Day 2 of the special project....

 7:41 am - Monday - March 2nd - TWW - 44° F, humidity 27%, cloud cover 51%, wind 6 mph out of the south by southeast......very cloudy today with a forecast high of 68° F.  The view this morning....

....and on this date in 2025 TLE and I finally hooked up our coach to the new sewer connection we installed.....

....we used black ASB sewer pipe, but didn't bury it as it would have taken two days to dig the trench, and we needed to dump our black tank.  As it turned out leaving the ASB above ground didn't work as it expands and contracts with heat and cold, so the joints pulled apart.  We were able to solve that problem good enough to make it the rest of the winter, but this year we installed white PVC and used rubber couplings to connect them making it easy to break down when we are not here during the summer....

....and, as expected, it doesn't expand and contract!  Eventually we will dig the trench, and bury the black ASB, which we still have, but this works quite well for now.

Sunday was a beautiful day.  I spent the entire day working on the special project about which I wrote yesterday....in fact I worked 6 hours....my longest workday this winter.  For the first time I spent the entire day in shorts and a t-shirt. I'm almost done, and it will be revealed Tuesday.  I wasn't planning on it taking this long, but things happen, and you adapt and move forward, right?

We had almost ZERO clouds Sunday, and as a result all of our battery banks on the property achieved 100% by noon time (the house always hits 100% around 10-10:30 am, even when it is cloudy).  

When I finished working on the project around 3 pm I was whipped.  I put away my tools, and walked over to the 'lido deck' to relax in one of the anti gravity chairs before heading indoors for a shower, and nap before dinner.  I don't think we ate dinner until almost 5 pm, but the nap was sorely needed....lol!

Thanks for stopping by!

Rural reality....

 8:16 am - Sunday - March 1st - TWW - 49° F, humidity 22%, cloud cover 13%, wind 9 mph out of the west by southwest....very clear, blue skies today with a forecast high of 72° F.  The view this morning.....

....and on this date in 2015 it was just me and the Houghtaling girls.....

....we were in Pasadena, CA at a college reunion....left to right: Moi, Phyllis, Laureen, and TLE.

For the first time in a while we took our out and back 1 mile walk before beginning our work day.  We slowed down a few seconds from last time, but still averaged almost 3 mph....

....once back TLE headed off to the house to do a load, or two of wash, and I set out to do something I've wanted to do for a long time, but, alas, I cannot write about it right now.  In fact it will be a few days before the secret project can be revealed.  I spent about 3 hours working on the task, and by that time TLE was done with her laundry duties.  It was abut 2:3o pm, the weather was delightful, and I was planning to sit outside for a while reading, but I was tired from the work I had done, and fell asleep in my recliner for an hour.  By the time I woke up it was almost time for dinner.

Living here at TWW feels like we're living on another planet most of the time.  We are so far removed from what is happening in the world, from government, from politics, from people, from the hustle and bustle of daily life in urban, and suburban America that even though I do ready the news each day, I do not feel connected to it.  The rest of the world feels like some kind of abstract reality.  Personally, I like that feeling.  Life here is so stress and worry free.  We just go about our daily lives working on the property, enjoying the fruit of our labors, and each other.  The biggest news of each day is how sunny it will be, and whether it will get below freezing that night.  And with that I will bid you adieu for another day.

Thanks for stopping!

Happy 44th birthday to our baby....

 7:14 am - Saturday - February 28th - TWW - 42° F, humidity 32%, cloud cover 53%, wind 3  mph out of the east by southeast.....cloudy today with a forecast high of 74° F.  The views this morning....

....and on this date in 2008 TLE and I took ownership of our 1982 Newell Classic 36' diesel pusher.  We had no idea at the time how much our lives would change from that day forward....

Original Craigslist Ad picture

....since we took possession we have traveled over 90,000 miles through all contiguous 48 states, and into British Columbia and Alberta.

TLE set the agenda for Friday, and that was to cut more firewood for the house, and 'sunset fire deck'.  Essentially, whatever firewood is not suitable for the house goes into the pile by the 'sunset fire deck'.  We had two piles of aged wood on both sides of the house, so we worked on the one on the northwest side.....

The uncut firewood pile on the northwest side of the house

Chainsaw wagon

Our wood splitting stumps moved to the next wood to be processed

Our main firewood storage....about 6' high now

....by the time we were finished 2.5 hours later we had completely filled every available storage spot for firewood on the property.  There's enough cut firewood to cover the next 2 winters, easily.  Our main firewood stack was increased in size by over 50%.

Before calling an end to the work day, which lasted just under 3 hours, we took a snack break at the table in the middle of the circular driveway....

....then it was time to change clothes and enjoy a warm afternoon on the 'lido deck'....

....we're kind of into that 'shoulder season' between Winter and Spring where the weather is pleasant, and time is spent outdoors napping and reading.  We no longer run all three Suburban gas furnaces in the morning, and they're off within an hour of rising.  We rarely use the Predator 5000 anymore, and spend most of the afternoon in shorts and t-shirts....it's just idyllic right now.  We haven't run our heaters at night lately, either.  We've got a lot of stuff growing inside, and outside the greenhouse, and it's just a matter of watering, and monitoring the growth progress....

....the broccoli is really getting big now, which reminds me, we haven't had to run any heaters in the greenhouse at night for over a week now.  By 4 pm I was back in doors having dinner with TLE....she made Chicken/mushroom Alfredo....another restaurant quality meal!  We read books whilst listening to the 'Classic Vinyl' channel on Sirius/XM Radio.

Thanks for stopping by!

Roadwork.....

 7:45 am - Friday - February 27th - TWW - 43° F, humidity 28%, cloud cover 20%, wind 4  mph out of the east.....mostly clear blue skies today with a forecast high of 71° F!!  The view this morning....

....and on this date in 2013 TLE and I were dry camping at an RV park in St. Augustine, FL....

....you can see our 2002 Ford Thunderbird in the background....loved that car, but it was impractical for our nomadic lifestyle.

When we had the back to back snow storms last week the dirt road which takes you to the entrance of TWW got very damp, and our neighbor drove through there to get to his property a  couple of times leaving it with deep tire ruts, which had dried out and hardened over the intervening days.  When it rains a lot, or we get a good snow we avoid using the road for a week, so we don't have to fix it.  We had driven the Rhino out there Thursday to see the damage, and we decided we would spend part of the morning Thursday using the Ford 420 diesel tractor to repair it. There was a low spot where rain, and snow run off would collect making it a mud bog.  I used the gannon on the tractor to drag dirt to the low spot from both ends of the road, and then the loader bucket to smooth it out.....

....I'm getting much better at that, and as a result we had to do very little raking.  It took a little over an hour to repair the road.  Next time it rains we'll see if we have successfully removed the 'low spot'.

While we had the tractor running we decided to move some more gravel to the new RV site we built for Phyllis' Newell.  We created a kind of apron which connects the back of the site with the circular driveway....

....we think it turned out quite well.  

Before went out to fix the road we hooked up one of the IBC totes to the irrigation for the two outdoor growing beds at the greenhouse, and use that water to water the potatoes we planted.  It ran while we were working on the road.  After finishing the gravel apron for the Newell we used one of my SeaFlo 12 volt water pumps to transfer water from the IBC tote located at the northwest corner of the greenhouse to the one located at the southeast corner, which we had just used to water the potatoes....

.....we'll use the same method to transfer water from the 3 IBC totes at the house over to the greenhouse totes when it is needed.

Once that was done we called it a day, workwise.  TLE brought some snacks out to the table in the middle of the circular driveway, and we sat there in the shade looking around the property, and enjoying the visual fruit of our labor.  We've gotten so much done in such a short period of time.  After that I changed into shorts and t-shirt and assumed the position on the 'lido deck'....

....and spent the afternoon reading, and then readying the Sea-B-Que to grill the first steaks in a month, or more.  Life is good at TWW!

Thanks for stopping by!

Town bound.....

 7:26 am - Thursday - February 26th - TWW - 42° F, humidity 42%, cloud cover 30%, wind 4 mph out of the east by southeast.....partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 71° F.  The view this morning....

....and on this date in 2019 I had just arrived home from Flagstaff Medical Center where I had a benign cyst removed from my right cheek.....its formal name was a parotid cyst (saliva gland)....

Before....

....after

...and once again my face had symmetry.  Can't believe it has already been 7 years.  Seriously, it does not feel that long.  I was just 69 then, and now I'm heading rapidly toward my 77th birthday.

We hadn't been to Seligman in over a week as of Wednesday, and we had mail/packages stacking up in our PO Box, so a little after 10 am we were in the Explorer making the 30 minute drive into town.  Our first stop was the local Family Dollar where TLE went shopping while I walked next door to to the Post Office to pickup our mail/packages.  By the time I returned TLE was about ready to check out....aren't we efficient.

Next up was a stop at Seligman Market to buy some produce, and then over to Highway Hot Dog for some coffee and Gelato (double chocolate for moi, and lemon pie for TLE).  The temp was in the mid 60's and it was sunny, so we sat outside.....

They have a low budget Police Department in Seligman....lol.

YUM!

.....we sat enjoying our gelatos, and coffees, and talking about this and that as we always do until a tad after 12 pm when we decided it was time to head back to TWW.  We arrived right at 12:30 pm, and quickly unloaded our purchases, and packages.  One of the packages was new seat covers for the Yamaha Rhino.  The ones on it were the originals and they were falling apart, so I ordered some new ones off Amazon for about $30......

......they are basically 'slip covers' and I was able to install them in just a few minutes.

As you can see in the background we ran our 175' of fresh water hose from the greenhouse over to the Newell to refill our fresh water tank (down to 60 gallons after 9 days), and dump our black tank.  In all it takes us about 35-40 minutes to do the deed, and we're set for another 8-10 days.  Once that was done I finished putting the seats with the new seat covers back in the Rhino, and retired to my anti gravity chair to nap and read away the rest of the afternoon.

By 4 pm I was indoors have taco salad for dinner....another house favorite, and then spent a few hours reading before it was time for bed.  Thursday we'll be back to work around the property, so stop by tomorrow to see what we get done, and, as always, thanks for stopping by today!

Getting 'er done!

 7:52 am - Wednesday - February 25th - TWW - 48° F, humidity 39%, cloud cover 30%, wind 4 mph out of the south by southwest....cloudy this morning, but clearing later with a forecast high of 68° F.  The view this morning....

.....and on this date in 2021 TLE and I were installing my new Steelcase captains chair in the driving position in the Newell....

.....this new Steelcase is way more comfortable that the 39 year old original.

With temps back into the 60's we are getting outside to work by 10 am now, instead of 11 am, or 12 pm when it was it the 30's and 40's.  We're still only working 2-3 hours each day, but we seem to get so much done!  First up on the 'to do' list was to plant potatoes.  As you will recall we planted some potatoes last winter, but over the summer rabbits got into the fencing and devoured most of them.  Since then we have made improvements in our fencing by installing the old poly carbonate roof panels we took off the greenhouse to keep out the rabbits.  We'll see how that goes.....

TLE hoed the rows...

....and I planted the potatoes

Finished

....in all we planted 13 rows of various varieties of potatoes, and are looking forward to the results!

Next we began to move the metal pipes out of the field behind the chicken coop, and by 12 pm we had moved about half the stuff out there.  No need to move it all in one day....

Where the pipes were....

....and where they are now....sacked up on the back of the barn

....we'll move the rest of the metal on Thursday.

One of the metal items we relocated from the field behind the chicken coop was the stand for the cement mixer.  When we moved the cement mixer the other day we didn't realize this base belonged to the cement mixer, but figured it out later....

.....TLE loves her 'lawn art'!

Satisfied with our accomplishments for Tuesday we began our walk back to the Newell, but stopped short when we walked past the glass table and umbrella.  The umbrella was damaged in one of our recent windstorms, and needed to be repaired, plus we wanted to move the table further away from our woodpiles.....

....it took us about 30 minutes to fix the umbrella, and is now providing shade for us once again.  By this time it was 12:30 pm, and we had worked 2.5 hours....perfect!

I spent a few hours on the 'lido deck' reading, and listening to music, but I decided I was not done with my work day yet.  I was thinking about the gas control regulator for the Sea-B-Que, which I had determined was the cause of propane not getting to the burner.  I decided to remove it again, and soak it in Aero Kroil (penetrating oil) for a couple of hours to, hopefully, eliminate the blockage.....

....I reinstalled it just before dinner (4 pm), and turned on the propane, then lit the burner.....SUCCESS!  Not sure why I didn't think of this before, but it worked.  I will still install the new gas control regulator as it is newer, and gives me more heating settings than the current one which just has low and high.....nothing in between.

For the 3rd successive evening we headed out to the 'sunset fire deck' to see what kind of light show nature would provided this evening....

....it wasn't spectacular like the previous two sunsets, but was interesting.  We remained by the fire until just after 7 pm when we headed inside for the night.

Thanks for stopping by!