ArizonaRanch

  Bold Elk Pays a Visit by rdpecken on Sep.21, 2016, under Seasons This Elk seemed a little curious about the whole “cabin in the middle of the wilderness” thing…

  My New (Old) Tractor by rdpecken on Sep.01, 2016, under Ranch Maintenance While visiting relatives in Arkansas this summer, My brother Roger offered a deal I couldn’t refuse on a 1973 Ford 2000 tractor. This is a small tractor useful for light grading, pulling, chopping weeds, etc. After returning to Arizona, I prepared my trailer for the long round trip to Arkansas and back, and set off to pick up my new prize.   The tractor is in reasonable shape.  It has a few leaks, and a few cosmetic defects.  It could use a new seat and steering wheel, and will eventually need a new clutch.  While the clutch is a major job, the symptoms at this point are not too bad.  It just has a lot of play in the action, and engages only about an inch from the top of the clutch release.  I quickly learned to adapt to these conditions. Here are some pictures from the walkaround that Roger and I did.   He also included a very old blade with a 3-po...

  January 2016 Visit by rdpecken on Jan.31, 2016, under Electrical , Security We’re doing some remodeling down in the valley, so I needed to come up and borrow some of my tools that I had stored at the Ranch. Since I was making the trip, I used this time to upgrade one of the security cameras to provide a much more secure system for when motion was detected. With the old camera, I had a hard time distinguishing who had been captured by the camera, because the photos were of such low resolution. The new camera takes much clearer pictures, and when I view them at full resolution, I can zoom in to see minute details. HikVision Security Camera From my previous trip, I remembered that the internet router had at least one bad port on it. I was planning on hooking up this camera directly to the router by cat-5 cable, even though it supported a wifi connection as well. Since the camera operates by Power-Over-Ethernet, I got an power injector off of Amazon to supp...

  First Monsoon Storm 2015 by rdpecken on Jul.10, 2015, under Seasons We made it up to the Ranch in May to get the Littlehouse ready for summer. I Forgot to take any pictures for that trip. Later, I went up to the Ranch for the weekend of June 27th for our annual Ham radio Field Day event. Radio conditions were only fair this year, but we did get a really good thunderstorm on Saturday afternoon.   1 comment for this entry (from previous blog site): WB0WHO July 14th, 2015 on 8:56 am It looks like the porch came in Handy! I remember that these storms show up without much warning and leave just as quick.

  October Break by rdpecken on Oct.20, 2014, under Family We had Sarah’s family come up for the weekend at October Break. The two older grandsons came up with me on Wednesday, and the rest came up on Friday. The boy’s job for this trip was to gather the waste lumber that was stashed in the loft and under the shed, cut it up and burn it. Fire and teenagers… what could go wrong?? Hunter and Alex tending the fire       Zoning out… As they were unloading the woodpiles, they ran across a weird albino-like stick bug. Albino Stick Bug There were quite a few exposed hazards in the cabin since we haven’t yet installed drywall. So the boys thought up the idea to use some cardboard we had laying around to act as a barrier to some of the hazardous stuff for Brody. Cardboard Crew   The kids went up to Markham Well to look at the fish in the water tank… Alex, Brody, Angelina, Hunter at Markham Well Brody seemed to enjoy his first visit…   Get me ou...

  Paint Colors by rdpecken on Oct.20, 2014, under Trim & Paint We did a little painting this past year, using the same colors that we had used on the house to paint the shed. On this last trip, I ran across the paint cards that identify the colors. I thought I might post them here, so that we can look up what the colors were even if we end up losing the cards. The Brown color is Behr 230F-6 (Earth Tone). Brown Paint Color The Green color is Behr 440F-5 (Winter Hedge).   Green Color