Sunday, November 9, 2025

A day in the life.....

 8:07 am - Sunday - November 9th - TWW - 51° F, humidity 19%, wind 11 mph out of the east by northeast....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 74° F.  On this date in 2017 TLE and I were at the east entrance of the Grand Canyon preparing to go to work at the General Store.....


....the sun was just rising, around 7 am, so we are, obviously, facing eastward in our site.

Saturday was a mixed bag of sorts workwise, but before we did any work we took another out and back walk of the 1 mile variety, covering that distance in 20 minutes, so a 3 mph average.  We'll probably extend that 1 mile walk to a 2 mile walk in the near future; when is strictly up to TLE.

As I slipped into my work togs I had an idea of what I hoped to accomplish Saturday, but I am easily distracted.  I wanted to paint the little wood box which sits over the Predator 5000 dual fuel generator to seal the still raw wood against the elements, but when I entered the trailer I saw the chain from our 20" Stihl chainsaw lying on the work bench.   The other day I was cutting a dead fall out of the tree that sits at the left rear corner of the coach.  I should have been cutting it from a ladder, but instead I was standing on the ground cutting it above my head.  The piece I was cutting fell towards me causing me to back up, but it still hit the 20" bar on the chainsaw causing the chain to derail, which resulted in tiny burs along the guides that run in a groove of the bar.  The metal burs prevented the guides from slipping easily into the groove, and bound up the chain.  To save the chain, and remedy the problem I used a small flat file I've had for years to remove those burs, which took the better part of two hours.  In the end I was successful, and was able to reinstall the chain, and run the chainsaw without the chain binding.  Those chains are expensive, and I had just bought it up in Alturas with the new chain bar about 6 weeks ago, so I really wanted to avoid having to replace it after only using a few times this winter so far.

Anyway, the result was a good outcome, but I never got around to painting the generator box, so that will have to wait for another day.  Instead I spent about an hour organizing my small hand tools I keep on the workbench for quick access.  Tools like the small 6" flat hand file, needle nose plyers, small screw drivers, etcetera. Now all of them are easily found, and used, whereas before it would take me a few minutes virtually every time to find what I needed. 

While I was thus occupied I was watching NCAA College Football on the trailer TV.  There were a number of great games, including the Texas Tech vs. BYU game.  BYU was undefeated coming into the game, and Texas Tech had one loss.  Texas Tech won the game handily 29-7.  I mention that game because Texas Tech is my brother-in-law's (Glenn) alma mater.  We always exchange text messages when they are playing.  According to Glenn this is the best team Texas Tech has fielded in 100 years.

By 12 pm I was done working for the day, so TLE and I sat outside reading, and enjoying the Fall like weather for a couple hours before it became too chilly to be on the 'lido deck'.  That trend will continue to come earlier and earlier each day as we head into much cooler weather later in the week.  According to the 'weather guessers' we will have rain here Friday and Saturday, with a small chance of the rain turning to snow on Saturday, and from that point forward the daytime highs will only reach into the 50's through the 23rd.

Around 2:30 pm TLE remembered we were supposed to water the fruit and nut trees, so we jumped in the Yamaha Rhino and headed out to the pasture area to do just that.  We run the gravity fed water system for about 20 minutes every three days to fill the dirt bowls around each tree.  Each bowl has its own hose, so we just turn on the water, and they are all filled at the same time.

And there you have it, another 'day in the life' at TWW....thanks for stopping by!

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