Catching Up After a Long Lapse

Whoa... Long time no post, so we had best get with it.
In the last 5 (has it been that long?) years, the mooooove has been completed, a larger area fenced off around the place so the longhorns are no longer looking in the front windows---they are a curious lot.
Its taken a few years to get all things ironed out with regard to this newly constructed home. Nothing fancy, but surely solidly built to last forever.
Collecting rainwater is the way to go in dry, central Texas. In this rural area, one has to either drill a water well (950 feet down into the Trinity Aquifer) or collect rainwater. There are no other choices. NQ99HQ depends on rainwater entirely. Here, with no planted lawn and minimal gardens, the rainwater storage of some 22000 gallons is sufficient. One inch of rain yields about 3000 gallons. The most significant problem is watching collected rainwater overflow the tank to the ground. Here is a good article on the ins and outs of rainwater collection written by a professional: www.jclonline.com/residential-rainwater-collection-systems.aspx

Hard to believe, but collecting rainwater for whole house use is not permitted in two states!

NQ99HQ sits on about 50 acres and we have our share of wildlife. More on that later.

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Aermotor Windmill Lives

The Aermotor windmill is probably the oldest iconic windmill In the United States today. We bought one that was very old at a seller's booth at the Round Top antique market. This was back in the late 1900s. So that makes it 20 years ago or so. We first erected this windmill In Fulshear in the backyard. We had to get Architectural Control Committee approval to do this. Because some of our neighbors may have some bad experiences with a neighboring windmill, we had to assure them that we would not let the brake slide and provide that nasty shrieking noise. Other than that, there was no objection to looking at a windmill. W e erected the windmill in Fulshear. It was quite a chore for us as we had no idea where all the parts fit together and how they were arranged. For example, we learned that the sail wheel with its struts is built with the same concept as a bicycle wheel with its spokes. After much head scratching and consulting the internet we had it to ...

Cause and Effect

We have this great world atlas book published by the National Geographical Society, which by the way, we bought at the local library used book sale for $2. Probably this low price of the book pains the Society but it sure makes my reference to maps an easy task without having to wake up my computer. The book occupies a permanent spot on a book stand in our breakfast room, standing ready to supply map information on request. The book happened to be open to the page showing the whole of Antarctica featuring all the outposts and even some commentary of scientific significance. One such comment was on ice coring data of historic temperatures and carbon dioxide content. I can understand how the CO2 content of the ice can be preserved over many centuries at varying depths, but I am unsure how the prevailing temperature of some thousand years ago can be preserved in the ice cores--but that's another issue that we will not get into here. So here is the comment on the data of the ice...

More Bluebird Houses

Another eleven bluebird houses were built yesterday. That makes 270 built since the project was started ten years ago. These bluebird houses are patterned after the now classic bluebird story in the National Geographic Magazine article of June 1977 (vol 151, No. 6). Some of these bluebird houses have been used at places lived, but most have been given away to garden clubs, individuals, etc. The outlook is to make another 20 before next spring for two garden clubs. Here's a shot of the 11 just made, all stacked ready for delivery to Medina, Texas

NQ99HQ

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