Been a while since I was able to post an update. The day before the hurricane we were on the island adding the porches. It made more sense to me to do the porches now so we won't have to build scaffolding now and porches later. So we have no access to fresh water yet. We just pour dry concrete in the hole and let nature take over. Well 20 hours later a monsoon rain from the hurricane did the trick. We braced off the vertical porch posts so all was well when I went out Wednesday.

I finally got my fill of the 35 year old 140 hp Evenrude. I am not sure if yall know this, but finding a new or used boat motor is as rare as chickens teeth right now. I looked for a month and finally found a Etec 115 hp with only 248 hours on it. I jumped on that like a frog on a fly. Contrary to my nature I even told them to do the engine swap. It should be ready tomorrow. I can't wait!!! Moving forward is a must. I promised myself I would get that motor running and I did. I am a super tenacious person. If I set out to do something, the world will end if I don't finish, OR give it 1000% effort. Well I did get it running and I finally found the problem. It was a split in the wire harness. That is an extremely difficult problem to diagnose and find. The only way to find it with electronic diagnostics is to recreate the problem when diagnostics were hooked up. Even though i found and fixed the problem, the damage had already been done. I have to know that boat will get to the island and more important, come home. I was developing anxiety that I don't need. Thinking that boat was going to fail the whole way on a 2 hour drive to the coast. I told myself I was going to fix it and i did, so Off you go old motor, wirer harness and controls. Out with the old and in with the new!

The wood in the pic are old cedar fence pickets. I took the crossmembers off, cut the top and bottom off of the pickets, ran them through a planer and stained them. This wood is for the hallway and the bathroom. We will be duck hunting out of this place for the 2022 season, as in not this season but next.

Looks like a bunch of sunflowers on the right, any dove out there?

They look like sunflower but aren't. They were 10 feet tall all over the island. The hurricane flattened them all to the ground. A weird site to see. Yes there are doves but no way would I hunt them. Matagorda is Spanish for thick brush. The grass is 3 feet deep and extremely dense. There are an abundance of rattlesnakes and they cannot be located under the grass. When I see them, they are in the road. Six inches off the road and they are invisible. I don't allow my Labrador out there without it being cold.

Spread my mom's ashes on Matagorda island last weekend. Would that be considered baiting?

Sorry to hear about your mother. I reckon the island is just as good as any place to have your ashes spread.

Thank you. She loved that place. Hope yall have a GREAT season!

Looking good. Are you drilling for fresh water or hauling?

Beautiful wood

One man's trash is another man's riches. just about everything but the frame is repurposed. When Hurricane Harvey wrecked our house, the insurance paid for all new windows. The old ones are double pane gas filled tinted windows. I have kept them in the barn waiting for the island build. I rebuilt a pontoon boat some odd years ago and was never using it. One of the contractors expressed interest in it so we traded. I got enough engineered stone to line the driveway and around the house. The driveway stones contain the crushed brick driveway and the house stones contain the bullrock French drain. I also got enough commercial grade Rpanel to build the new barn and roof the duck shack on the island. If I had to buy new, the windows would be about $10,000 and the roof materials for the island would be around $4,000. Call me a dumpster diver if you will, I love to repurpose materials.

We will start off with na 500 gallon rainwater collection system. The tank will go under the house. Hooked to it will be a Tractor supply 12V water pump. The battery for it will be solar charged. If the battery ever goes kaput then i can pull the ranger up to it and hook up jumper cables, at least long enough to take a shower. Not sure on the water heater. I will probably do a propane on demand water heater, a very small one. My original thoughts was to put coiled copper tubing around the chimney of a pot belly stove (Outside), but I can see the nightmare issues with that system.

Ya I thought about that after I posted. We had a rain collection system in west Texas that worked for showers and commode. It could have been made potable if we'd taken the time. Pump through a physical filter and ultraviolet light. Just never got around to it. That would take more power though.

We will be doing the same, shower, commode and washing machine. I am afraid to drink the water. Rumor has it the military used an anti-corrosion chemical on the B24 bombers and dumped the remaining chemicals down the water wells. I have no way to verify any of that. I am 3 miles away from the base