The Afterlife of an Ice Block

Being off grid in the desert, with no access to city water or unlimited electricity, we have to come up with ways to stretch out the lifespan of our resources. 

I have been keeping my food refrigerated with an ice box. It is actually a broken mini fridge that I keep cold by replacing a block of ice every few days. This is easy in the winter. I just stick a tub of water outside on a freezing night, let it freeze, and then switch it out with the melting block inside the ice box. It is rare that I have to purchase ice in the winter months.

Now that we are getting into the warm months, I have to buy a block of ice every few days. Luckily, the Grub Shack down the road sells blocks of ice. It is a nice 7 mile round trip bike ride, and I can strap my cooler to the back of my bicycle to keep the block from melting in the hot desert sun. I can also get a Trevor sandwich while I am there (the veggie version of their breakfast sandwich, but with grilled onions instead of bacon).

Back on Ruby Road

I'm back in the Big Bend after an epic summer tour up to the NW and back over the span of over two months on the road. It was a fantastic journey but I'm glad to be back in the post monsoon green pastures of the Big Bend, here on Ruby Road.

Water, Sun, Food, Bicycles, Friends

I've been back out in Terlingua for a few weeks and am excited to have accomplished all of the things I wanted to get done this time around. With help from friends and 'experts', I was able to optimize my solar system, organize my new temporary living space, and most importantly, set up water catchment.

Now that I have a shed with an angled roof, it opened up an opportunity to install my solar panels on my roof as as well as set up water catchment.

It turns out that Ryan, the solar guy is equally proficient with water catchment as he is with solar electricity. He says that plumbing and and wiring are more or less the same thing.

Ryan's partner in crime, Diego...

I got the catchment set up just in time. There is a 60% chance of rain in the next few days. I just need to leave out some cement bags to seal the deal.

My one almost dead battery has made a bit of a comeback. I can run my interior light all night if I want and since I have converted my modem, router, and laptop computer to DC, I can run everything without the energy drain of an inverter. During these winter days, if it is sunny, I can use and charge my computer between the hours of about 10 am and 3 pm. Once I have a full charge, my computer can work unplugged for about 3 hours.

Since my iPhone hardly draws any power, I use that for streaming radio and podcasts and reading the New York Times. I have even watched movies on it. I have one switch inside the shed that turns the whole network on and off.

The nights here have been COLD. One morning, I woke up to 18 degrees INSIDE the shed. I was very warm, however, wrapped in a down sleeping bag, two other down comforters, and a ski suit. I am looking into some sort of non toxic DIY insulation solution for the shed. I am also looking into getting a small propane heater suitable for indoor use. It doesn't get any colder out here than this past week, so I feel that it was a good test and quite manageable.

Other highlights from this most recent visit included...

My first visit to the brand new Terlingua Farmer's Market...

Eating fresh Terlingua Greens from the Farmer's Market...

Riding mountain bicycles through the desert under full moonlight with my Denton friend Remington Pohlmeyer...

And hanging out with my new neighbors Jim and Anna, also musicians who are building a house out here.

I got the privilege of helping them raise a wall...

watering the dome

For 28 days, I am supposed to water down the stucco on the dome each day. This helps to cure it and make it much more stout over the long run. Being that there was a heavy dew this morning, I was able to skip a day. The thick dew saturated the dome inside and out. I asked Don what would happen if I missed a day and Don replied, “In a thousand years noone will notice”. It takes about 6 or 7 gallons of water to shower the dome, so this morning’s dew saved some agua.

harvesting water

These past few days have been like a Portland Oregon winter...rainy and cold. We took a day off to go to the Chinati Hot Springs to warm our bones.

We returned to find that about an inch of rain had fallen over the last couple of days ! That is a lot for out here, especially in the winter. It came at a perfect time too, being that we will be mixing our stucco next week. We are using our neighbor’s water catchment system for this project. Being that her roof is 900 square feet, her catchment system gives us several hundred extra gallons of water from this recent rain. The conservative formula to know for water catchment is that an inch of rain provides 60 gallons of water for each 100 square foot of roof. We added another 55 gallon tank to our water storage system here, so we can now store over 100 gallons of water on site. This abundance means that we can take showers, water plants, do dishes, and mix adobe and concrete without guilt.

Getting Water in the Desert

While we don't have water catchment yet, we finally have some significant water storage in the form of a 55 gallon rain barrel. Gotta start somewhere. We picked up this barrel for $15 in town and it cost about another $15 for the spigot and epoxy putty. Emile, who has plumbing experience, easily installed the faucet by cutting a hole out with a knife and then securing the faucet with the putty. When cutting out the hole, he purposefully made the hole a fraction smaller than the faucet valve so that when screwing it in, it would create a tight, leak free fit.

Though minimal, this is a big improvement in our water situation out here as it will give us a place to keep the water we will need for mixing cement and cob. During the mixing process, we will need to make daily runs to nearby water sources. It just so happens that a very generous neighbor ( who lives a mile away ) is letting us use her water catchment for our project as she will be out of the area for a period of time. She needs all the water emptied from her cistern in order to move it to another location, so it is a win win situation. The water in that cistern may be all the water that we need for the mixing, but we also have some backup sources, such as Don's well and the Ranch Lodge, which sells water for 3 cents a gallon.

55 gallons is not alot, especially considering the amount of water needed to mix cement and cob. But for personal puroposes, it can go a long way. A good shower only requires a couple of gallons of water, for example.

Ideally, if the funds are available, the best way to start out here in the desert is by setting up a roof and water catchment before doing anything else. When it rains here, it pours, and it frustrating to watch it all wash away and evaporate so fast. There are no water limits out here as long as one maximizes the potential of catchment and storage.