Building Toward a Rebuild

From the R.M. Dolin novel, “AN UNSUSTAINABLE LIFE – The Book of Darwin”

Chapter 9: Building Toward a Rebuild

Before unpacking the long list of things Darwin must do before winter unleashes its torrent fury, let’s agree to concede that with his newfound wealth he can afford to hire crews for all repairs and improvements and for some necessary things he will, but let’s also acknowledge the things he insists on doing himself. The thing about men tied to the land, in general, and engineers specifically, is their innate need to do for themselves as much as they can by themselves. While that’s Darwin’s goal, he also has to respect the raw power of nature and winter’s not going to slow roll its way to harsh weather so he must move as aggressively as he can while he can.

The first thing Darwin does while waiting to close on Marquez Mountain is find himself a reliable four-wheel drive, which probably wouldn’t have happened as quickly had Victor not had a cousin in Santa Fe who works at the Ford dealership. In overall appearance Darwin’s late model 150 doesn’t look much at all like Victor’s; different color, different rims, a scaled back accessory package, the dent patterns, however, along with the rust riddles are remarkably similar. Darwin’s fortunate to have found a truck with a standard transmission, in high mountain terrain standard’s have far more utility than automatics.

As soon as he has his truck he heads down to Albuquerque for needed supplies. It’s four-hundred miles round trip so he plans on being gone multiple days. His first stop is at the Winnebago RV dealership where he buys a twenty-six-foot fully self-contained travel trailer having two slide outs. The thing he likes about the Winnebago is how they seal the edges and joints so rodents can’t get inside. He also appreciates the way his camper comes with lots of storage, he’s gonna need it by the time this trip’s over. It takes all morning to clear the paperwork and file the registration before he can head over to the electrical supply center to purchase a 24-kilowatt power generator that runs on propane. While there he grabs everything needed for the electrical outlets and lights he’ll run in the hacienda. It’s not possible to hide the wiring within the adobe walls so he buys trim that at least allows the open wires to be hidden while fully exposed.

He next ventures to a heating and air conditioning outlet to look at furnaces that run on propane for heat and electricity to force warm air. As Darwin explains to the salesman, he can’t run duct-work in the hacienda’s walls, floors, or ceilings so the salesman suggests installing mini-split heat pumps in each room. While efficient and effective, their drawback is they rely on electricity for heat and circulation, so are not well suited for the limited availability of energy in a solar powered home. Instead, Darwin decides that when he raises the roof, he’ll not raise the height of interior non-load-bearing walls, which will allow air flow from one central location to deliver heat throughout the house.

Next up is a stop at a solar power provider. By the time he’s done, he’s purchased an entire system, including an array of photovoltaic solar panels, a battery bank to store energy, and the inverters necessary to convert sun energy into 12-volt DC power going in, and stored DC power into 120-volt AC current coming out. At this point he’s out of room in his truck and trailer, so he negotiates with the solar provider to haul all the stuff he’s purchased thus far up to Marquez Mountain. Darwin and salesman talk at length about the two-phase installation arrangement Darwin needs. In stage one, which runs from now until next summer, Darwin needs a temporary setup with solar panels on the ground and the controls and battery bank in the event tent he plans to purchase. Once hacienda restorations are complete the solar system needs to be permanently installed. The salesman suggests that the solar panel farm only be installed once for both phases because it’s better to keep them on the ground than on the roof of a four-hundred-year-old hacienda. The battery bank and controllers are easily moved to the house’s utility room once completed.

With space in the pickup and trailer restored and the day almost over, Darwin’s stops at an event rental center. He wants to rent a forty foot by forty foot event tent for six months but the salesman points out that by the time he pays for a six month rental he can buy a tent twice over and it just so happens they have a tent that’s only been used a few seasons in excellent condition that Darwin can purchase outright or a fraction of the rental cost. Darwin agrees to buy the used tent if they haul it to Marquez Mountain and set it up this week, which isn’t a problem since the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta was last week and there are no other fiestas planned this year.

Since that transaction goes quicker than expected, Darwin decides to squeeze in a trip to the home improvement center. Considering all the crap he needs to buy, it doesn’t really take very long. He starts with every hand and power tool conceivably needed for the work ahead, including a table saw, power miter saw, drill press, power planer, planer/jointer, shaper table, dust collector, air compressor, and chainsaw. Along with all that he purchases an array of skill saws, jig saws, drills, nail guns, spray guns, and power rollers. If that weren’t enough, he fills two shopping carts with hand tools too numerous to list. Once all that’s paid for and delivery is negotiated, Darwin heads over to the plumbing department to gather water and drainpipes and fittings needed to plumb the kitchen and bathroom and connect his RV to water and sewer.

With construction and off-grid living items checked off his list, Darwin treats himself to happy hour at a brew pub in time for the puck drop of the Blackhawk’s match against the evil Detroit Red Wings. With the match decided early in the third period, Darwin checks into a hotel that allows him to park his RV in their lot. The next morning after coffee and huevos rancheros from a nearby Mexican restaurant the hotel clerk raves about, Darwin launches into day two shopping. He starts at a home furnishing store where he buys bedding and an assortment of small kitchen appliances along with plates, cups, and flatware. It’s pretty dang darn amazing the stuff one needs when starting from zero, like a toaster, he almost forgot to buy a toaster. Being in a home furnishings store reminds him he needs a stove, oven, washer, dryer, fridge, and freezer. He doesn’t need them for right-now use, he needs them to install as he spends the winter refurbishing the house, so, it’s back to the home improvement center for more essentials. Luckily, they haven’t sent yesterday’s stuff so he’s able to add new items to the order.

The last stop on his list is clothes, he needs everything, boots, pants, coats, gloves, socks, etc. Since he’s basically a tee shirt and jeans guy that stop doesn’t take as long as one might expect. With exhaustion and buyer’s fatigue setting in, Darwin decides to forgo getting food for now, that’s something he can acquire as needed in Taos. He decides to spend another night in Albuquerque for two reasons, first, it’s getting late and he doesn’t want to pull the RV up Taos canyon in the dark, and second, he keeps remembering items he needs and figures he should spend the night thinking about what he’s forgotten and hit things again in the morning. Besides, staying an extra night allows him of continue his exciting culinary exploration of New Mexican cuisine.

It’s fortuitous he spends the night because as he’s leaving the following morning it suddenly occurs to him that he needs wilderness survival gear for being outdoors and self-defense. That’s when he’s introduced to New Mexico’s bizarre eight day waiting period for handgun purchases. Since Victor has a nephew who can sell Darwin pistols off the books with no registration or waiting period, he leaves Albuquerque content with his rifles, shotguns, and significant array of ammunition, along with a shitload of camo clothes and other survival necessities.

It takes Darwin several days back at the ranch to unpack and set up everything he bought. The tent guys showed up as promised and within hours his RV’s quasi-permanently parked inside the tent beside his truck. He watches them leave already lamenting his next trip to Albuquerque for the things the things he bought require him to buy, things like a gun safe; now that he owns guns, he needs a safe and he didn’t think about that while he was just there.

In addition to the exceedingly long list of things Darwin needs to do before winter, he has a list of stuff he intends to contract out, the major one being installation of a septic tank and drain field, which requires a skilled professional who has a backhoe. This is the most intense and complicated of all the projects in his entire property restoration portfolio, not so much for the septic tank or drain field but because running waste lines from the house to the septic tank involves digging under the foundation, if there even is a foundation. He has to lift the brick floor in the bathroom and dig into the dirt sub-floor to run drainage lines connecting to a sink, bathtub/shower and toilet; all of which are new additions to this four-hundred-year-old house. Luckily, the bedroom he’s transforming into a bathroom is large enough to accommodate what’s planned.

Patching the roof enough to hold him over winter is the other large project that must be quickly completed. His initial plan to deal with the house’s low ceilings is to lower the floor since the bricks are sitting on dirt, however, that would result in the floor being below the footings, which creates all sorts of structural challenges. An easier alternative is to raise the roof, which will be one of next spring’s major undertakings. His plan is to lift the vigas off the existing roof using a crane, as each log comes off, he’ll examine them for health and replace any not up to snuff. Then, he’ll hire a crew to add four additional feet of height to each support wall using adobe bricks. Once that’s done, he’ll reinstall the vigas and have a modern flat roof containing heavy insulation, light mirrors, and skylights installed on top. Once the roof raising project’s complete, he’ll get a stucco crew to put a fresh face on the entire exterior and a plaster crew to the same inside.

While the roof is off, Darwin intends to add additions, which require installing footings and building exterior walls. The planned additions include a portico along the house’s front wall that protrudes six feet into the courtyard and a mechanical room along the back wall for his furnace, water heater, generator, solar battery bank, and freshwater tank. He’ll use the house’s current back door for interior access to the mechanical room then add an exterior door to the addition.

He’ll cut an arched doorway around the existing exterior window in his bedroom and attach a large master bedroom addition. The room he chose for his bedroom addition was based on the view the glass wall of his addition will provide. He also intends to add a kiva fireplace to the addition as well as heat pipes in the floor to circulate hot water generated from the passive solar system he’ll install on the roof. Since the roofs over each addition require new vigas, he’ll prep over winter by harvesting ponderosa logs off the mountain and bringing them to his shop where they’ll be shaved, cut to length, and allowed to rest and air-dry for several months.

Darwin places temporary plywood doors in the front and back doorframes and intends to build permanent doors over the winter. He likes the idea of queuing up projects to occupy his winter because he worries boredom due to isolation may be the hardest challenge to overcome in wilderness survival. Another winter project he’s looking forward to is setting up a wood and metal workshop in the event tent. He wanted to do that in the house he and Becky bought, but Becky said no.

Eventually he’ll install nice windows throughout the house but for now he’s content to use safety glass sections to temporarily enclose each window opening. With the house now sealed and the kiva cleaned Darwin’s ready to declare war on the colony of pack rats that have taken up defensive positions throughout the house. He expects the conflict to wage well into winter with hand-to-hand combat likely. His current war plan scenarios estimates that if everything goes according to plan, permanent victory will be achieved sometime late next spring.

Darwin lights the kiva intending to keep it stoked all winter. With two foot thick adobe walls, brick floors, and a heavy thatch roof, the house’s thermo-load is massive and with poorly insulated doors and windows, even if he keeps a constant fire he’ll likely not warm the house, but it should at least burn off the musty odor and may serve as his first salvo in the pending war on rats. With this objective in mind, Darwin’s been spending at least an hour every day cutting and splitting firewood. There’s enough piñon and juniper dead fall around the house to last him several seasons and once that’s consumed, he’ll start working his way up the mountain gathering dead fall in a proactive act of forest fire management. By his estimate, he’ll never run out of readily available dry firewood because by the time he gets to the top of Marquez Mountain there’ll be a fresh crop of dead fall waiting to be harvested at the base.

Darwin positions his RV within the festival tent in such a way that he can connect to the septic tank on a gravity flow. This leaves one remaining pre-winter project of critical importance; water. He found a guy in Santa Fe who uses agave syrup in his essential oil business. The agave comes up from Mexico in 300-gallon square tanks encased inside a metal cage with a bottom drain. Darwin acquires three emptied tanks for his two water systems. He places two tanks on a platform beside the RV elevated such that each tank’s lower drain port is above the height of his RV water intake ports; this allows gravity to feed water into the camper without having to rely on pumps. One platform tank is designated potable water and the other is for non-potable water. The third tank is used to transport fresh potable water by putting the empty tank in his pickup and driving to Questa to fill it. Once back he transfers the fresh water from the pickup tank to the platform tank using a pump. The source for his non-potable water is Kismet Creek; he runs a hose from the event tent to the creek and pumps water directly into the non-potable tank.

Non-potable water is used for things like showering, laundry, toilet, and whatever construction activity requires the use of water. Potable water will be used for cooking, washing dishes, and of course, morning coffee, but he uses bottled water for direct consumption. Darwin places a four-micron filter system on each tank’s outflow line to capture any particles making it past the pump’s filter. To mitigate bacterial hazards, he works a deal with an off-grid supplier for chlorine tablets that he adds each time he refills a tank. Utilizing this three-tank system is a game changer because the rate of potable water consumption is significantly reduced, which means the frequency of trips to Questa is equally reduced. Refilling the non-potable tank is just a matter of running the pump for a few minutes, so, uber convenient.

The unresolved concern in his water supply strategy is will tank-water freeze on cold winter nights. In theory, water at the top of the tank may freeze but the pressure on the water at the bottom of the tank should prevent it from freezing. While uncertain this theory holds, Darwin decides to let nature decide. To prevent the hoses running from each tank to the RV from freezing, he wraps heat tape over each line and covers that with insulation. For an added measure of assurance, he places wool moving blankets around the platform tanks and hopes because they’re in the event tent protected from wind, snow, and sudden temperature drops there won’t be a problem. In case things don’t go as planned, the RV’s equipped with a thirty-five-gallon water tank along with an additional ten gallons passively stored in the water heater that won’t freeze as long as he doesn’t run out of propane.

Next summer when construction chaos calms down, Darwin intends to replace his event tent with an equally large site built metal building even though the tent salesman assures him the poly-coated vinyl reinforced tent skin will last several years. One nice feature of his tent is that it has several clear plastic windows sewn around the perimeter allowing sun to naturally light the interior. The camper slide-outs both conveniently align with a tent window so Darwin can awaken to sunshine peering in from the bedroom slide out and enjoy gazing outside the kitchen slide out as he sips morning coffee. The camper is fully self-contained and quite comfortable with an ample kitchen, relaxing couch, very comfortable queen bed, a built-in radio/CD player, and a full bathroom with shower. He’s so satisfied with his temporary housing arrangement, his sense of urgency about completing the hacienda refurbishment on an overly optimistic timeline has seriously mitigated.

Other than Victor frequently stopping by no one ever visits except, two times Addison’s dropped by under the pretense of documents needing to be signed but each time she lingers over idle small talk that eventually flows into happy hour. Once, Skyler drives all the way out for no reason at all, she just shows up on a Friday afternoon with a six-pack claiming she’s the official Taos welcome wagon. While Darwin enjoys having company, he’s starting to suspect the three of them are running some sort of dead man’s pool and they need to lock down the precise time of his demise. One positive part of Victor’s frequent visits is he hooks Darwin up with locals for whatever refurbishment project Darwin’s currently involved in. For example, Victor lines up his cousin Manny for the septic work and his brother-in-law’s stepson for the roof work. He introduces Darwin to his nephew Mateo who’s eager to fill in whenever Darwin needs an extra set of hands. Victor says he’s lining up concrete, stucco, plaster, and roofing crews for the spring and while Darwin appreciates the interest Victor’s taking in his life, he enjoys teasing him about which relative he’ll find for which project.

Darwin’s convinced fate is rewarding him for a very intense, very productive October by delaying serious snowfalls, but now, with Thanksgiving approaching, most Taos County residents agree the ski area will open early, which means the inevitable invasion of Texans is not far off. Darwin’s satisfied that he’s met all his per-winter goals and can now relax into what will become his annual winter routine. He begins each day with a hot cup of coffee and strokes the kiva fire. He then relaxes at the RV kitchen table for a couple hours either researching his latest project or journaling. Turns out it wasn’t some grand psychological issue preventing him from writing in his journal, it was just that he didn’t have anything to say. Once he starts chronicling his refurbishment efforts, writing becomes essential. Maybe it’s the engineer in him that needs to capture and record the details of technical endeavors but if he’s being honest, it’s really that he has this sense that in some way what he’s doing needs to be understood by whoever comes after him and one absolute of life is that it’s guaranteed there will be someone coming along after him.

With his New Mexico life in order, Darwin makes plans to return to Chicago for Thanksgiving, in fact, he intends to set up some sort of regular visiting schedule so he can be actively involved in Issac’s life and ensure Vincent’s stepping up to take care of business in his new dad/husband/doctor role. Addison and Skyler each separately invited Darwin to their Thanksgiving Day dinner but to be safe, he’s decides not to pick a team because he’s come to enjoy spending time with both ladies, it helps take his mind off Becky. To be clear, there’s nothing going on with either Skyler or Addison even though it’s increasingly obvious they wish there was.

Victor and Mateo agree to check in on the place whenever Darwin’s gone, there isn’t really much to do or worry about, but Mateo does at least vow to remain on the offensive in the looming rat war and to keep the kiva fire stoked as best he can. The only other responsibility is to make sure the propane tanks stay full. In addition to two thirty-pound tanks that came with the RV, Darwin has a twenty-pound tank for emergency backup and a five-hundred-gallon tank he rents from the propane distributor. There are multiple propane distributors around Taos but Victor’s cousin Augustine, who’s once removed on his mother’s side, promises to deliver within twenty-four hours and to always provide Darwin with his best discounted rate.

Today while Darwin’s enjoying his morning coffee and journaling, he spots the Appaloosa stallion drinking from Kismet Creek at the edge of the trees decrementing the end of Marquez Mountain and beginning of the Rio Grande valley. Over time each of his mares discretely approaches the creek for a drink before disappearing like ghosts back into the trees. It shocks Darwin, seeing how decimated the herd appears and with winter on the horizon he’s worried they’re in trouble. He immediately contacts Victor about where he can order two semi-loads of hay. Victor urges Darwin to let the mustangs be, but Darwin insists that if the appaloosa’s journey herding his mares down from the mountain meadow is anything like his journey was going up to the meadow that day with Victor, they’ll need nourishment to sustain them for the journey to wherever it is they winter.

Darwin gets that it’s wrong to feed wild animals and assures Victor it’s not something he intends to repeat, he just wants to help his herd over a hump. Victor reluctantly agrees to reach out to his sister’s husband’s, second cousin over in Chama who can probably deliver hay in the morning provided Darwin pays the drivers in cash and is neighborly enough to provide both drivers a few cans of Coors for the long drive back per standard Northern New Mexico protocol.