A Rocky Demise Read online

  Jake explained the owners were already gone for the summer and he had already brought over ladders and scaffolding in preparation for the job. I was welcome to use them.

  He then showed me the electric room and what stuff I was welcome to take, then gave me a key to fit the room so I could work whether he was here or not. I had a big magic marker and I had Jake make a big X on everything that I was supposed to take so there could be no misunderstandings.

  I had my own tools in my truck and I started on the project right away. By the noon lunchbreak I already had a fair amount done and I had considerably more done when I left for the day. I worked much longer than Jake’s men. I was able to take a good load home with me that very first day. On the second day I got all the panels off the roof, as well as all the conduit and wiring, and put them in my truck for the trip home.

  Off from the electric room was a separate room for the battery bank. For the heck of it I asked Jake if the batteries were supposed to go also. He said he didn’t know but he would ask the next time he talked to the owner. I had to come back the third day for the wiring, inverter, and controller in the electric room.

  On Wednesday, just as I was finishing the removal process, Jake walked over with a big smile on his face.

  “You can take all the batteries and the wiring for them also. The owner is not real sure if he is even going to put solar back up or not so he wants it all gone when he gets back. Lucky day for you.”

  “It is like hitting the lottery for me. Thanks a lot, Jake.”

  So I started on the battery bank but there was little I could take with today considering the load I already had in the pickup. When I returned on Thursday morning I brought my bigger trailer with (I had two trailers that were far from being new).

  Between the pickup and the trailer I took all the heavy batteries and the remaining wiring and such. It was a very tiring day moving those big batteries but I went home a very happy guy.

  Over the next week I installed the solar setup at my place. I had planned on solar when I built the house so the roof was situated ideally for the panels. I had also allowed a special place for a battery room, so I had been ready, I just never had the huge cash outlay that the solar setup required.

  I checked all the batteries as I was working with them, to make sure that none had dead cells or any other obvious defect I could find. At eight-years-old the battery bank was nearing its end of life but I would hopefully get two or three years more out of them.

  It was the same with the solar panels. I found what looked like dead spots in a couple panels but they would still last for many years yet. Every year they would gradually lose some capacity, but I hoped they would last another ten years or so anyway. While doing the removal I made notes on how the wiring was when I took everything apart so it was easy to put everything back together despite not being an electrician.

  Had this been a new installation I would have put the inverter and such on a different wall at my place but I did not want to splice in more wiring so I put it where the existing wires would reach and that was just fine. It was great when I finally got it all installed and wired up. I threw the light switch to ON and the lights came on without the howl of the generator for the first time!

  Now I actually had constant running water available in the house, instead of just when the generator was running. I was careful with using the electric stuff for a couple days before realizing the setup was way bigger than I ever needed. No more using oil lamps in the late evenings to see by. Now I was just like everyone else and had electric lights that required nothing more than flicking a switch. And all it cost me was some gas for my truck.

  I really owed Jake big time for this job.

  Chapter 4

  On Saturdays I worked a job in the small town closest to me. It was just re-roofing a small shed for an older gentleman. I started early and was soon finished and he said it looked good. It was a typical small job like the ones I usually got, but each of these jobs added some cash to the bankroll.

  While in town I picked up a few groceries and though I never bought beer anymore I picked up a case of Jake’s favorite. On the way home I stopped at Jake’s house to drop the beer off. It happened that he was away to bid on another job but I left the beer with his wife Brenda. She was surprised when I showed up with it. I explained what Jake had done for me and that I wanted to show my appreciation.

  Jake called me later to say thanks for the beer. I told him I still owed him if he ever needed a favor.

  Last year I had planted my first garden. It was small and, while I did get a few things from it, I have to say it was mostly a bust. I am trying it again this year and I have made the plot for the garden bigger. I have also hauled in a bunch of horse manure that I got for free from a local rancher.

  I had also bought a well-used tiller last year and I used it awhile back to till in all that horse manure when I enlarged the garden. The garden had been rained on a couple times since and I had re-tilled it to further mix everything together.

  I have also built a chicken coop out of scraps and salvaged material and I bought a few chickens last year. The chicken endeavor has worked out way better than the garden thing did. I have all the free eggs I want. The chickens require very little in the way of work because I just let them wander around and find their own food. I guess they call that free range chickens.

  I did lose two of my chickens to critters last year. And I learned right away to lock them in the coop over night. I also started shooting every coyote I saw and now I always carry a rifle in my pickup for just that. I know I will likely never make a dent in the coyote population but I am determined to try anyway. People have been shooting coyotes for over a hundred years and they have expanded their range while their populations have increased. So I have accepted the fact that there will always be coyotes to contend with here.

  I have quite a lot of quail around my place and I hunt them so I have not eaten any of the chickens yet. I always keep water out and that attracts the quail. Sometimes I shoot one or two quail with my twenty-two rifle for supper. Meat is expensive and the occasional quail costs me almost nothing. In the winter months I also shoot rabbits pretty regularly, for the added meat.

  I have never shot any deer. Without steady electric power I could not run a freezer to keep the meat from spoiling. But with the solar power I now have I will apply for a deer tag and see if I get the tag. Getting a deer would be no problem for me but everyone has to apply for a deer license in this state and I have heard you often do not get a tag. We’ll see.

  I am way out in the country and have no neighbors so if I was, say, cleaning my rifle and it went off and accidentally killed a deer, I would just have to cut it up and freeze the meat so it did not go to waste. I mean, if an accident like that ever happened it would be a shame for the poor critter to go to waste.

  I have also planted a few fruit trees at my place though I have gotten almost no fruit at all from them yet. But I had expected that until the trees get older. It usually takes more than three years to get any fruit from trees that you plant. This year I should get more fruit but I will have to wait and see. I have four apple trees, two apricot trees, and two plum trees so far. I have been thinking about getting a couple pear trees if I can get a deal on them and maybe a couple of peach trees too. Where my place is it is too far north or too high up to grow citrus trees I guess because no one in the area has any.

  The summer is progressing and this year my garden has done much, much better than my first attempt last year. Working in all that manure has likely been the biggest help I think. My well-used solar setup is working just fine and has made living here a lot easier and more ‘normal.’ The biggest thing is having the constant availability of running water. I seldom use the generator now, except for when I use some of my bigger, power-hogging power tools or the old welder.

  I have been on the lookout for a smaller used freezer and I watch the free, local newspaper that is all ads from businesses and regular peo
ple. I bet I’ll find a freezer soon and I am always patient in my searches. You have to learn to be patient when you don’t have much money to buy stuff.

  I do have a little extra money saved up at the moment because I have been getting more odd jobs lately. Plus, using the generator less often means I am spending far less on fuel for it. The garden is starting to help me save a little on groceries too, and at the same time I am likely eating more healthy food.

  I have found plans for making a solar powered food dehydrator and that is my current project. I have some tempered glass that I saved from storm doors that I plan on using for the build. I plan on making two of them and they will end up sitting outside so I thought the tempered glass would be safer if we ever get any hail.

  I have window screen frames that I just got from another job site and I will be cutting those down to size and re-screening them with aluminum screening for the trays. I have scraps of wood for the main parts and old pipes to use for the heat absorption area. The only things I will have to spend cash on are the screen itself and maybe some black paint for the pipes and such.

  I have now finished the two dehydrators and never even had to buy any black paint. I just used some of the scraps of black flexible water pipe that many ranchers out here run for long distances to move water for livestock. I have often found scraps of that pipe in different sizes lying free here and there. For my project it did not matter if the piping had holes or not. And the lengths only had to be about four feet long or, actually, a little less.

  I haven’t dried anything in them yet but I have let them sit in the sun and they get pretty warm with a fair amount of heat venting out the top. They should work great but I might have to turn them so they are not pointing directly in the sun, so they do not get too hot and just cook whatever I put inside. In the winter or late fall that should not be a problem, and maybe not even in the summer depending on what I am trying to dry at any given time.

  OK, I admit I couldn’t wait to try the dehydrators. So I cut an onion into small pieces and dried it. It worked great and did not take long at all. The onion pieces came out very dry and now I just put them in a jar that sits on the shelf. I’m very satisfied with how that project turned out for a first try.

  When I saw a free gas grill sitting out at the end of a driveway one day while coming back from town I picked it up and brought it home. It was pretty dilapidated but it had a temperature probe that looked functional. I sold the aluminum grill box at the recyclers and got a couple bucks for it and that temp probe I installed in one of my dehydrators. Now I can view and regulate their inside temperatures.

  I still have no freezer but I have been drying some of the garden produce. I have tried some of the stuff after it dries and some works out fine, and some not so much. I was talking to someone about drying vegetables and they said most had to be blanched first. Of course I did not know what that meant so they explained that it was just dipping them in boiling water. When I tried that I found I could dry more of the produce and get better results and it was only a little more work.

  The apricots are starting to get ripe and I dried a couple of them just to try it. The apricots work great in the dehydrator. I’m sure the apples will also.

  Chapter 5

  “Hello.”

  “Matt Benson?”

  “Yes, that’s me.”

  “Jacob White suggested that I call you about fixing a window for me.”

  “Sure I can help with that.”

  “How soon can you come over? I have cut a piece of cardboard to cover the window but with the monsoon season here I would like a permanent fix as soon as I could, incase of storms. A bird flew into the window and broke it, along with its own neck.”

  “I can look at it tomorrow and even fix it then if it is a standard single pane window, but if it is double pane then the correct size replacement unit has to be ordered. I could put a piece of plywood over the hole so it is more solid until the new window is in.”

  “That would be great.”

  She gave me her phone number and her address before hanging up. Another simple job that would likely not pay much over my gas money. But at least I could do a little shopping while in town and tomorrow is Friday when there are often garage sales going on too.

  I had to order the window unit of course because, like almost all windows now, it was a double pane glass. I had brought some scraps of plywood and had one that only needed a little trimming to effectively cover the window and seal it pretty good.

  While there she asked me about building wood shelves in her garage for storage. She wanted most of one whole sidewall made into shelves. She had a five gallon bucket there and a big one gallon can and wanted the shelving to be custom made to fit both of those two sizes to the best use of the space.

  I saw the pail was full of oatmeal.

  “You must like your oatmeal in the mornings.”

  “Yes, I have oatmeal most mornings.”

  “With this much storage it would be an awful lot of oatmeal.”

  “I wouldn’t want to run out now would I?”

  “No I guess not. I eat oatmeal in the mornings too sometimes. I was just kidding about having so much. I can easily make the shelves you want. Do you want an estimate first for labor and materials?”

  “No need. I want it done and you came highly recommended. When Jacob spoke highly of you I asked why he didn’t just hire you himself. He said he tried many times but you always turned him down. May I ask why? I have heard he is a fair and honest man and that is why I called him for this job.”

  “I often do small, quick jobs for Jake when he gets in a bind. We have become friends and trust each other but I will only work for cash and he is a businessman and needs regular employees that he pays with a check.”

  “He did say you only work for cash. That is not a problem for me. How soon could you get to work on the shelves?”

  “I can get all the measurements now and get the lumber and likely finish tomorrow if you like.”

  “That would be great. Do you require cash up front for the lumber?”

  “No. This is a small amount and you can just pay me for materials and the labor once everything is done. If I started at eight tomorrow would that be too early for you?”

  “Nope. I guess I will see you tomorrow then, at eight in the morning.”

  I took all the measurements and figured up what lumber I would need and wrote everything down in a notebook I always carried when on jobs. The lumber yard opened at seven so I could pick up what I needed in the morning. I would look at home and bring whatever scraps I had there that would work for the cross braces and such so I could make a little extra cash on this job.

  When I got home I found what scraps I had that would work and put them all in the truck and got out all the tools I would need for the morning. I would wait until morning to put them in the truck, just on the off chance we got some rain overnight. I still had plenty of time to get a few things done around the place and I had even stopped at a couple yard sales on the way home but found nothing I really wanted.

  In the morning I arrived at the woman’s house at eight sharp, with everything I needed. When she let me in I immediately started work on the shelving.

  It was a simple job and I was done by noon. The lady was surprised I finished so quickly and inspected the shelving thinking I might have done a shoddy job by working so fast. She was happy with how they turned out. I had placed the one five gallon pail of oatmeal on the shelves along with the gallon can of what turned out to be something called TVP that was a dried meat substitute. She could see that shelves were spaced out perfectly for each size package.

  “That is an excellent job! And done so quickly. Jacob was correct about your work.”

  “Thanks, ma’am.”

  I had the bill tallied up and listed the labor and the lumber separately so she could see what cost what on the small job. She paid me in cash without any questions about the bill.

  “I’ll call you as soon
as that thermo unit for your window shows up and we’ll set up a time that works for you to the install.”

  “That would be perfect. The wood piece that you temporarily sealed the window with is fitted very well and seals the window plenty good for a time. I am very happy with the work that you have done for me. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome, ma’am. I’ll be calling you in a week or so about that window.”

  I left and wondered about the woman. She was not old because she looked somewhat younger than my twenty-nine years. But she obviously owned the house because she (and not a landlord) was directing the work done there. And she had a nice, newer SUV parked in the garage. It made me wonder about if she had a husband and where he was. If she had no husband with a high paying job I wondered just where all the money came from for the house and nice car. She was also quite nice to look at.

  About ten days later the place called and said they had the window unit I had ordered so I called the lady to set up a time to install it.

  When I asked when it would be convenient for her she said she worked from home so most any day would be fine. I asked about tomorrow and she said fine.

  The next morning I was back at her house after picking up the window unit. I had taken the old unit out so I could carefully measure the exact size needed for a replacement so it was a simple matter to install the new unit. Again, I was done promptly and she was happy with the speed and results.

  While doing the work I had made several trips back and forth through her garage. I had noticed there were now many five gallon pails similar to the one I had put on the new shelving. There were also several boxes that I guessed contained more of the big, one gallon cans of food. While she was paying me for the window I asked a simple question.