Twenty-nine days.....

 7:32 am - Monday - March 23rd - TWW - 49° F, humidity 16%, cloud cover 26%, wind 3 mph out of the east by southeast.....mostly sunny today with a forecast high of 81° F.  On this date in 2017 TLE and I were on a hike with my son Chris, and his wife Rochelle.....

....to the top of Mt. Rubidoux in Riverside, CA.....has it really been 9 years?  The view this morning....

....yeah, we finally deployed the window awning for the salon....the sun is that high in the sky now!

We were up early Sunday, and by early I mean 6:30 am, which is early for us in the winter.  We usually avoid being out of bed before 7 am, but we wanted to get an early start on getting another load of water for TWW.  We thought we needed just one more 1,870 gallon load of water to mostly fill the two 2,500 gallon tanks in the water tower.  We believed there were at least 1800 gallons in there, since we had added 330 gallons Saturday to what we thought was at least 1,500 gallons.  At any rate we were on the road to the water station around 8 am.  We arrived around 8:30 am, just before a long line developed.  By the time we finished filling our tanks the lineup was 7 vehicles deep.  Had we been just 10 minutes later we would have been behind a 5,000 gallon water truck, which takes about an hour to fill....we know, we've been behind him before....lol.

We were home before 9:30 am, and began to fill the upper 2,500 gallon tank.  We figured it would take around 7-800 gallons to top off the top tank, then  the rest of the water would go into the bottom tank, but we were way, way WRONG!  The top tank took all 1,870 gallons, and was still not full....doh!  Were we ever off in our guestimation!  It till take another full load to finish the top tank, and partially fill the bottom tank, which means we were down to about 3-400 gallons of water....plenty of water to be sure, but way less than we thought we had.

After finishing the water project we took a break at the glass picnic table in the middle of the circular driveway, then went over to Phyllis' Newell to deploy the patio awning for the first time since she bought it in November of 2024.  As you will recall, I cut back a few branches from the tree which borders the RV site to be sure the awning could be deployed, but still wasn't sure there was enough room, so this was the proof of concept moment....

Just barely enough room....lol!

TLE and Phyllis enjoying the glider

....there was just barely enough room to deploy it, but it was perfect!  By early afternoon Charles and Phyllis were making the drive back south to Phoenix.  They'll be back again Tuesday.

After their departure I poured more diesel into the tree stump to burn it down some more, then headed inside to watch a few more March Madness games.  The biggest news of the day basketball wise was #9 seed Iowa defeating #1 seed Florida (Gators) for the first really big upset of the tournament.  The other games went as expected, with several being one sided blowouts.  My UCLA Bruins went down in flames to UCONN, losing in the end by 16 points.  The game was actually pretty close until the last 8 minutes....UCLA was down by just 4 points at the time.

Our time is short here at TWW with just 29 days remaining in our sojourn.  So much to do, and so little time remaining.  We're beginning to get that 'hitch itch' again, and soon it will be time to begin putting away our stuff, and preparing the trailer for VW insertion.  For the third day in a row I'm wearing a t-shirt and shorts first thing in the morning, and the heaters have been off for at least 30 minutes.  Usually they run until after 9 am, or later, but now they're off by 8 am, or earlier.

Thanks for stopping by!

Hauling water.....

 7:13 am - Sunday - March 22nd - TWW - 48° F, humidity 15%, cloud cover 65%, wind 3 mph out of the east by southeast....cloudy skies today with a forecast high of 80° F.  On this date in 2025 Charles and I had finished applying the first coat of pain in the greenhouse, which use to be green....

.....a second coat was applied at a later date using an airless paint gun....much, much faster!

We haven't been to the water station in at least 6 weeks, and with the bottom tank at the water tower now empty, and just a thousand gallons remaining in the upper, as well as just a 1,000 gallons left in the 2,500 gallon tank we use to irrigate the orchard it was time to make a water run.  All four of us were in Charles and Phyllis' Ford truck hauling the water trailer 8 miles to the water station around 9 am.  As you know we can haul 1,870 gallons at a time in 6 IBC water totes affixed to the trailer, so this would be the first of two trips to the water station this week.

We were back at TWW around 10:20 am, and began refilling the 2,500 gallon tank out by the orchard.  It took 5 of the 6 IBC totes to top it off, and then we moved over to the water tower to pump the remaining 330 gallons into the top tank.  We'll return on Sunday to the water station to secure another 1,870 gallons of water which should come within a few hundred gallons of refilling those two tanks.

By the time we had discharged the final 330 gallons into the top tank it was noon time, and time for our midday break, so we all convened at the glass picnic table in the middle of the circular driveway.  Where we have the picnic table is perfect, because it is shaded by the surrounding juniper trees 90% of the day.  

We spent part of the afternoon unloading plywood, 2 x 6's, 4 x 4's, and 2 x 4's to be used in future projects, then analyzing the reason the barn roof is leaking, and how to fix the problem.  We had basically determined previously that there was a low spot in the roof about half way between the CONEX and the north end of the barn.  That is where the metal roof panels overlap.  Using a level we determined the water was pooling right at the seam which runs from east to west on the barn top roof.  Normally, if the roof were sloped properly for its entire length, the water would just run off the north end of the barn roof, and there were be little, if any leaking, but with the low spot right were the load bearing beam is situated allows the pooled water to seep through the seam.  The solution is to jack up that load bearing beam, and install a couple of 4 x 4's, cut to the appropriate length eliminate the low spot, and allow the roof to drain properly.

By the time we finished it was after 1:30 pm (we had worked 4.5 hours) and time to escape the 85° F high of the day.  I spent the rest of the afternoon watching March Madness, while TLE read.  Texas (#11) managed to upset Gonzaga (#3) to advance to the Sweet Sixteen 74-68 in a very exciting game.  Most of the other games saw the favored teams winning handily.  UCLA plays their round of 32 game Sunday evening, so we'll see if they are up to advancing to the Sweet Sixteen.

We convened at the house for dinner around 4 pm, and were treated to scrambled eggs and hashbrowns by Phyllis and Charles.  Who doesn't like breakfast for dinner?!

Thanks for stopping by!

The hot one!

 7:39 am - Saturday - March 21st - TWW - 52° F, humidity 13%, cloud cover 19%, wind 4 mph out of the southeast.....mostly sunny, blue skies today with a forecast high of 85° F.  On this date in 2015 TLE and I were enjoying a sunset fire.....

....at Lone Rock, UT (just north of the Arizona border on the shores of Lake Powell).  The view this morning....

We enjoyed a somewhat relaxing day Friday.  Our main goal was to finish draining the water from the bottom tank before Charles and Phyllis arrived late afternoon.  We were sure it was almost empty....maybe 100-150 gallons remaining, so we refilled the IBC water tote on the southeast corner of the greenhouse, which we had used to water the potatoes Thursday.  When we turned off the pump there was still water in the bottom tank, so we began filling 5-10 gallon water containers TLE uses inside the greenhouse to water the plants (cabbage, cauliflower, onions, broccoli, etc.), and just we finished the final container water stopped coming out of the water pump, but we weren't done.  There just wasn't enough natural water pressure left in the bottom tank to push water uphill to the greenhouse.  We decided to just water the juniper trees across from the water tower, and within 20 minutes the flow stopped completely....finally it was empty.

It was still pretty early in the morning, maybe around 9:30 am, so I decided to bore those holes I mentioned yesterday into the stump from which I cut the 5' tree trunk on Thursday.  Once that was done I filled all five holes with diesel, then lit it.....

.....it burned just like I thought it would, and continued to do so all day, and into the early evening.  It's not done yet, so I'll add some more diesel on Saturday, and light it again.

Friday was another hot day (our hottest since we arrived back in late October) with the high temp getting to 90° F.   The interior of the Newell remained pretty comfortable until around 1:30 pm when it began to get very warm.  We had all the windows open, something we haven't done for months, and the roof top vent fan running to vent hot air out the roof.  Running our A/C off our Bluetti battery bank is not an option as it would deplete it too quickly.  Those AC's are 44 years old, and draw lot of amps.

Charles and Phyllis arrived around 4:45 pm.....we had already eaten at 4 pm knowing they would be arriving near 5 pm, so we spent an hour, or two inside the house, where it was quite comfortable (that house is very well insulated) until almost 7 pm talking about life, and what they wanted to get done this weekend.

By the time we returned to the Newell the UCLA March Madness game had just 5 minutes remaining with UCLA up 9 points over UCF.  They hung on to win by 4 points, so they will play in the 2nd round of 32 on Sunday afternoon.  I don't have high hopes for them, but they are playing their best basketball of the season right now, so who knows, right?  That's the whole point of March Madness....anything is possible.

Thanks for stopping by!

Felling the tree, at last.....

 7:38 am - Friday - March 20th - TWW - 51° F, humidity 10%, cloud cover ZERO %, wind 4 mph out of the east by southeast....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 89° F.  The view this morning....

....and on this date in 2017 TLE and I were in Death Valley.....

.....at the Furnace Creek Inn...it was a very warm, and windy March in Death Valley that year.

TLE had amassed another burn pile over the past couple of weeks on the south side of our EcoWorthy Dual Axis solar tracker, and Thursday morning promised to be almost windless, so while she lit the fire, and began tending to her burn pile I started up the Ford 420 diesel tractor to create another burn pile.  Last winter we had cut a lot of branches off juniper trees just to the south of the current burn pile and drug them out of the area we've been clearing for over a year now.  Later we added some rotten wood to the pile that was next to the garage, but never burned any of it, because the pile was too close to several juniper trees.  In order to burn that stuff I needed to move it with the tractor out to a clearing even more south of its current location....

....it used to be in the foreground of the picture above, but is now moved to an area where it can be burned, maybe next week.  It took less than 15 minutes, and then I was onto the next project....cut down that tree on which we have been whittling since last winter until there was just this 5' tree trunk left.....

.....I've been wanting to finish the job for several weeks now, but there was always something more important to do, however, Thursday the wait was over.  I wanted to cut if off as close to the ground as possible, which is a fine notion, but way harder to do than you might think. It took me the better part of an hour, but in the end I was successful....

The tree has been felled

At its base the trunk was about 18" thick

....next I'll bore some holes in the stump, pour in some diesel, and see if I can burn it down to ground level.

TLE's burn pile took the better part of the day to burn down as we kept adding more branches to it including branches I trimmed from the tree next to Phyllis'  Newell so we can extend the patio awning in the near future....

I'm hoping I've trimmed enough now to open the patio awning....we shall see

....but it did eventually burn down.  By early evening it was time to douse what was left with water, and call it good.

Thursday was also the beginning of the round of 64 in this year's edition of March Madness.  By Friday evening there will be just 32 teams left in this single elimination tournament.  As always there were several upsets, and I expect there will be more by Friday evening.  We watched games until after 9 pm before calling it another day at TWW.

Thanks for stopping by!

PO run.....

 7:14 am - Thursday - March 19th - TWW - 45° F, humidity 11%, cloud cover 2%, wind 5 mph out of the east.....mostly clear blue skies today with a forecast high of 88° F.  The view this morning.....

...and on this date in 2012 TLE and I were visiting the 'Big Easy'.....

Enjoyed the World War II Museum quite a bit

Riding the trolley line down St. Charles

.....aka: New Orleans.  Bourbon Street was a bit of a let down.  Strip Clubs outnumber music venues 2-1, and the aroma in the air smelled like the water coming out of my gray water tank...lol.  We did, however, enjoy our day in New Orleans.

We had an number of packages, plus mail to retrieve from the Post Office in Seligman, so even though we were just there 5 days previous we took the day off, and headed into town around 11 am.  I picked up a few items at the General Store (hardware store), and then it was off to the Post Office where we picked up a new Breville for TLE, and a medium sized electric jack hammer for moi.  The Breville (toaster oven/convection oven, etc.) gave up the ghost after 6 years of faithful service.  The jack hammer is to break up some large rocks right at the entrance to the road which takes you to TWW.  They're just too big for a pry bar, and pickaxe, plus it will come in handy when we have to dig post holes around the property.  We've got that nasty caliche rock about 12" down, which this jack hammer should go through like a warm knife through butter.  After another quick stop at the Family Dollar we headed for Highway Hot Dog to have lunch....

Alfresco dining at its best

Didn't realize the building occupied by Highway Hot Dog began its life as the Pioneer Hall & Theater

....I had their 'Smash Burger' with fries, and TLE their Pastrami Hot Dog.  We ate alfresco on this 85° F day, because here is not much that is more enjoyable than eating good food outdoors, in the shade on a breezy, balmy day.

After lunch we headed over to the Seligman Grocery,  then made another quick stop at the 76 Station to top off the Explorer fuel tank (we actually added just 6 gallons to get it back to 1/2 full....not sure if we will use that much gas in the next month before we leave), and then it was time to head back to TWW where we arrived without incident around 1:30 pm.

It was too late to begin any projects so we unloaded our purchases from the Explorer, and headed into the cool confines of the Newell for the rest of the afternoon.  We'll install the new Breville Thursday, and check out the new jack hammer, too.

Thanks for stopping by!

What if the worst happens, and you are not prepared?

 7:32 am - Wednesday - March 18th - TWW - 50° F, humidity 13%, cloud cover 6%, wind 5 mph out of the east.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies this morning with a forecast high of 85° F.  The view this morning....

....and on this date in 2025 TLE and I were in Yuma, AZ at one of our favorite.....

....micro breweries....Prison Hill Brewing Company.  Love those deep fried avocados!

According to 'online sources' Tuesday was a 'high pollen' day here in the high desert, and TLE and I would both have to agree it was.  After a short foray out to the greenhouse we were both blowing our noses, and sneezing.  TLE's allergic reaction to local flora is much worse than mine, so while she remained indoors for most of the day I spent time in the morning watering the 8 trees Phyllis had planted here two winters ago.....

.....three of the trees have really flowered over the past 2 weeks, while the others are putting on green leaves.  We water the 'orchard' from a 2,500 gallon water tank using gravity.  It takes about 30 minutes to complete the watering process, and I only do it when Charles and Phyllis are not here.  Usually they would have arrived here Tuesday, but they have a lot of business to take care of around Phoenix this week, and won't be here until Friday, or Saturday, so it fell to me to do the deed.

After I finally got our 1969 Jeep CJ-5 running again the other day I noticed how dusty she was getting, so after turning off the irrigation water at the orchard I started her up, quite easily I might add, and drove her over to a shady area by the circular driveway to vacuum, and wash her.  Tuesday was the hottest day we've had in quite a while, topping out at 80° F, and while that is not what I would call HOT, when you've been used to temps in the 50's and 60's for weeks on end it 'feels' HOT.  It took me about 90 minutes to detail the Jeep, but it was well worth it to see her smile again.....

.....I haven't really spent a lot of time driving the Jeep since I bought it back in October of 2024, mainly because it was so hard to start, and always seemed like it was not getting enough fuel.  I don't think I've put more than 50 miles on her odometer in 16 months.  Over the time I've owned it I have been tinkering with the fuel system, where most of its issues lie.  Initially, I found a leak in the fuel line under the floor boards that was difficult to get at, but eventually spent he better part of two days last winter tracing the leak, and repairing it.  I had to remove both front seats, and the gas tank under the driver's seat to fix it, and reinstalling the fuel tank, and driver's seat took hours.  My main purpose in buying her, and this may sound odd to some of you, was in case we are ever hit with an EMP (Electric Magnetic Pulse), which can be man made (detonation of a nuclear device high in the atmosphere), or natural (caused by a 'mass coronal ejection' resulting from extremely high sun spot activity).  An EMP will render all modern vehicles built after 1970, or '71 completely inoperable as the EMP fries the circuit boards in everything.  In fact, everything that has a circuit board (cell phones, appliances, TV's, radios, computers, etc.) will never work again.  The same goes for our 1982 Newell....no computers...the engine is completely mechanical, so it will run even after an EMP.  It is also why I bought the 1969 Chevrolet Tilt bed truck last winter.  There are no electronics in it, so if the worst happens we will be able to haul water to the property with it, if need be.  For the present the Jeep and Chevrolet tilt bed will be used strictly in, and around the 40 acres which comprise TWW.  Neither is licensed, or registered, but if the world as we know it comes to an end it won't matter, will it?  I hope it never comes to that, and if the worst never happens the small amount of money we have spent buying them will have all been worth it, if only for the peace of mind owing them provides.

I finished with the Jeep around 2 pm, and even though I was in the shade the entire time, my energy reserves were drained, so I headed indoors to cool down.  The Newell interior was delightfully cool on this 80° day.  

I checked the propane level in our large stand alone propane tank and found it was only down to 55%, and it has been 5 weeks since we last had it filled.  Normally, we would have a delivery every 4 weeks, but it appears we will not need a delivery now until early April.  Not having to use the Predator 5000 dual fuel generator much over that time span is the main reason.

Tuesday was also the start of 'March Madness' with the first two games of the 'First Four' being played.  Wednesday the remaining 2 games of the 'First Four' will be played, and thus the final 4 spots left in the tournament will be filled.  Thursday the tournament will begin in earnest with the first 16 games of the initial 32 being played to whittle down the field from 64 teams to 32 by Friday night.  Then on Saturday and Sunday they will further whittle down the number of teams from 32 to the 'Sweet 16'.  That is a lot of basketball in 6 days!

Thanks for stopping by!

The last of the road work?

 7:28 am - Tuesday - March 17th - TWW - 47° F, humidity 22%, cloud cover 16%, wind 6 mph out of the northeast....mostly sunny today with a forecast high of 79° F.  The view this morning....

....and on this date in 2017 TLE and I were enjoying a Pahrump, NV sunset....

.....from the RV section at the Pahrump Elks Lodge.

We're getting more consistent with our daily walking....well, almost 'daily walking'....probably more like 4 out of every 5 days we walk.  Monday we completed our 17th 1 mile out and back walk here at TWW.....

....and managed to break the 3 mph barrier for the first time in a few tries.

Before we did any work on the property Monday TLE helped me attached the new roof to the Ford 420 roll cage.  I figured it would take about 15-20 minutes, but I am often wrong in these matters of work time estimation.  It took more like 45 minutes to an hour, but it turned out better than I expected.....

....we've been working on the entrance road to TWW on and off for several weeks now, but it was still in an unfinished state Monday.  We had laid down some crushed lava rock we found on the property in an area which used to get very muddy after rain, or snow.  Unfortunately, we began to have issues with the Ford 420 tractor, which stalled work there, and even after we managed to get the tractor running again had to finish the RV site for Phyllis' Newell, then other things got in the way.  Well, Monday TLE decided we should finish the job, so we did.  Here is what that section of road looked like before we finished it....

Before.....

....and here is what the finished product looks like after 2.5 hours of work....

.....after

TLE took these shots of me compacting the repaired section with the Ford 420

.....we finished the work on the road around 1 pm....in this final push to finish the road we spent another 2.5 hours, but the end result was well worth the effort.  Oh, and by the way, the tractor continues to purr like a kitten.

Later in the afternoon I returned to the roof of the CONEX to reattach a few guy wires which broke loose when the wind blown solar panels (we repaired that last week) hit them.  I needed a few things to reattach them, which I purchased at the General Store in town when we were in town last Friday.  Once again, I thought it would take about 10-15 minutes, but an hour later I had barely finished....

....reattaching them.  These guys wires stabilize the pole holding the wind turbine, which came with the property.  It is not connected to anything right now, but we hope to do just that in the near future.

By the time I put away my tools used to reconnect the guys wires for the wind turbine it was well after 3 pm, and almost time for dinner.  We ate around 4:15 pm....TLE made steak sandwiches with the left over beef tenderloin from two nights before.  So good on sourdough bread. It was a little windy as the latest sunset approached, so we decided to forego a sunset fire, but I did walk out and take a couple of pictures around 6:30 pm for posterity's sake....

....our time here at TWW this winter is quickly fading into the rearview mirror, and within a month we will be on our way back to Likely Place Golf & RV Resort for our 5th summer.  So much left to do in such a short period of time, but we shall proceed with style.

Thanks for stopping by!