Busy work.....

 7:54 am - Thursday - January 16th - TWW - 25° F, humidity 33%, wind 9 mph out of the east by southeast.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 56° F.  On this date in 2016 TLE and I were boondocking near Quartzite, AZ with friends.....Steven Dempsey (friend) took this drone shot of our encampment.....

....they say a million people boondock in and around Quartzite during the winter, but the area is so large that you can always find a place with very few people, just like we did.  We're probably about 1 mile off Interstate 10.

I've said this before, and I'll say it again.  I love spending the winter where I can do what I want to do, when I want to do it, in the way I wish to do it.  After two consecutive years working the side by side rental operation at Glamis North Hot Springs we were both missing the quiet solitude of boondocking in the middle of no where.  We never feel freer and more independent than when we are doing what we are doing now.  Even though we are spending the winter on a property with a house, barn, and garage, it is completely off grid.  We are completely reliant upon ourselves to generate the electricity to power our Newell's 12 volt and 120 VAC systems.  We're not paying anyone for utilities, except for the propane delivery every 4-6 weeks, or hauling water to the property.  However, no matter where we boondock we will need to buy propane eventually, and need to acquire water.  The water is so inexpensive it is almost free, and while we are using a lot of propane, we are paying the lowest price per gallon we've paid in years, so our expenses are minimal compared to living in a sticks and bricks home.

We've been making steady improvements to the property as time permits, and have a lot more planned over the final three months of our stay here at TWW*.  As of this coming Monday we will have been here three months, and still have 3 more months before we return to Likely Place Golf and RV Resort for the summer.  By the time we leave here in late April we will have been living off the grid for 6 months...amazing!

As I look out the window over my desk I see the Eco-Worthy Dual Axis solar tracker has tilted to face the rising sun at 8:16 am....that's 4 minutes faster than normal.....the sun is, indeed, getting higher in the sky.  With each passing day now our solar array will begin recharging our Bluetti battery bank earlier and earlier, and later and later into the day.  The need for running a generator decreases by the day.

There were a lot of little things I wanted to get done Wednesday, and one of them was to deploy some of our solar fairy lights.  I've been remiss in doing so for the three months we've been on site.  I have 7 strings of these solar powered led lights, and managed to get three of them deployed in one of the juniper trees on the driver side of the Newell.....  

....with TLE's assistance I added some insulation to the ceiling in the cedar shed, and will continue to add insulation, as time permits, over the next week, or so.....

....other than those two projects I spent most of my day doing what I would call 'maintenance stuff'.  I started the Jeep again, and it was easier. I'm going to try to start it several times a week as long as it is cold to keep it ready to use.

I also moved our Honda EU2000i generator over to the Ford tractor to charge up the battery, so we can start it, and work on filling the right rear tire with water and antifreeze so we can begin to use it to level our permanent site by the trailer.  It took about 90 minutes to get it to 95%, and I think that will be good enough for now....

I don't remember ever posting a picture of the tractor (loader bucket and gannon)

....we hope to get it started and moved this weekend.  I also started, and ran the onboard diesel generator in Phyliss' Newell, and found it was also much easier to start after only sitting for one day.

The CONEX has needed rearranging for a while now.  In order to use the band saw I needed to move it out of its cubbyhole in the left rear corner of the CONEX to an area about 4 feet from the right rear corner where the cord can still reach the electrical outlet, and can be more easily accessed....

New location

Where the bandsaw used to be

.....finally I backed the Jeep CJ5 up to where the rollup door barely misses the spare tire,  so I could set up a table in front of it upon which to set tools, parts, etc. when I'm working on the Jeep, but still back it out of the garage when needed....

.....by the time I put everything away it was 3:20 pm, and almost time for dinner.

We've come a long way in the past few months continually adapting to changing weather, and conditions.  When we first arrived I was not sure we could realistically live in the Newell all winter at 5,500' without the convenience of being plugged into a 50 amp receptacle, but here we are almost 3 months later doing just that.  We are loving living in an isolated place, where we were completely alone 4-5 days a week.  As stress free as our life usually is, we have attained a whole new level of stress free living.  We are both sleeping so well at night it is a little scarry....lol.  With no ambient light, or urban type background sound present at night, we feel as if we are living on a different planet.

Thanks for stopping by!

*The Wilson Wilderness