Big Bend Bins!

Well, after losing our $ and our building in either a scam or to economical bad luck, we decided to redirect ourselves and make something good out of something bad.

Four years ago or so, when we were driving back from a trip to our property, we were noticing the grain bins out in farm fields and thought that these would make really neat living structures; kinda like a metal village. (Little did we know that Buckminster Fuller proposed this in 1941, the clever guy.)

After the steel building debacle, we decided to focus on grain bins and today we bought a group of them. They are still standing in a field in Nebraska, but they are ours and will be taken down by professional grain bin strikers, loaded onto pallets and then trucked down south! Now the fun of figuring out how to place them on the property, exactly how they will be used. (We've planned it roughly out.)

ADDRESS!!!!

Today we were given a 911 address for the property. I'd started this process several weeks ago so I could give the, now non-existent, building builders an address to deliver the building. The Rio Grande Council of Governments assigns the addresses. It took a while for them to determine exactly where our plot was so they could see if the road was named (which it was, so no Princess Drive for me!) and then to see where our plot is in relation to any other addresses. I then, by happenstance, ended up on the POATRI (property owners) website and found that we need that address when we're ready to have power and phone run to the property. So, it's good we have it already. I can't believe how happy it made me to have an address... we've had the property, but somehow giving it a designation brought it a step closer to home.

A hiccup has occurred in the grand plan for Plaid Dog World Headquarters in Terlingua, TX. It appears that the folks we were buying our steel building from have folded, taking our money with them. (As well as other people's money too.) Folks are not happy, to say the least, and some claim that the outfit was a scam, but I'm thinking that they really folded. They'd had an A- rating with the BBB, had been in business for 4 years and seem to have sent a check for a percentage of what was paid to one client. To me, that sounds like bankruptcy, but who knows. I've filed a complaint with their State Attorney General. There are a variety of phone numbers (various departments in the police dept.) floating around on the complaint site, but I haven't tried them all yet. I'm bummed. Of course about the money, but also, I wanted the building. Without it, moving there is less likely in the near future. We need to have a workshop and office space. Sigh.

TRANSFORMATIONS 2010

I started painting my transformer box today that is part of a public art project done by the City of Loveland. Boxes are painted as a graffiti deturent. Apparently, if you cover large single color objects with lots of other colors, folks are less likely to paint graffiti on them. I hope it works. The City of Fort Collins has been doing this for a number of years and my understanding is that it does help.

My design is a traditional quilt pattern, the Log Cabin quilt. I had a plan in mind - to use a series of stencils to paint each block, but in practice, that method will take way too long. Instead, I'm going to create a template like quilters use for their quilting designs. With that I can quickly (I hope) draw out each block. I'll then have to tape off the areas I'm not painting, but I'm thinking I'll be able to paint a number of partial blocks at a sitting. We'll see if it actually works.

I didn't get as far today as I'd hoped to; at least with the actual painting. But, I have a plan, and that counts for a lot.

When I arrived on-site, the first thing I did was measure the box. Wouldn't you know it, its measurements are not what I was told they would be. This creates a bit of a problem since I'm doing a quilt and tried to make a block that would fit properly. Oh well, I'll have to make an adjustment on the backside of the box.

For this project I splurged and bought an EZ-up tent. It was SOOOO worth it! Anyone doing a project like this should go ahead and get one. It wasn't particularly hot today and it still made a huge difference in my comfort level.

I'll go back tomorrow and if the gods are smiling, I'll make some decent progress.

Two days, two entries. I probably won't be making a habit of this, though.

I spent today working on three costumes for the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. This is part of what Plaid Dog Studios does. These costumes were more of ones that I made for them a little over a year ago. The Museum supplied a mechanic's type jumpsuit. I painted on a basic circulatory system and added soft sculpture lungs and a heart. This is a picture of one from last time around.

The nice thing about this type of work is that I can take it anywhere, as long as I have space and electricity; which brings me to off-the-grid. Many folks who decide to make Terlingua home do so by going off-the-grid. We'd like to do that too, at least for the house, whenever it's actually built. But in our reality, we need electricity to run power tools, sewing machines and a continuous internet connection. (The REAL reason I can work from anywhere.) Happily, our plot of land has a power pole about 150 feet from its corner. And, there's a telephone box on the other side of the road. Ahhhh! To be away from it all and still connected.

Four years ago we bought 20 acres in the beautiful Chihuahua Desert in a place that several bloggers also are making their home, Terlingua, Texas. We'd thought that we'd retire there, but circumstances have made it such that we're going to try to move there sooner rather than later.

To that end we're in the process of buying a steel frame building to use as a workshop and office. Today we went and purchased a 1991 '32 foot bumper pull trailer. It was an interesting situation. The woman selling it had to repo it from the last person she sold it to. We drove to Laramie, WY to pick it up this morning. Because of a confrontation that she'd had with the woman whose property it was on, she felt that a police presence would be good. So, we had some very nice Laramie Police officers there. It all went very nicely.

Then, we needed to get the correct adapter for the lights and brakes for the camper. Should have been easy. It wasn't. When we finally found the right one (thanks to a VERY helpful man, Don, at DH Repair in Laramie) we found out that the connector on the trailer was bad; plus the wiring had been messed up at some point.

We knew that the trailer would need work. (We got a great deal on a 20 year old trailer...there are gonna be issues.) We didn't think that getting it out of town would be one of them. We decided against driving a large, heavy object 75 miles home without breaks or lights. So, it sits in Laramie until the nice man at the repair shop can fix it. We're not in a hurry.