It was a happy Valentine’s Day for us, as we drove the four-plus hours to Cottonwood, Ariz., on Feb. 13 to pick up our bundles of joy: two beautiful Bengal kittens. A mix between a wild Asian Leopard cat and a domestic cat, Bengals have gorgeous, exotic spots. They retain some wild traits from their Asian Leopard Cat ancestors: their love of water, their fascination with perching in high places, their raspy meows, and their spots, of course. They can get to anywhere between 15 and 20 lbs when they’re fully-grown.

Our boy, Macho (the reddish-colored beauty) is a bundle of energy. He was the biggest in the litter (of six) and makes our beauty queen, Niña, look very small. They are both so incredibly affectionate and soooo soft. I need to get a bigger chair for my desk, as the two of them love to crawl up behind me and fall asleep.

A bit about their names: Macho is named after Macho B, the only known jaguar living in the United States that was tragically euthanized after a botched examination/illegal trap was set in southern Arizona in 2009. And, as anyone who speaks Spanish (which excludes me) knows, Niña is the Spanish word for “girl.”

Enjoy the photos of our new kitties. It’s great to have furry little feet in the house again, though I have NO idea where they get all the energy. And, anyone who knows me will “get” why I wanted Bengals; I’m still obsessed with “big cats” and exotic, wild cats. These guys are our mini-versions, though very, very tame and loving!

On Feb. 5, it looked like the Tasmanian Devil had whirled around the new house, given the freshly dug three-to five-foot deep trenches. But within eight hours, Steve had all the drainage pipes installed, and our backhoe operator, Rocky, had backfilled all the pits.

Roof water that isn’t being collected in the local tanks outside the dining room and master bedroom is now being piped down to the pecan grove. Eventually we’ll add more storage tanks there so that the water isn’t wasted. But for now, all water is being directed away from the house – a big milestone for us!

Enjoy our pipe-laying and digging photos – plus the watering hole we asked Rocky to dig for the wild animals.

If any of you folks outside of Arizona have been watching the news, you’ve seen that we were bombarded with rain in January. Fortunately for us, we got our gutters, scupper boxes and downspouts installed just before the deluge. We didn’t have time to get our ditches dug for drainage pipe before the rain hit, but we were able to make a temporary drainage system, which Steve refers to as “The Alaskan Pipeline.”

We also didn’t have time to hook up our water harvesting tanks or paint some of the downspouts so that they blend in with the stucco color. Steve did, however, temporarily install our rain chains – in the rain. They’re these neat, decorative metal cups that funnel the rain into collection tanks. In one instance, we’ll have a rain chain go to the ground and empty into some river rock (because that overhang is so small, we wouldn’t collect much water anyway).

The goal is to use harvested roof rainwater from the four tanks around the house – to water plants, clean porches, etc. Any overflow from those tanks will be piped down to larger tanks in the ‘pecan grove,’ which we will use to water our pecan trees. Okay … so we don’t have the larger tanks yet, nor have we planted the pecan trees. Oh – and we haven’t hooked up the underground pipes that connect all the tanks together either. But that’s the future plan!

Enjoy our photos that display all the gadgets that will keep rain away from the house. Next step: trenching and painting some downspouts. And probably some cultured stone to go around our porch posts. And if you missed our spiral staircase install, check it out.

P.S. – During gutter installation, we were standing outside taking photos when we witnessed a U.S. Customs air chase (per one of the sheriffs Steve works with). Apparently the newest thing is to drop drugs low to the ground from planes coming out of Mexico. See our video of two Cessna Citations in hot pursuit – following so closely that they can’t be detected by the first plane’s pilot!

]]> http://www.thefryranch.com/2010/01/24/rain-drain-the-alaskan-pipeline-and-u-s-customs-in-our-backyard/feed 0 http://www.thefryranch.com/2009/12/16/happy-holidays-1216 http://www.thefryranch.com/2009/12/16/happy-holidays-1216#comments Thu, 17 Dec 2009 02:20:21 +0000 Steve http://www.thefryranch.com/?p=777

It’s hard to believe another year has flown by, but when we look back through our photos, it becomes a little more real. Especially when we look outside and realize we went from a hole in the ground on Oct. 7, 2008, to a Tvyek-covered structure with porch overhangs exactly a year later. So – as you can imagine, the majority of 2009 was spent working with drill guns, air nailers, spray foam and 2×6s.

We are thrilled to have met our goal of “drying in” the house. That means we have a stucco-covered, fully roofed and windowed house (that is also framed on the interior). Completing the porch overhangs was one step beyond what we hoped to accomplish, and on Dec. 21, our spiral staircase was installed.

While it was an exciting year with building progress, we also enjoyed visits from my mom, dad and nephew, and Steve’s brother and sister-in-law, Mike and Millie, from New Jersey. As usual, we saw our normal host of desert dwellers – javelina, mule deer, hummingbirds and coyotes. But we also had the excitement of baby roadrunners nesting in our new garage, and a large rattlesnake that Steve grazed with the screen door, inadvertently ripping off his rattle (see blog below). We also were fortunate to have the help of wonderful friends and family in Mammoth, Phoenix, Denver – and from Pennsylvania – who helped with our construction efforts.

The year ended, however, on a sad note, as we had to say our final goodbyes to our girl, Chloe. She literally walked into Steve’s life 14 years ago as a stray, so the decision to let her go, after trying to fight her congestive heart failure, was truly devastating. We miss her terribly, but are forever grateful for the years of joy she brought us.

Please feel free to read-up on some of our previous blogs if you weren’t able to keep up during the year. And leave a comment in one of our blogs, use our contact page, watch our videos, or check out our photo gallery. Have a great 2010.

Even though we’re taking a short hiatus from construction now that stucco is complete, a lot has happened at the ranch.

On November 13, Steve pushed on the kitchen door in the evening so he could get some fresh air, only to find that it was ‘stuck’ on something. I was right behind him, and when we heard the rattling sound, we both jumped back, knowing what the door had ‘bumped’ against.

A very large rattlesnake (five foot?) was curled up right in front of the screen door. To our surprise, his rattle had gotten stuck under the door, and when Steve pulled it back, the rattle snapped off. Needless to say, the snake was very ticked off. Steve then hung out of the kitchen window taking pictures of the angry fella. We now have his ingeniously engineered rattle in our showcase. But now there’s one desert rattlesnake wandering the ranch that won’t make much noise to alert those near him the next time he’s ticked. (By the way … they usually hibernate beginning in October, but it was in the 100s throughout October, so they were late to go to their hiding holes).

We also experienced our first rainbow behind the house (they’re usually out in front of the mountains).

See previous blogs.

The Dunn Edwards version of the color we chose is called s’mores (and perhaps why I was drawn to it), but the Dryvit color is called burnt oak. No matter what you call it, it is done! Our house no longer sports the ghostly white Tyvek wrap, the striped lath, or the boring gray scratch and brown coat colors.

The Dryvit material, a synthetic alternative to traditional stucco, is incredible – and our stucco crew was meticulous. We absolutely love it! This material is not supposed to crack like real stucco mud.

So … Nov. 17, the first day of Dryvit, was a big day, since we’d been working toward our Step 1 goal for 13 months: to have the house “dried in” with stucco, windows, etc. We have also been fortunate enough to complete a few other steps that we thought would have to wait: overhangs, concrete stoops, in particular.

Visit our November 2009 Construction photos to see our stucco progress. And feel free to leave us a comment by clicking the “Comments” links below each blog. Next step: rain gutters/scupper boxes – and, money allowing – the spiral staircase to the star-gazing deck.

Scroll for sample images below.

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Sixty-five windows. Two gallons of stain. Two gallons of Danish oil. Six sanding pads. A box of 100 rubber gloves. Hundreds of screws and hardware. Three tins of paint thinner and lacquer thinner. Two bags o’ rags. Two brushes, two gals, one husband and two professional Pella staining “teachers.” That’s what it took to complete our window-staining project on Nov. 8. But we’re done!

And our second coat of stucco – the brown coat – was completed Nov. 10. On Monday, Nov. 16, our final color coat is supposed to be applied (the two-week cure time was overkill, so we opted for one week of cure time and watered down the house 2xs per day for ample curing time). Visit our November 2009 Construction photos to see both our stucco progress and our staining progress. And feel free to leave us a comment by clicking the “Comments” links below each blog.

Scroll for sample images below.

See previous blogs.

Our first coat of stucco – the scratch coat – was completed Oct. 28, and for the next three days, we sprayed down the house to harden the base coat. On the second day of ‘house watering,’ the interior also saw some action as my mom and I began window staining. Wow … those windows have a lot of hardware and assembly. Thankfully, we had a professional painter who specializes in Pella windows working with us the first two days. Now, thanks to his guidance, we’re on our own – power tools, paintbrushes and lacquer thinner in hand… Oh yes – and with Steve’s muscles to take the larger windows out and reinstall them for us.

Visit our October 2009 Construction photos to see both our stucco progress and our staining progress. And feel free to leave us a comment by clicking the “Comments” link below.

See previous blogs.

Our house now has some color! Lath (tar paper and chicken-wire) was completed on Oct. 20, and the next step in the stucco process is the scratch-coat. Our giant pile of sand and Western One Kote (scratch coat) awaits! We’re applying stucco in a three-stage process that involves two week’s cure time in between each stage: scratch coat, brown coat, then final (Dryvit) coat. By the time the holidays are over, the outside of the house should have a ‘finished’ feel to it. Don’t tell anyone that the inside isn’t even close to being complete. Check out the October Construction Photos.

Thank you for your patience as we continue to recreate the website (you’ll see we added some construction videos back, and we’ll be working toward re-uploading our old flora/fauna images, etc.) Feel free to leave comments within each blog post.

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Our apologies for the temporary website unavailability. Unfortunately, though, we lost the entire Fry Ranch website, my brand new work website and my old website when our host’s servers were ‘hacked.’ The company then decided to go belly-up the next week, providing NO backups for any of our pages (or refunds!). So Steve has been tirelessly working on completely rebuilding and improving this site. We hope you like it. And – oh yeah – he did all of this while building all the porch overhangs on the house.

In mid-September, Steve began installing ledger boards and posts as the first step on our four porch overhangs: front door, office, master bedroom, dining room. On Oct. 11, he officially finished the very detailed porch project that included 70 pieces of tongue-and groove, six gallons of stain, more rough-sawn lumber than we could image, 100 sheets of metal roof tile and accessories, hundreds of screws and lots of sore muscles. Special thanks to neighbor, Mark, who helped us get a man-powered crew in to lift the giant header beams instead of a crane. Next step is stucco!

Take a look at our September construction photos for wood staining, manual-beam-hoisting, joist placement and fascia boards. View October construction photos for final details, tile and electrical box placement.

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