert trip yesterday a few moments ago, but I did want to mention that Phil (knapper extrordinare) showed up as I came back. He had been loaned a private collection of his work over several years. These are not for sale, but we scanned about 10 groups of eccentrics, Danish daggers, goddesses, points, mayan eccentrics which I'll put up over the next few days (along with his biography). But I thought I'd include at least one picture of what we shot yesterday as the colors are so beautiful.

Thursday, 2006-12-21 10:08 PM
Too late to write the story but here are the pictures from today. I'll write the text tomorrow chickies - sleep tight and thanks for reading my blog! This is my trip to track down petroglyphs that Phil told me about yesterday. (It's tomorrow - I'm adding text 6:49am on dec22)

The start of my trip south down the wash. Phil said about 2 miles south.	It's cold as you might have figured out. I'm poofed up by 3 layers, insulated gloves and two very hot cups of coffee! I crossed to the west side of the wash and I'm headed south. This is stone house that you have seen before in previous blogs. I've got my new Garmin etrex GPS and I'm setting way points as I go.
A blogette asked me what placer mining is. This is an old placer mine with the crushing, dusting, shaking, poofing going on above and the tailings to the right in the picture. The gold is bond to rock and must be ground to dust to let it drop free. Done without water. Whole lot o shakin went on.	I found this near a dig. It's old, rusted, has what looks like gas lines or water lines in and out and an electrical connection. Anyone? (solved by TJ - he believes it is a refrigerator compressor).
I went south 2.5 miles without seeing anything that would be a prehistoric encampment or petroglyphs. That is not uncommon on my journeys. I'm not the most observant person. So I stopped were I crossed and set a way point. Getting hot I stripped off a couple of layers, >>>	from left: and to do that I had to take off the bag. Can you guess the next dumb thing? Yep drove off without the bag and 20 minutes later was looking for the camera (in the bag), my bagel (in the bag, my insulin (in the bag!). No bag. I had kept the GPS in my pocket so I used the way point to work my way back to the bag. It actually works!
One of the many reasons why I like the desert is the unexpected nature of it as you move through it. You think you see everything then you'll find a hidden area, such as here, and I'm sorry, the near noon sun is to bright and I can't get the green to come out. The rocks are so green! Copper sulfate? Probably. RIGHT: I'm getting tired, I'm about 4 miles from the start, NOT two, and I've been traveling south since crossing the wash back to the east side, thinking it looked more likely for an old encampment.	From the east, looking west. I see a hill with a flag, so I name thee, flag hill. You know I have to see how far I can get up it on the bicycle. Back across the wash.
So I make it a little way up the hill, strip off more clothes and climb to the top. It's warm now in the sun despite the near freezing temperatures just 3 hours ago. Of to the southwest, what's that cluster of buildings? Hey, its where Ed lives - Rainbow something or other.	I've got a lot of emotions coursing through me this morning, trying to find an ancient first Americans site. But I find this flag on this hill and I am moved to tears. You might think that I'm some sort of anti-establishment geek who hates society, especially as practiced in the USA. OK, but I love my dirt, and I love our land, and oddly, I tear up when I find this flag.
So I look off down from flag hill to the southwest and there is a bluff of stone that the river has cut through. I'm thinking, if I was going to paint a petroglyph that's where I would do it. So even though gas is low (the engine only holds two cups of gas), and my legs are rubber, bagel long gone, I'm off to see it.	the first thing I found as I crossed the wash down in front of it was a grinding rock, fallen from the embankment. The rock is worn hollow. Could it be natural, maybe, and you can't see it well here, but I don't think it's natural!
So then I finally look up from that green rock, and wow mama we have arrived! Petroglyphs.	There are many and I hope to go back today as time permits because Phil (knapper) has told me the encampment is close by where these people lived and I can find the grinding holes there. So of the readers of this blog use the symbols in design and jewelry and I hope to get better individual pictures. They are about 30' above the wash floor here, and there is extensive fracturing of the supporting rock underneath the glyphs. I don't know how long they will be here.
More glyphs. As many of you know, I'm a bit emotional, and the glyphs have their effect. I sit and watch and wonder who hung from the top, what they thought, was this a sacred place. Should I put the GPS coordinates on the blog, knowing that a certain percentage of our society will act to destroy them?	So then I walk up behind the bluff, and OH MAMA is that a cave or mine or what. You know I just have to get in there? (OK, make your jokes).
Here I have climbed to the top, I'm tired, my blood sugar is low, I'm moved by knowing I stand where thousands of years ago, people lived everyday. It is likely the river still flowed (as I have learned it flowed in recent memory). They knew this land intimately, where I will always, through my ignorance, be a tourist. I swear I can feel their presence.	So the little boy who lives inside of me (and takes up most of the space) takes a picture of the entrance and down I go. Snakes, scorpions, gold, dead miners, ancient first american skeletons? How can you not go?
Well, I found rocks and lot of debris on the floor. I was a little nervous as I went down into the back of it.	I crossed the wash and walked around the bluff on that side. Ironwood and Pale Verde trees cover and shield the south side of this hill. IT is quite beautiful in here. OK, time to go home. I'm awed in the sense of no great overwhelming "wow." but in a respectful way of knowing I will never know them, and that their petroglyphs are all around me. They were here. That little bit of Algonquin Indian blood in my is vibrating. I get on my bicycle and head east. I am torn as to what I should show you. I wonder and have this stupid thought - what they would want, these ancient peoples, do they want your attention? I laughed a little to myself and said, well maybe they could give me a sign or something, like an owl flying over my head or a rattlesnake hiss. I have such an imagination. I pedaled and drove about fifty feet over a small rise, and there to my left was the largest coyote I've ever seen, watching me, moving slowly to my left, the big ears pointed at me. Watching, unafraid. Merde!

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