Neither the Bunny Barn nor the kennel were part of those carefully made plans. Nor was the next step. We went out to work one day, after a night of very strong (i.e. 55 mph) west winds, to discover that the kennel, shipping weight *167 pounds* had moved four feet, so that the gate side (on the right in the photo) was touching the front of the dog house! Now we needed a wind break on the west side of our evolving compound. The next project on our list was bumped down a few notches to make way for a six-foot tall privacy fence:
The fence created a nice sheltered corner for the kennel, and the tarp went on top for shade--until more wind started ripping the grommets out and tearing up the tarp. We now have a new plan for shading the kennel, to be implemented soon. In the meantime, we took some time off to do a little sight seeing. We drove around Rhyolite Butte, which is clearly visible across the valley:
This photo doesn't do justice to the rocks near the base of the butte. This gives a better idea of scale:
The guy lounging against the rock there came up with a simple way to add another room onto the front of the Bunny Barn, which I decided would be an ideal place to do laundry. We don't yet have electricity--those carefully laid plans call for a solar electric system, but our experience here so far suggests that a wind generator is a better alternative for the local climate. We do get quite a lot of sun (especially since This Land has no trees on it), but they don't Call the Wind Maria for nothing. Er, that is, it rarely stops blowing, and reasonably-priced wind generators will charge batteries with as little as 4.5 mph winds, which we have plenty of. (Remember that moving dog kennel?) Anyway, not having power means hauling the laundry to a laundromat, which requires at least a 100-mile round trip and plugging far too many quarters into washers and dryers. Following the last such outing, I bought a laundry sink, a plunger and some clothes line, and we got busy building the Wash House:
At the same time, I began to agree with Greg, the Bunny Barn is much too nice for bunnies, or even mere storage. We put a floor in the Wash House, for obvious reasons (the dirt here, referred to as powder by some of the local residents, is very fine, especially when one walks on it all the time, and the aforementioned wind blows it everywhere), and the idea of putting a floor in the Bunny Barn suggested a much better use: a Starter Studio, where I can create some Western artwork. I have plenty of inspiration. With this in mind, we bought enough materials to finish the Wash House and put a floor in the Former Bunny Barn. (For the summer, the bunnies will share the dog kennel with Rosa, who would really rather not be in there.)
The Wash House, Phase I, is now complete. Phase II will entail insulating, putting in some kind of waterproof floor covering and wall coverings, but we have until winter to get that done. In the meantime, I have done two loads of hand laundry, with very agreeable results. (I can hear my women friends rolling their eyes and saying, "She's excited about doing hand laundry? Must be spending too much time in the sun ....")
In the meantime, we've had visits from more of the neighbors, including one I'd rather not have drop by:
This one was a bull snake, probably looking for gophers, not it's look-alike cousin the rattler, but still, I prefer not to encounter them unexpectedly. Or otherwise.
We're learning to be a bit more flexible with our plans, to consider the weather forecast to be more like guidelines, and the most important lesson so far is, Always Take the Cameras. The one day we both forgot our cameras, a pronghorn strolled across the road, grazed by the gate for a bit and then sauntered off across the desert, all too far away for a decent cell phone photo. Aarrghh ....
