Two in one......

 7:56 am - Saturday - February 14th - TWW - 28° F, humidity 39%, cloud cover 10%, wind 3 mph out of the southeast....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 57° F.  The view this morning.....

Order is restored....we have SUN!

.....and on this date in 2018 we got a dusting of snow at Desert View.....

.....at the east entrance of the Grand Canyon.  Worked at the General Store there from November  2017 to April 2018.

First thing Friday morning, due to the weather forecast predicting rain all day long, TLE and I finished stowing the firewood we cut the other day for the house.  By the time we finished we had refilled the wood box on the wood deck....

.......we fully did not expect to do any other work outside Friday due to the aforementioned weather forecast, however, once again we were buffaloed by the weather guessers.  We did have heavy cloud cover one might expect with forecast rain all day long necessitating running the Predator 5000 for about 90 minutes first thing, but even with cloud cover we got back to 100% on the Bluetti battery bank.

By 11 am we realized it was not going to rain, so we got dressed and headed back out to the chicken coop to  begin dragging all the branches I cut off those juniper trees into burn piles, plus dragging out all the wood, roofing and plumbing junk the prior owners had discarded there.  Once that was done I realized I needed to cut some more limbs off the surrounding trees, so I took care of that.  By the time we finished dragging everything out we had created three burn piles....

The biggest

The smallest

Almost as big as the biggest

.....and several piles of junk....

We'll cut this up to burn in our portable firepit

Old roofing, and siding

.....now that all the trees have been 'limbed up' the area around the chicken coop looks great....

Those trees will provide shade in the summer for the chickens

I cut a couple of the larger limbs into smaller pieces for future splitting

.....at this point TLE headed into the house to cook a roast in the house oven, while I remained out at the chicken coop removing all of the old chicken wire fencing, and posts.  It didn't take me as long as I expected....

The chicken coop sans fencing

Old 4 x 4's and T-posts

The old gate, and some type of cage

.....by the time I finished it was 2 pm, and I had been working for around 3 hours.  Time to put stuff away, and relax.  As it turns out the lack of rain enabled us to get about 2 days of work done in one day.  I had figured it would take TLE and I at least 3 hours to create the burn piles, and remove all the discarded junk, but it took the two of us less than 2 hours enabling me to spend that third hour taking down the fencing which I thought would be a 2 hour Saturday project.  On top of that we have two days of sunshine (Saturday and Sunday) in which we can light the burn piles, and begin to clean out the chicken coop.  Snow/rain is forecast for Monday-Wednesday next week, but who knows, right?  The weather guessers could be wrong!

Thanks for stopping by!

More than we expected.....

 8:42 am - Friday - February 13th - TWW - 39° F, humidity 68%, cloud cover 91%, wind 7 mph out of the east.....heavy cloud cover today with a forecast of rain, and a high of 47° F.  The view this morning....

....and on this date in 2013 TLE and I were in Miami, FL.....

....visiting the Viscaya Museum and Gardens (pronounced viscayaya).  TLE performed with her high school orchestra there back in the late 60's....she played violin.

We had enough sun Thursday to get all the batteries on the property back to 100%, and we had some beautiful cloud formations throughout the day...

.....when we first arrived here at TWW last October we found this old cement mixer out behind the barn, and it has sat there in the same position since then.  TLE and I had talked a few times about what to do with it, and finally we decided it should join our other lawn art collection out by the entry road next to the greenhouse.  I used the Ford 420 diesel tractor to move it....

....eventually we think we'll turn the wheel barrows into planters for flowers, and maybe even the cement mixer.  By the way, the tractor is running magnificently....starts every time....knocking on wood as these words hit the page....lol.

I've been wanting to move the water trailer from its current position next to the water tower to a spot out near Phyllis' Newell for some time now, but I needed to repair a severed cable that runs from the rear of the transmission on the 1969 Chevrolet C50 tilt bed truck back to the rear of the dump bed before I used it to do so.  That took me the better part of an hour of crawling in and out of the area under the dump bed, but finally the truck was ready to move, and hook it up to the water trailer for the first time.  You may recall I had a receiver hitch welded to the rear of the truck last winter, and just received and installed the adjustable hitch a few weeks ago.  With TLE's help I backed the 1969 Chevrolet C50 dump bed truck up to the tongue of the trailer, dropped the tongue on the hitch.....

Now we can drive through there again

The water trailer is now parked out near Phyllis' Newell (it is to the right in this picture, out of sight)

......and then moved it.  The water trailer has been parked next to the water tower, when not in use, for at least 2 months, and that path is one we frequently use to drive the side by sides from the front of the house to the area out by the barn.  When the trailer is parked where it has been parked we have to drive around.

After taking a suitable break around 1 pm we headed out to the chicken coop area to trim back all the trees which surround it in close quarters to we can begin to clean up the area, and rehab the chicken coop.....

Looking westward

Looking northward

.....the chicken coop (used to be a pigeon coop) is directly behind the house.  The roofing appears to be in good shape, and the interior appears to be staying dry.  We just need to clean out the interior, fix a few things, and then repaint it.....

....then tear down and replace the old fencing, which is in sorry disrepair.....

.....the aftermath of trimming the juniper trees which surround the chicken coop......

.....by the time I finished cutting branches it was 3 pm, leaving little time to drag all the branches into a pile for later incineration, so we deferred that part of the operation to another day, and put our tools away.  We got a lot done Thursday....more than we expected, but we were also tired.  I took a shower, then a long nap before TLE served her famous beef and cheese burritos for dinner.

Thanks for stopping by!

Disaster narrowly averted.....

 7:47 am - Thursday - February 12th - TWW - 32° F, humidity 48%, cloud cover 63%, wind 5 mph out of the southeast.....very cloudy today with a forecast high of 58° F.  The view this morning.....

.....and on this date in 2014 I had just come home from Riverside Community Hospital after double hernia surgery.....

....and this is what TLE made me for dinner...STREET TOCOS!

I received a call from Able Saw late Tuesday afternoon advising that my chains (three to be sharpened), and the 16" Stihl chainsaw (needed new pull rope) were ready for pickup.  TLE and I were not planning to drive to Prescott for the second time in 10 days, but I needed a haircut, and that chainsaw, so we were on the road by 8:30 am driving....we left early hoping we would be able to get home early, but that is another story.

Wednesday dawned a cloudy, blustery, drizzly day, and it was still sprinkling as we drove the 6 miles out to US-66, and continued to sprinkle all the way to the I-40 entrance ramp.  We weren't expecting any precipitation Wednesday, but you know how those weather guessers can be, right?  The nearer we got to Prescott the fewer clouds there were, and by the time we arrived at Able Saw at 10:30 am, it was partly sunny.  The total cost to have the new pull rope installed, and three chains sharpened was $41.....way, way less than I was expecting.  I'm glad I had them install the new pull rope, as those things are difficult to install.

From there we headed back up Willow Creek Rd. to Sport Clips for my haircut.  I was lucky to find Marc, who cut my hair last time, was on duty, so I requested him.  Within 5 minutes of arriving I was in the chair getting my ears lowered.  Marc, last month, gave me the best haircut I've had in a year, and this time was no exception.  Next up was a stop at Fry's Supermarket for a small shopping, which turned into a large shopping foray.  We won't be able to head into Seligman for at least 10 days as we've got a lot of rain/snow coming, if the weather guessers are to be trusted, and we won't want to drive the roads for at least 2-3 days after, so it may not be until sometime next week that we shop again.

By the time we finished it was getting close to 12:30 pm, and we wanted to check out a 'food truck' court (Yard Gastro Park) we had seen when we were spending two nights at Hotel St. Charles back in mid January.....

The beer garden in the background

It was warm enough for a little alfresco dining

The BBQ place on the left, and hamburger place on the right

Fire pit

The only actual 'food truck' at Yard Gastro Park

....there are at least 7 food trucks there, plus a beer garden (not open in the winter), cornhole, and a firepit.  I'll bet this is a 'happening' place in the spring, summer and fall.  One food truck is Gringo's Taco Shop (picture 3 above) which we chose for our lunch.  I had their 3 beef Street Taco plate, and TLE their 3 chicken Street Taco plate.  Best Street Tacos since Rubio's Taqueria in Alturas!  There is also a coffee truck, a BBQ food truck, a hamburger food truck, etc.  We will be back.

Our last stop before heading home was COSTCO where disaster was narrowly avoided.  After checking out TLE left me with the basket and went to the bathroom.  While she was gone I was casually glancing over the receipt, and noticed she has erroneously bought two DECAF bags of coffee beans (Peet's).  If we had gotten all the way home before the error was discovered there would have been 'weeping and gnashing of teeth'....LMAO!  Instead, all we had to do was exchange the two DECAF bags for two NON DECAF bags.  Surprisingly, real coffee with caffein costs $1.50 less per bag!  We left the COSTCO parking lot around 2 pm, and were home a little after 4 pm...that was a longer than expected travel day!

We arrived home to the same sprinkles from early in the morning, and had to unpack the car in a slight drizzle, but at least we got home with real coffee!

Thanks for stopping by!