That is what you call an RV Clark

Our neighbors no longer wanted there camper so they gave it to us for free and even free delivery!!!
Its not in bad shape just needs a major cleaning and some minor repair is all. Overall its sound. Everything works also even the fridge, which is a bonus! Yes that is a swamp cooler on the top in the front, im going to take it off and use in our house :) The a/c works in the camper.

How To Hang Up A Backhoe

Well our well driller thought he would help us out from where i had the truck stuck and fix the ground, Now we have a buried backhoe in the yard. Also our first tarantula of the year was on the porch this evening, this one is different then all the sun tarantula's we had last year, its all a grayish black.

Non Stop Rain!!

It has been raining here since 29 june 2013 here is some flood pictures from yesterday, We have had over 2 feet of rain since it has started. See how grown up and green it is here. Showdown road is washed out as of this morning :(


This is High Lonesome Road

 This is Showdown Road

 This is the driveway

 Truck sunk  in driveway

 West side of porch

 East side of porch

Final Total On Incubator

Well the other eggs didnt hatch only had the six, Better then nothing tho :)

Our Eggs Are Hatching!!

Well the off grid homemade incubator is doing its job, we started having chicks hatching last night, six so far and all have lived that has hatched at this point :)

Well post the final results when all is done

Our New Lambs

This morning when we got up had 2 new baby lambs!! They sure are cute, they are getting around real good now.

This is our second round of corn

See the size of our kale :)

Arizona Glossy Snake Not Dangerous

Homemade Egg Incubator

We decided we needed an incubator to hatch chickens and turkeys here on the homestead, Our main problem is we our off grid and depend on or small solar array which is 620 watts and a 450 watt wind generator for our power. We store our power in a 675 amp hour battery bank.

There was no way we could use most of the incubators that are sold being they require around 225 watts to operate. I did my research and found a neat little controller that has 40 watt heater, digital controls, fan and being digital its heater reduces power to as low as 10 watts once the incubator is at the preset temperature of 99.5 degrees and best of all its 12 volts!! Perfect for our needs.

I made the incubator out of scrap material i had on hand, i made a semi-automatic egg turner so we don't have to open the box to turn the eggs twice a day. The only thing i had to purchase was the incukit dc controller, it was $49.99.

Yesterday we started it up, it reached its preset temp of 99.5 degrees in 20 minutes, we then loaded it with fresh eggs from our chickens, it held 25 eggs. The egg turner is a simple rack with dowel rods that the eggs sit between,  made a push/pull handle that is pinned for easy removal. All i do is either push or pull the handle to turn the eggs twice a day, real simple and easy. We should have our first batch of chicks in 21 days!!

Some nasty storm clouds, we have had a lot of rain this season, over 14 inches so far, been a record here in the desert.

Garden Snake

Found this large Arizona Glossy Snake in our garden, I relocated him so it wouldn't scare the wife lol.

Garden has been doing great, We enjoyed our first melon of the season, we have canned over 200 jars of food and still doing more. We are on our second planting of corn and beans also.

Start of the Monsoon, Yay!!!

It looks like the monsoon started today, it has been so hot and finally the skies opened and poured. It has been several months since we have had any thing besides sunshine.

Here is a sample of what we are eating and canning from our garden, this fall we are doubling the size of our garden.

A lot going on here at the Homestead

Sorry for my lack of post lately, as you all know we had a well put in, it is now 4 months later since he started and 3 days ago he started drilling us a new well, he had the well finished which turned out to be 260 feet deep, we had water and all was good until he broke the pump off in the well, he failed to install a safety line to the pump. Long story made short, he could not get any of it back after several weeks so the new well is being drillled at his expense.

Now for some good news :) Our turkeys have been hatching out and they are doing great!! The garden is growing like a jungle here in the desert lol, Amy has been canning for the last couple of weeks and is doing it again starting tomorrow. She is also going to be making relish and mulberry jelly, yummmm.

Our goats should be having kids at the end of July and our sheep should be having lambs at the end of August. So far knock on wood i have not seen any rattlesnakes around the house yet. Last year at this time i had already killed several Mojave Rattlers. I did catch a friendly little Arizona Glossy Snake he was in our house!!! We also have the biggest horned lizzard i have seen out here living in our garden, he is huge. Looks like a little dinosaur lol.

Here are some pictures of whats happening around the Homestead

Homestead Update

The well is a little slow going, he hit river sand at 12 feet and it was over 60 feet deep before he got out of it, he had to add alot of benoite to his drill water to shore up the well walls so he could drill. He thinks we will hit water tomorrow he is down to 115 foot and in rock. He is going to take the well down to 250 feet.

We added 3 sheep to our homestead as well the young one is 5 months old and we will be butchering him in about 3 months, The ram and ewe is our pair for breeding.

Also got my water line in and buried, i took it down 3 feet so if it freeze's i can safely assume we are in an ice age lol.

And finally we have part of the garden in and we had a good winter crop as well.