A passing 'grade'.....

 08:29 am - Wednesday - The Eve of a New Year - TWW - 34° F, humidity 32%, wind 6 mph out of the east.....partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 57° F, and rain later this afternoon.  The view this morning.....

.....and on this date in 2012 TLE and I experience one of the most amazing, captivating, beautiful sunsets we have every seen to this day.....

.....at the Tiki Bar at Low Key Hideaway in Cedar Key, FL....the water was so glassy it perfectly reflected the sunset.  We were about 10 months into our first year as nomads.

On Monday TLE and I began hauling rock out to the low spot in the entry driveway....two Yamaha Rhino utility beds full, to be exact, so Tuesday we fired up the Ford diesel 420 loader to scoop up a few loads of lava rock which is about 50 feet from the driver side of our Newell.  I noticed this pile of small lava rock last year and figured it would come in handy in the future, and Tuesday was the day.  I managed to haul two more bucket loads of the lava rock out to the same site, and then the hard work began....spreading it out, and then compacting it with the Ford diesel 420....

.....we wanted to get this rock spread out and compacted while the dirt was still soft from the recent rains, and it worked out better than we expected.  We'll be hauling some more rock after the next rain  (12/31/25 and 01/01/2026) passes through the area in the area in the foreground of the picture above.  We'll know soon enough if this new effort at firming up, and raising the elevation of the south side of the driveway in this area works.  At this point we are cautiously optimistic.

As has been the case for the past few days it was breezy, and oh so cold, but we are slowly getting acclimated to working in colder conditions just as we did last year.  It would be easier to just sit inside where it's warm, but then we would never get anything done.

We finished with the grading project a little after 12 pm, and took a break.  After putting the tools away we had been using I spent time topping off the Jeep battery, and then taking it for a 15 minute drive, before putting it away again.  By the time I finished it was after 2 pm, and getting cold fast as is most often the case this time of year.  

Thanks for stopping by!

"You kill it, we cook it"

 08:01 am - Tuesday - December 30th - TWW - 34° F, humidity 22%, wind 10 mph out of the east.....partly cloudy skies today with a forecast high of 56° F.  The view this morning.....

On this date in 2012 TLE and I were in Cedar Key, FL.....

....watching our first sunset.  We spent 5 weeks there.  It was magical.  Over the course of 5 weeks we had acquired enough sunset photos to fill 10 calendars.  It was our first year on the road, and we had just finished our first stint working at Amazon in Campbellsville, KY, which was also our first workamping job.  This was our second visit of 2012.  We first discovered Cedar Key in March of 2012, but we only spent a few days then.

We knew we had mail at our PO Box in Seligman (our new 2026 calendar), so we made plans to head into Seligman around 11 am.  It was far too windy to do anything outdoors, so we remained inside for most of the morning before getting dressed for our hour round trip drive.  We left a little after 11 am, and were in Seligman at the hardware store (Route 66 General Store) by 11:45 am.  We needed to get three 5 gallon propane tanks topped off (took 11.4 gallons), and to buy some pipe insulation for the water line which runs from the pump house to the greenhouse.

Next we stopped at the Post Office to retrieve our mail, and then next door at the Family Dollar store for a few things.  On our way out of town we decided to have lunch at 'Road Kill Diner' whose motto is "You kill it, we cook it"....not really, but it is funny.  We haven't eaten there this year yet, so it was time.  TLE and I split their French Dip and fries....

A giant Dr. Pepper (refillable)

.....just the right amount of food. We lingered there for the better part of an hour talking, and enjoying our French Dip and fries before making the 30 minute return trip to TWW.  The 1968 Ford Explorer, by the way, is running great, and we can make the 7 mile drive out to Route 66 in 10 minutes, or less.  In the VW it takes 25-30 minutes....a big, big difference.

After arriving home, and putting away the groceries I headed out to the pump house to install the pipe installation on the water line running to the greenhouse, so we don't have to turn it off at night to keep it from freezing.....

....most of the water line is underground except for the hose bibb in the greenhouse, and where it exits through the wall of the pump house.

By the time I finished it was after 3 pm, and you know what happens after 3 pm, right?  It gets cold very quickly, so I put away my tools, and headed for the Newell.  

Around 6 pm I make a quick trip out to the greenhouse to turn on the catalytic heater, and on my way back I caught the afterglow of the sunset.  Sometimes the best shots are 20-30 minutes after sunset.....

Thanks for stopping by!

When life interferes with plans....

 08:13 am - Monday - December 29th - TWW - 33° F, humidity 23%, wind 18 mph out of the east by northeast.....crystal clear, sunny, windy skies with a forecast high of 50° F, and winds in the 20-30 mph range all day long.  

.....similar to Sunday, but the sky is a deeper shade of blue.  On this date in 2018 TLE and I arrived at Cedar Key, FL for the third time in our nomadic wanderings.....

.....after working at Amazon in Campbellsville, KY for the third and final time.  Sadly, we have not returned to Cedar Key since then, although we think about it often.  The most magical time we spent there was for five weeks in  early 2013.  After 3 hurricanes causing extensive damage in the interval between 2013 and 2018 it was not the same.  Almost all of our favorite 'hangout' places had gone out of business.  As they say, "You can't go home", and sometimes that is true.

It was cold, and windy Sunday, and we did not get dressed to do any work outside until around 11 am.  Over he past 12 months TLE and I have raked a lot of smaller rocks into piles on the north side of our site, and we wanted to load them into the Yamaha Rhino and move them out to that low spot in the entry driveway we worked on a week, or two ago.  Unfortunately, the Yamaha was being cranky, and wouldn't start.  I ended up spending well over an hour trying to diagnose and fix it, and I did.  One of the fuel lines had a crack in it, which allowed air to enter the sealed system, which is not conducive to starting and running.  Once that was fixed we began loading 6 of the many small piles of rocks into the Yamaha.  When we had a full load we took them out to the driveway not far from the entrance, and dumped them along the side of the driveway.  We'll rake them out in the next day, or two, but we've still got 6, or 7 other piles to load and move.  By the time we finished around 2 pm it the temp was dropping rapidly.

As you will recall we set the timer on the diesel heater in the greenhouse to run for 12 hours Saturday night/Sunday morning (8 pm to 8 am), and the temp inside the greenhouse got as low as 32° F overnight (the outside low was 24° F).  We decided to have it run from 7 pm Sunday night to 9 am Monday morning, and that seems to have done the trick.  When it came on at 8 pm Saturday night it was already down to 33° F outside, so by starting it at 7 pm Sunday when it was only 40° F gave it the head start it needed.  At it's highest last night it had risen to 52° F inside the greenhouse, and when we got up this morning (Monday) it was still 45° F inside, even though it was 29° F outside.....much, much better.  All that being said, the plants survived Saturday night/Sunday morning just fine.

The Sunday night NFL game between the Chicago Bears and the San Francisco 49ers was a barn burner with the 49ers winning 42-38.  Win, or lose, it was a great game to watch.

The last days of 2025 are slowly slipping into the rearview mirror as I write, and as that transpires we are getting to the cold/breezy part of the winter.  We're in much better shape this winter than last, and not worrying from night to night if we can keep our water bay warm enough to avoid anything freezing, or get our batteries recharged.  Those ceramic heaters in the water bay are working better than okay, and with the added solar panels for the house batteries they are getting a full charge most of the time.  We're getting our house and shed batteries recharged via solar input virtually every day it is sunny.  The only exceptions have been the heavily overcast, rainy days, which is to be expected.  We're still looking at a new wind turbine option to help out on those stormy days.  The best thing so far is we've had NO snow that has stuck.

Thanks for stopping by!

Too cold to watch paint dry.....

 8:27 am - Sunday - December 28th - TWW - 28° F, humidity 48%, wind 6 mph out of the east by northeast....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 48° F.  The view this morning.....

....and on this date in 2024 TLE and I were enjoying an amazing sunset at The Wilson Wilderness....

By Saturday morning the blustery, sometimes high gusting winds had disappeared, but left a day with a forecast high of only 45° F.  We wanted to paint the last five furring strips Charles and Phyllis had delivered last Tuesday, but temps under 50° F are not conducive to good painting results, so we turned our attention to things we could do, such as temporarily reinstalling the corrugated metal roof on the pump house.   I didn't know where it was at the time, but TLE was able to find the two pieces in the barn.....

.....it didn't take more than 30 minutes to screw it into place, and since we were only doing a temporary install until the pump house is expanded, I didn't want to re-caulk the seams, so I used red duct tape instead.

Next we tackled rearranging the 'furniture' inside the greenhouse.  There were two more folding tables to position, and TLE wanted to move one of the hose hooks we use to hang the many garden hoses we have....

We have many new plants growing....you can see the diesel heater in the lower left of the picture....it is doing a bang up job of keeping things above freezing!

....we didn't venture outside to do anything until after 12 pm, so by the time we finished with these two tasks it was after 3 pm, and getting cold fast.  I had to return to the greenhouse around 5:30 pm to adjust the start and stop times on the diesel heater.  We ran the heater for 6 hours Friday night, but with the overnight low forecast at 24° F, and the temp already down to 34° F outside I increased the run time to 12 hours (8 pm to 8 am)....with a full diesel tank it can run continuously for 18-20 hours.

As I was returning to the Newell I saw a beautiful sunset taking place, so I took a few minutes to memorialize it.....

....would have loved to have a sunset fire, but it was already in the low 30's, and I knew TLE would not be up for that....lol!

Thanks for stopping by!

Leak no more......

 8:33 am - Saturday - December 27th - TWW - 38° F, humidity 74%, wind 7 mph out of the south by southwest.....heavy cloud cover today with a forecast high of 43° F.  The view this morning....

Heavy cloud cover and some minor rain

......and on this date in 2023 TLE and I were taking a 2 mile out and back walk at Glamis North Hot Springs....

.....this was our second winter working for Colorado Outback Adventures renting their Polaris RZR's.

Charles and Phyllis left for Phoenix around 8 am, and once again TLE and I were by ourselves.  I've been waiting for Charles and Phyllis to leave so I could pressure down the house water system in order to make the final repair on the leaky water pump outlet.  Once I had turned off the water pump, and closed the water inlet from the water tower I had TLE drain the pressurized water into one of the IBC totes by the greenhouse to relieve the pressure.  That took about 5 minutes, then it was time to cut the 1" pressurized line so I could remove the old PVC threaded union.....

Water is still running out of the 1" line as I get ready to install the steel replacement

The old PVC assembly, and the new galvanized steel assembly

Done!

.....I applied pipe dope to all the threaded connections, and torqued them down tight. It only took about 3 minutes beginning to end to repair the final leak. Just like the threaded PVC fitting on the 1.25" inlet, this one was also just hand tight as the Teflon tape had deteriorated resulting in the leak.  With this final fix we can now take the pump offline by disconnecting the two compression couplings.  Before I put the insulated wall back on the pump house I used Charles and Phyllis' Shop Vac to vacuum out the floor.  After working on the various leaks over the past year there was a lot of debris scattered from one end of the floor to the other....

.....maybe we can freshen up the paint a little in the near future.

Since we have 4 consecutive days starting the 27th of sub 30's temps overnight I reprogrammed the diesel heater to begin running at 1 am, and turning off at 7 am to keep things from freezing in there.  Once we get past those four days we can return to the existing 4 hour run time from 3 am to 7 am.

Later in the afternoon I reinstalled the folding cover for the Magic Chef stove top.  You will recall I had to reglue the stainless steel a few days ago....

.....TLE has acquired a lot of cast iron cookware over the past few years, and what you see in this picture is a 5 cup casserole she uses quite frequently.

And with that another TWW day came to a close.  We are going to be pretty much 'cabin bound' Saturday as it will be raining on and off most of the day, but there will be many NCAA College Football bowl games being played.....it is that time of year again.

Thanks for stopping by!

Rewarding.....

 7:45 am - Friday - December 26th - TWW - 45° F, humidity 69%, wind 12 mph out of the south.....very cloudy today with a forecast high of 51° F.  The view looking south this morning.....

.....and on this date in 2018 TLE and I were on our return flight to Nashville from SoCal where we spent parts of two days celebrating Christmas with our kids.....

.....the Newell was still in Nashville at the local Elks Lodge.  From there we headed to Cedar Key, FL to celebrate New Year with friends we met early in our full time journey.

After two days of little sun, we got more than expected on Christmas Day.  We had expected to have to run our Predator 5000 for several hours, but with the unexpected appearance of the sun we were able to turn it off around 9 am and let the sun do the rest of the recharging work.  Even with the sun's appearance it was still very blustery, and cold after a night of near torrential rain, and winds in the high 30's, so we didn't spend very much time outside.

I did check on our water catchment efforts and found these results:

The 12 gallon barrel behind the shed had 2, or 3 gallons of rain 

water, which kind of surprised me

The IBC tote on the west side of the greenhouse was about 1/6th full

And the IBC tote on the southeast side of the greenhouse was about 1/5th full

.....seeing that much water after just one storm was very rewarding....that's water we would not have had otherwise, and as they continue to fill (more storms next week) we'll be able to use that water to water the plants in the greenhouse, which, by the way, are thriving now that we can keep it warm at night.  The real test will happen over the next 4-5 days when the overnight lows dip into the mid 20's....BRRR!

There were three NFL games being contested on Christmas Day, with two of them being televised by Netflix....bad idea NFL.  I stopped subscribing to Netflix over a year ago due to the sky high price per month at over $19/month.  Anyway, that wasn't why I thought it was a bad idea for the NFL to give them exclusive rights to those two games.  Their whole presentation was not up to NFL broadcast standards.  It was more pleasant to mute the sound, and just watch the game.  Thankfully, the two games they broadcast were totally uninteresting with none of the four teams involved having a chance to be in the playoffs.  The 3rd game, however, was broadcast by Amazon who does a great job with their Thursday night games, and this weeks edition was no exception.   The Denver Broncos played the K.C. Chiefs  in Kansas City, and while it was closer than I expected (the Chiefs barely compiled over 100 yards of offense running and passing combined) the Broncos controlled the game with time of possession, winning 20-13....it wasn't really that close statistically.  Once again the Broncos won a one score game by coming from behind to score the final 7 points.

Dinner in the house was Taco Thursday prepared by both TLE and Phyllis.  Thank you ladies for another great communal dinner!  Charles and Phyllis will be heading back to Phoenix for 10-12 days before we see them again, so TLE and I will be on our own again.

Thanks for stopping by!

Generational issues.....

 8:17 am - Thursday - Christmas Day  - TWW - 45° F, humidity 78%, wind 13 mph out of the south by southwest....partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 53° F.  The view this morning......

.....and on this date 10 years ago TLE and I were at my son's home.....

.....in SoCal taking family pictures in front of their Christmas tree.

Christmas Eve began with blustery winds, and threatening rain clouds, and ended with wind driven rain into the evening, ending in the early morning hours sometime after 4 am.  Charles and I spent time troubleshooting an issue with their Champion 7500 watt, split phase generator, which is supposed to help charge their house batteries when there is no sun, and there was NO sun Christmas Eve.  The inverter is receiving 122 volts per leg, but is detecting no hertz.  The inverter must detect a frequency of 60 hertz (hz) before it all allows the current (244 volts) to charge the batteries.  We worked on it for a couple of hours with no success, so I guess it is back to the drawing board.

As you know, we have a Predator 500 dual fuel generator to assist in charging our house batteries on days like Christmas Eve, and it ran a lot over the course of the day.  Lack of sun is rarely a problem here at TWW, but when it is you need a generator to make up the deficit.

Meanwhile, this current weather system is reeking havoc all over the west, but primarily in California from north to south, and west to east.....there are flash floods, general flooding, torrential rain, and large accumulations of snow.  The weather guessers estimate this series of storms could dump between 150 and 200" of snow on the Sierra Nevada....that's between 12 and 17 feet of snow.

TLE prepared a chuck roast with a side salad, and baked potato for our communal dinner, and it was great.  We all gathered in the house for dinner around 4 pm, and by the time we headed back to the Newell it had begun to rain.  Sometime during the early morning hours I was awakened by wind driven rain against the driver side of the Newell.  It continued for an hour, or two which made it hard to sleep.  Looking forward to checking to see how successful our water catchment was last night....stay tuned!

Thanks for stopping by!

Water catchment....at last!

7:50 am - Wednesday - The Eve of Christmas - TWW - 48° F, humidity 74%, wind 17 mph out of the south by southeast.....heavy cloud cover with rain, and wind today with a forecast high of 54° F.  The view this morning......

....on this date in 2024 TLE and I were driving to SoCal from TWW to celebrate Christmas with our kids.....

 ......we had a little rain, and a lot of clouds, but the drive was uneventful.

TLE and I were out early working on the installation of the rain gutters on the greenhouse to catch, and funnel it into our two IBC water totes.  We didn't have all the parts needed to finish the installation until Charles and Phyllis arrived around 11:30 a with the balance of the needed parts, but we went as far as we could.  Once they arrived, and had sufficient time to unpack the truck Charles and I got busy finishing the job of installing the rain gutters on the east and west sides of the greenhouse.  We didn't finish until just before 3 pm, but we got them done....

The east side....↕

The west side.....↕

.....there are a few adjustments still to be made, but we got them installed, and hope to catch some rain over the next few days.  Over the next few weeks we will also install gutters on the house, and add a few more IBC water totes in which to store any rain/snow melt.

Included in the things Charles and Phyllis delivered to TWW was a new adjustable drop hitch for our 1969 Chevrolet C50 tilt bed truck.....

.....now, once I get the tail lights working again, we will be able to pull the water trailer over to the water station in the future to get water, and that was the goal.  

By the time we finished at just before 3 pm I was out of gas, and ready for a nap, but I knew if I attempted to take a nap I would not wake up in time for dinner at 4 pm, so I deferred the nap until after dinner, and I was right....I napped after dinner for 2 hours according to TLE.  On top of that I went to bed around 10 pm, and slept until 7 am this (Wednesday) morning.

We had hamburgers for dinner, courtesy Phyllis, with all the trimmings, plus coleslaw and potato salad.  I think I had 3 helpings of that delicious potato salad....thank you Phyllis!  The next few days will be iffy for a lot of work being done as we will either have winds in the high 20's, or rain, or both during that time.

Thanks for stopping by!

Falling dominos.....

 8:23 am - Tuesday - December 23rd - TWW - 42° F, humidity 31%, wind 9 mph out of the south by southeast.....cloudy today with a forecast high of 62° F.  On this date in 2015 TLE and I were attending 'The Festival of Lights'......

at The Mission Inn in Riverside, CA.

When we were in SoCal a few days ago I walked over to the Home Depot (about 1/2 block from the hotel) to pick up a few plumbing fittings to fix a persistent leak on the water pump in the pump house.  There is an inlet, and an outlet on the pump, and the threaded PVC fitting on the inlet had been leaking since we got here in late October, and has been getting worse.  When the new (current) pump was installed last winter Teflon tape was used on the 1.25" diameter, threaded PVC fitting that screwed into the pump inlet, and I believe the vibration weakened the tape.  I bought a four inch in length, 1.25" diameter steel nipple, pipe dope, and a 1.25" compression sleeve to make the repair.  It was too late to mess with in when we got home Sunday afternoon, so first thing Monday morning I was on it.  I had to cut the 1.25" diameter PVC pipe feeding into the inlet to unscrew the threaded PVC fitting, and found that due to the deterioration of the Teflon tape it was only hand tight....no wonder it was leaking.....

1.25" diameter Compression sleeve

......I was able to unscrew it by hand, then screw in the new steel nipple with ample pipe dope, then reconnect everything with the compression sleeve, and with that the main leak was fixed.  Of course, you fix one leak, and another appears.....

.....on the outlet fitting.  I did a temporary fix on that one with some 'Flex Seal' tape, and a hose clamp.  Charles bought the parts for this new leak Monday afternoon at Home Depot in Phoenix, and will arrive Tuesday with those parts so we can fix that one last leak.....we hope....lol.  Right now it's dripping at a rate of 1 drip every 10 seconds, and overnight there was only an inch of water in the bucket we use to catch the leaks.  Soon there will be NO leaks.

Additionally, TLE helped me finish the water catchment system for our shed....

.....I need to cut a piece of plywood to be the lid for the barrel, I'll then cut a round hole in it for the PVC pipe to enter the barrel, then extend the PVC pipe downward into the barrel.  Done, just in time for the rain we expect over the next 4 days.

TLE and I are both still getting over the travel lag from our 700 mile round trip drive to SoCal, so by the time we finished with the shed water catchment setup we were both ready for a nap, or at least I was....lol.

On Tuesday, when Charles and Phyllis arrive, we'll begin attaching rain gutters to the greenhouse eves to also catch water from the advancing storm.  Things are coming together, and the dominos are slowly falling into place here at The Wilson Wilderness.

Thanks for stopping by!