Vulcan mind meld.....

 7:29 am - Thursday - December 11th - TWW - 35° F, humidity 38%, wind 3 mph out of the east by southeast....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 69° F.  On this date in 2012 We were having our last lunch before our last Amazon shift....

....in Campbellsville, KY....what a great group!  Spending time with these folks at breaks, and lunch made the whole experience more bearable.

My back was still bothering me first thing Wednesday, but by 10 am it began to loosen up, so I got dressed, and headed out to the greenhouse to help Charles set up the new diesel heater he bought to keep the greenhouse interior above freezing at overnight.  We chose this heater because it can be set to automatically start heating at a given temperature, and then shut off when it reaches 7° F above that set temperature.  It was not very intuitive, but by combining both of our brains we managed to figure it out....lol.....

The diesel heater installed

The exhaust pipe routed outside 

Air intake

The hot air duct

.....we set it up on the west side of the greenhouse where it was easy to vent the exhaust.  In all we sent over 2 hours putting it together, and then learning how to program it....the later part was no where close to intuitive, but we ultimately prevailed by using the Vulcan mind meld technic....lol!

After a long break I spent time starting up Phyllis' Newell, and releveling it.  I was pleased that the chassis batteries had held their charge, and was able to start it on the first try.  The back, just like ours, tends to settle down over time, so I used the same method we used on ours at Likely by placing two 3 ton jack stands under the frame at the rear of the coach.  We'll see how that works out over time.  Next it was time to run our Newell for a while to relevel it after a few weeks.  The big Detroit Diesel 6v92 started on the first try.  The PSI in the two air tanks was still over 100 PSI after several weeks, which is good considering how cold it has been until recently

TLE made her famous Chicken Marsala (with a side salad) for our community dinner, which was served around 4:30 pm.  It was delicious, of course!  After dinner I went outside to check on the diesel heater setup, and saw that we were about to have a nice sunset, so I quickly rallied everyone out to the 'sunset fire deck', hauled out our camp chairs, and started a fire.....

A cloudless sunset

I love how those contrails look like they're on 

fire as the jets fly into the sunset

....we (FINALLY) had our first sunset fire of the winter, and it was a perfect, lovely, balmy evening to do so.  We have enough firewood set aside to last us this Winter, and the next, and maybe one more after that.  We sat enjoying a little Frank Sinatra, sipping wine, and talking until well after 6 pm.

It's pretty rare to find one amazing place to spend 1/2 the year at such as LPG&RVR, but to find two enchanting places in one lifetime is amazing.  We love being here at TWW!  It's as if there is no one in the world but us.

By the way, our house batteries have returned to 100% charge every day since we returned from Thanksgiving in Phoenix....life it good!

Thanks for stopping by!

On the 'threshold' of something great.....

 7:52 am - Wednesday - December 10th - TWW - 35° F, humidity 32%, wind 5 mph out of the east.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 67° F!!!  On this date in 2012 TLE and I took the ferry from Whidbey Island to Port Townsend, WA to ride our Cannondale tandem around the town....

.....we came across this cool coffee shop during our ride.

We were expecting the arrival of Charles and Phyllis around 10 am (we were wrong....that was the time they were leaving Phoenix) so TLE unloaded the firewood we had cut and split into their barrel inside the house.  While she did that I busied myself with removing the ashes from the wood burning stove, and then laying a fire for them.  As it turned out they did not arrive until after 1 pm, so the fire was unnecessary, but it's the thought that counts, right?

Once that was done I headed over to the greenhouse to install thresholds on each of the two gates to keep the small animal population from entering the greenhouse growing grounds under the gate.  The threshold area of each gate is 4 feet wide, and I had an 8 foot pressure treated 2 x 4 to use for this project.  Once I had the threshold area level I drilled three holes in each 4 foot 2 x 4 and then pounded 12 inch pieces of rebar through each hole, and into the ground to secure them in place....

The north gate

As you can see, the gate closes against the 2 x 4

South gate

.....both gates open into the greenhouse area.  It took me around 2 hours to finish this project, but I think it turned out pretty well.  Time, and use will determine how effective this solution is.

We've been here 6 weeks and I hadn't installed the tire covers on the trailer, or Newell, so that was my next task.  I don't know why I procrastinated this long.  It only takes 10 minutes to install all of them.

My final task of the day was to set up our Christmas tree.  The last few years we've been setting it up outside, and that is what we did this year, also....

.....I put a solar timer on it so it will be lit from dusk to dawn each day.  Once I finished trimming the tree I declared my work day finished.

Charles and Phyllis arrived around 1:30 pm, and we spent about 1/2 an hour helping them unload their cargo.  Some of the items were for us.  The two timers I'm using right now to turn the ceramic heaters on and off are pretty old, and only have one "on and off" option, which means once they are turned on by the timer I have to run them continuously for 2-3 hours to keep the shed, and water bay from freezing.  Each ceramic heater consumes around 120 watts of power per hour, which was driving our Bluetti battery bank down quite low overnight.  The new timers are mechanical, and give you the option of up to 24 on/off settings each day.  My theory was to have the ceramic heaters run for 30 minute intervals 4 times each night beginning at 2 am.  They come on at 2 am for 30 minutes, then at 3 am for another 30 minutes with 5 am being the last 30 minute cycle.  Tuesday night was their inaugural test, and they worked just as I hoped.  The temp in the water bay never got below 40° F, and the shed stayed above 37° F.  For the record I have two ceramic light bulb heaters in the water bay, and only one in the shed.

Charles also brought up six 4' x 8' pieces of solid foam insulation, which we will be installing in the shed during the next week to better insulate it.  Just before we left TWW last April we installed fiberglass insulation, which was difficult to install in the small confines of the shed.  The foam board will work much better, and be more effective in sealing the interior against the cold nights, and we should be able to stop using the ceramic heater to keep it above freezing, plus it will help keep it cooler in the summer.

Also, part of the cargo was a new diesel heater we're going to deploy in the greenhouse to keep the temp above freezing.  It is programmable to turn itself on and off during the night.  I'm hoping we can get it set up for Wednesday night/Thursday morning on Wednesday.  If it works as advertised them we can begin to grow stuff throughout the Winter....fingers crossed.

We had dinner around 4:30 pm (Turkey Shepherds Pie) prepared by the loving hands of Phyllis.  We had a great dinner filled with good food and conversation, as we always do.  We bid our adieus around 6:30 pm, and headed home for the night.

Thanks for stopping by!

"Remember Clarke, you're 76......"

 7:48 am - Tuesday - December 9th - TWW - 26° F, humidity 31%, wind 3 mph out of the east by southeast.....partially cloudy today with a forecast high of 63° F.  On this date in 2019 we had just set up our Christmas tree.....

.....probably the most beautiful Christmas setup in the Newell we've ever had going back 14 years.

It has been a week, or two since we cut firewood for the house, and with Charles and Phyliss returning on Tuesday we needed to refill their wood box.  Since it has been getting warmer sooner in the mornings we were out just before 10 am getting set up to cut and split more wood.  TLE had started a burn pile when we first arrived several weeks ago, but on the days we talked about lighting it there was too much wind, and it was too cold.  Since someone has to watch the fire at all times the sub 50's temps were  a big deterrent, even when there was no wind.

At any rate Monday was the perfect day for a burn pile, and since we were also cutting/splitting wood about 30 feet away it was the perfect day to light her up.  While I serviced the chainsaws, TLE lit the burn pile, and began to slowly feed a mountain of burn pile material into the fire.  When I was ready to begin cutting the wood into smaller pieces fit for splitting she would come over and help hold the long pieces of dead juniper while I cut them into smaller pieces.

I kind of strained my middle back while starting the 16" Stihl chainsaw (how I don't know, but I'm 76 and stuff happens), so by noon time I was done for the day back wise.  We did manage to fill the dumper on the Yamaha Rhino, which should be enough wood for the two days Charles and Phyllis will be onsite....

Not quite full, but full enough

You can see the remnants of the burn pile in the background....the large pile of burn pile material which was in front of the burn pile is now gone

....my back was getting worse by the minute so TLE used our 'Thumper' to massage the muscles in my back, then rubbed some CBD cream on it, after which I rolled onto my back and took a 90 minute nap.  When I awoke it was feeling a little better, but not good enough to be functional so TLE got out our heating pad and I sat in my recliner for a couple of hours.  Slowly, but surely my back began to loosen up, and I was able to do some back stretching exercises.  By the time I finished it was after 4 pm, and we had planned to grill a New York and a Top Sirloin steak on the Sea-B-Que, so I headed outside to do just that.  My back felt good, and while the Sea-B-Que heated up to grilling temperature I smoked a couple of cigars, drank a little Scotch, and listened to the 'Perfectly Frank' channel on Sirius/XM....

.....it took about 15 minutes to get both steaks to 125° F (medium rare).  TLE added sides of green beans, and smashed potatoes....perfect!

After dinner we watched the MNF (Monday Night Football) game pitting the Chargers against the Eagles in L.A. at SoFi Stadium.  It was one of the ugliest NFL games I've seen this year with many, many turnovers of the interception type.  As regulation time expired the game was tied 19-19 so one 10 minute overtime period was in order.  The Chargers had the ball first, and came away with a 54 yard field goal, and then it was the Eagles' turn.  They were driving for a touchdown when the quarterback threw what looked like a sure touchdown pass that was tipped a the last second by a Charger defender, and ultimately intercepted by another Charger defender to end the game.  I think that was Jalen Hurt's 5th or 6th interception of the game.

About half way through the game my back began to bother me again, and the Tylenol was not making a dent in the pain.  I then remembered I had three pain pills left over from my left shoulder injury last Winter, so I took one hoping for the best.  By the time I went to bed at 11 pm (usually I go to bed at 10 pm, but there was the 90 minute nap earlier, so I wasn't tired yet) my back had begun to relax again, and by the time I woke up this morning the soreness was about 95% gone, and as I write it still feels good (Tuesday morning), so here's crossing my fingers that this trend continues in my favor.

As I was getting read for bed TLE stopped me and said "I'm going tell you something, and I'm only going to say it once.  Please remember you are 76 years old, and when you hurt yourself you need to stop what your doing, and sit down and relax.  When you keep going like you did today you just make it worse!".  Wise words from a wise woman....I think I should heed them.

Thanks for stopping by!

Day of rest.....

 7:48 am - Monday - December 8th - TWW - 26° F, humidity 39%, wind 4 mph out of the east.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 60° F!!!  On this date in 2024 TLE and I were watching a beautiful TWW sunset.....

.....maybe we'll do that tonight for the first time this winter!?  The view this morning....

Once and a while you've got to take a day off work, don't you?  TLE suggested, with some authority, that we would be taking a break from work Sunday.  Well, it is the Lord's Day, so why not?  Of course, there are always a couple of things that must be done each day, and those were taken care of pretty quickly.  I spent time just sitting in the sun enjoying the utter solitude and quiet.  Once in a while I'll hear a vehicle passing on the north/south arterial, but that's a good 1/2 mile away.  We hear the BNSF trains passing, but those tracks are around 3 miles away, so it's really just background sound, and barely noticeable.  Otherwise it feels like we are the only ones in the world.  The quiet can be spell binding at times.

Due to our current location within the Mountain Time Zone NFL football does not begin until 11 am, so there is always plenty of time to get anything which needs doing done before then.  With the daily highs now rising into the 60's for the foreseeable future it will get warmer earlier in the mornings making it possible for us old fogies to begin working earlier, meaning we'll tend to get more done each day we do work.  It also means we won't have to run the gas furnaces as long each morning.  They are very effective, but their whirring fans are an assault on the auditory senses, so the sooner we can silence them each day, the better.

If you are a Rams, Seahawks, Broncos fan it was a great day for NFL football.  My Rams crushed the Cardinals 45-17, and it wasn't even that close.  The Seahawks also obliterated the Falcons 37-9, and the Broncos won easily, 24-17 (the last Raiders touchdown was scored with seconds remaining in the game).  The night cap between the Chiefs and the Texans (at Kansas City with the temps in the 20's) had an unexpected outcome with the Texans winning a close one 20-10.  It seems like the entire AFC is upside down this year, but it is fun!

TLE and I did take a 1 mile out and back walk between the morning and afternoon games which ended up being our fastest out and back of the winter with us averaging 3.1 mph over the 1 mile, and doing it in 19 minutes and 22 seconds...

....for me it is easier this winter to take a day off work, since we find ourselves in a good place with what needs to be done.  We're actually spending a few days each week working on the finishing touches for the greenhouse, and soon it will be used for its intended purpose.  Our living circumstances are considerably less chaotic than last year when we were in the middle of that steep learning curve, and we don't feel like we've got to be working on four critical issues at the same time.  This winter we try to focus on one thing each day, taking our time, and enjoying the process.  We're getting to the place where we could picture ourselves living here comfortably 12 months out of the year.

In retrospect I'm glad TLE insisted we take a day of rest, and it really helps that we do not live under a constant sense of urgency this winter.  We're back to taking life as it comes, and living more in the moment.  Our confidence level is high, and it is all systems go!

Thanks for stopping by!

Never give up.....

 7:43 am - Sunday - December 7th (Pearl Harbor Day) - TWW - 28° F, humidity 40%, wind 3 mph out of the east by southeast....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 58° F.  On this date in 2012 TLE and I were in Greensburg, Kentucky having lunch with good Amazon friends.....

.....at Longhunter's Coffee and Tea Company.....left to right: TLE, Jim, Sharon, Pat and Richard.

We're about 70 days into our sojourn here at The Wilson Wilderness, and things could not be going better.  In our first 70 days last year we were continually dealing with generating enough power to keep our three battery banks charged.  The Newell was parked in front of the house then, and the trees on her driver side blocked the sun from the roof top solar panels until late morning, and then again around 2 pm, so we were losing at least 4 hours of charging time per day.  We ran the little Honda EU2000i generator for hours each day, and were going thru gasoline like drunken sailors.  We were searching for ways to keep our water bay from freezing each night without using large amounts of power from our Bluetti battery bank.  At the time we were macerating our black tank effluent almost 100 feet to the nearest cleanout, which is not optimal.  There were so many things like that with which we had to deal each day that there were times we thought about giving up our dream of living off grid in Northern Arizona, and leaving for warmer climates (Borrego Springs).  Of course, anyone who knows me well knows I am very stubborn, and am always convinced there is some illusive solution to every problem.  As it turned out there were solutions, and we gradually solved all of those problems.

Today as I write we only run the Predator generator about 90 minutes a day now, and our EcoWorthy dual axis solar tracker does the rest.  Our three battery banks achieve full charge status before noon each day, and our water bay hasn't frozen.  We doubled the amount of solar panel wattage for each battery bank, installed those ceramic 'light bulb' heaters in the water bay.  We moved the Newell to its permanent site where we get more than enough sun all day long to charge our batteries, and now have a hard line to the sewer line.  The Predator solved our problem with run time, and its dual fuel capabilities enabled us to run it off the large 120 gallon propane tank, saving us over a dollar a gallon for its fuel.  I've learned over the years that if you have enough time you can figure things out and reduce the stress in your life associated with all of the aforementioned issues in paragraph one.  We're both so happy we didn't give us up last winter!

We began work on the west side of the greenhouse mid morning installing the needed 2 x 4's on the inside, and then the firring strips on the outside.  We decided to end our work day there around 1 pm while we still had plenty of energy....

.....now we have just the north and south sides of the greenhouse to secure the visqueen with firring strips, and we can probably do both sides in one day.  Once that is done we will begin to install the rain gutters to begin catching rain water, and snow melt.  We should have the new diesel heater sometime this week, and once we have that we can begin to plant seeds, and grow stuff.  That will be a major landmark!

Saturday was also NCAA football playoff time, and by next week we'll know which 12 teams made the playoffs.  The first two games of the day were one sided affairs with Texas Tech easily winning over BYU 34-7, Georgia thumping Alabama 28-7.  The night game between Ohio State and Indiana was a game for the ages.  Both teams came into the game with perfect 12-0 records, and Ohio ranked #1, and Indiana #2.  Indiana scored first with field goal, then Ohio scored 10 unanswered points with Indiana kicking another field goal to end the first half.  In the second half Indiana score one touchdown, and held Ohio State to ZERO points, winning in regulation 13-10.

Well, that was our Saturday, and thank you once again for stopping by!

Back to the greenhouse....

 7:42 am - Saturday - December 6th - TWW - 31° F, humidity 47%, wind 1 mph out of the south by southeast....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 56° F.  On this date in 2024 I had begun to dig the hole for the concrete pad for the EcoWorthy dual axis solar tracker....

....I needed to dig a hole 2 feet deep, but hit what I thought was old concrete at 12", not being familiar with what is known as caliche rock.  This rock is prevalent in dry, arid areas which is Arizona.  You find it around 1 foot below ground level.  It looks and feels like concrete.  Anyway I had begun to drill holes into the caliche rock into which I would later insert rebar.

Our main goal for Friday was to make major inroads into finish installing the firring strips which affix the visqueen to the framework of the greenhouse.  Before we did any firring strip work we had to cut to length, and install 2 x 4's on the east side of the greenhouse near the roof line so we had something into which we could screw the firring strips....

.....if you look at the picture above and focus on the roof line you see five 2 x 4's just below the roof line.  The two on the left were already there, so we had to cut three more to fill in the last three spots...

These are two of the three we installed

....once those 2 x 4's were in we were able to begin installing more firring strips....

....we managed to get the entire east side finished.  We also 'cut out' the windows removing the excess visqueen which covered them....

North window...you can see the firring strips around the window holding the visqueen in place

South window

....that took us from 11 am to 2:30 pm, including a break in the shade.  It's pretty cold right now with daytime temps reaching the low 50's, but in the sun it feels 20° hotter, for sure.  I spent another 90 minutes working the door threshold so make it easier to open and close it using my oscillating tool to shave away more wood.  By the time I finished, around 4 pm it was opening and closing as well as it is going to do so.  There is still aways to go...maybe two more days of securing the visqueen with the firring strips on the other three sides.  We'll spend time Saturday working on the west side, then all that will remain are the north and south sides, which are already partially done.

During the break time we took we connected our 175' of fresh water hoses and dumped the black tank, then refilled the fresh water tank with 100+ gallons of water.....we were down to 40 gallons, and really could have gone another day, or two, but it was time to dump the black tank, which could not wait any longer, if you know what I mean.

And that was the end of another day at The Wilson Wilderness....I did manage to get pictures of the full moon rising out of the southeast last night....

.....very cool!

Thanks for stopping by!

Next time ask TLE first....lol!

 7:51 am - Friday - December 5th - TWW - 22° F, humidity 37%, wind 2 mph out of the east....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 51° F.  On this date in 2019 TLE and I were in Riverside, CA.....

....attending the Festival of Lights at the Mission Inn.

Thursday morning we recorded the lowest low so far this winter....22° F.  The ceramic heaters we installed in the water bay, and the shed did their job keeping the temp in the mid 50's, and they don't use as much power as I thought.  Once they warm up they consume around 100 watts each.

The outdoor temp didn't reach 40° F until around 11 am....needless to say, but I'll say it anyway, we didn't do much outdoors before noon time.  Thankfully, there was no wind, so as long as one was in the sun one was comfortable.  Once one stepped into the shade the temp seemed to drop 15°.  

Since we left TWW last Wednesday to drive down to  Phoenix for Thanksgiving we have accumulated a lot of clothes in the laundry hamper, so around 10, or 11 am TLE headed into the house to do a few loads.  Once it was warm enough for me to work outside I spent the day taking care of a lot of little things like rerouting the solar, and charger lines in the house battery compartment so they go through the floor enabling me to now completely shut the bay door.....

The grounded charger cord (charger at the top of the picture) 

going through the floor now.

The old hole I drilled years ago has the positive and negative

 solar lines running through it now

Now I can shut and lock the battery bay door

....I already had one hole in the floor I cut back in 2021 to run some LED lights off the batteries, but I needed a much larger hole for the battery charger cord (grounded) to fit through.  Specifically I needed a 1" hole saw to cut the new hole.  While the actual job of rerouting these cables took about 5 minutes, I spent 30 minutes looking for the 1" hole saw....lol.  I forgot TLE and I had packed the box with my hole saws in one of our suit cases we store in the through bay.  It wasn't until I had exhaustively searched the trailer, garage, and CONEX several times that I finally asked TLE if she remembered what we had done with the box.....of course, she did, and I had the 1" hole saw in my hands within 60 seconds....LOL.

I did a lot of other small things throughout the afternoon like start our 1969 Jeep CJ-5, start up the Yamaha Rhino which hadn't been started for over a week, check the engine bays in Phyllis' Newell for mice, and found that we had caught two (one on each side), checked our engine bays for caught mice, and there were NONE (those new solar LED rope lights are doing the job!), reinstalled the solar porch light on the underside of the patio awning (we stowed the awning when we went to SoCal, so had to remove the light), and I know there are other things I did, but don't recall at this time. 

Around 1:30 pm we drove over to Dawn, the egg lady's off grid property to buy 4 dozen eggs.....love those unwashed, pasture raised chicken eggs!  It's always nice to chat with Dawn, and her husband Matt to catch up on the local happenings (she moderates a Facebook group for this area).  Their property is around 2.5 miles, as the crow flies, from our property, and it takes us just 10 minutes to get there.  They have a nice park model home, with a separate large metal garage (about the size of ours). They raise goats and chickens, and have a well established water catchment system catching rain water, and snow melt off the garage, plus a large solar array.  And just like TWW, they have to haul in their water.

By the time we returned it was getting close to 2:30 pm, and the warmth was leaving the air quickly.  I spent a little time in the trailer moving a few things around for easier access, but by 3:30 pm I was back inside the warm confines of the Newell, signaling the end of another TWW day.

Were at the beginning of a week long, clear, blue skies stretch so solar charging will not be an issue.  For the third day in a row our house batteries got back to 100% further proving the need for the extra solar panels on the roof of the trailer.  That extra 300+ watts of solar power are the difference between only getting back to 90%, and getting back to 100%.

Thanks for stopping by!