A day of small accomplishments....

 7:54 am - Tuesday - March 10th - TWW - 38° F, humidity 48%, cloud cover 15%, wind 3 mph out of the south by southeast.....virtually clear skies today with a forecast high of 62° F.  The view this morning....

....and on this date in 2012 we had just reached South Padre Island....

....near Corpus Christi, TX on the Gulf of America.  We had been on the road for 40 days at the beginning of our nomadic travels....seems a lifetime ago.

TLE and I took another of our 1 mile out and back walks around 9:30 am Monday....

....we managed to average 3 mph for the walk.

You will recall I worked on the Jeep Sunday (cleaned the spark plugs, and adjusted the choke), but did not get the oil change done, so that was task #1 after we finished our walk.  It didn't take long to change the oil, and then it was time to reinstall its starter battery, and fire her up for the first time in 6 weeks, but she wouldn't start.  The Jeep has an after market electric fuel pump....you know, one of those that go 'clackity clack' when they're running.  I disconnected the fuel line from the carb, then turned on the ignition key to run the fuel pump.  Very little gas came out, so I checked the fuel level in the under seat tank....doh!  It was too low on gas for the fuel pump to pick up the gasoline, so I added 5 gallons.  Soon gas was coming out the hose, so I reattached it to the carb, then she started right up, and idled.  The problem then was you could not accelerate or the engine would die.  

By this time I had been at it for about 2 hours.  I decided the fuel filter must be clogged as the carb doesn't seem to be getting enough fuel to more than idle.  I believe the fuel filter is located under the Jeep under the passenger seat area, and that I would check that on Tuesday, time permitting.  Why time permitting?  Well, Charles and Phyllis will be arriving Tuesday for a three day stay, and we'll be devoting our time to them, and things they want to do around the property.

I took a short break for a snack, then headed back out with TLE to install 4 more security lights that we had just received last week.  We installed one on the roof peak of the garage....

....another one in the raised growing beds where the potatoes are growing.....

....one over the breezeway for the solar room....

....and one more on the west side of the house....

....we also put the metal cage back on the IBC tote located at the northwestern corner of the greenhouse....

....plus we moved the solar charger battery we used to power the diesel heater to the garage where we will set it up to power the 'new' chest freezer Charles and Phyllis delivered last week, but we cannot do that until we set up the new shelving unit Charles and Phyllis are delivering to us this week.  Once that is done we can finish organizing the garage, and set up the solar charger battery to power the chest freezer.  Also, I forgot to mention that on Sunday I closed up the 'dog door' opening on the dog kennel door....

.....by cutting a  piece of plywood to fit the opening.  The 'dog door' was allowing vermin to enter the dog kennel interior, and now that it is sealed I believe those incursions will cease immediately, if not sooner.  When we cleaned out the dog kennel last winter I left the door wide open hoping it would discourage the rodent population, but it did not, so now it must be cleaned once again.

We had planned to have another sunset fire, however, it was windy enough to discourage a fire.  The wind finally abated just after 7 pm.  I managed to finish another book Monday evening, and then caught up on a few more of the YouTube channels I follow.  We were in bed by 10 pm, and thus ended another great day at TWW.

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Natural rhythms......

 7:39 am - Monday - March 9th - TWW - 38° F, humidity 28%, cloud cover 9%, wind 6 mph out of the south by southwest.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 65° F.  The view this morning.....

....and on this date in 2025 we were digging out from our last snow storm of the season here at TWW....

....a year later we have clear, blue skies and temps in the mid 60's.  

With no winds, and a forecast high temp of 66° F Sunday I decided to work on our 1969 Jeep CJ-5.  The plugs needed cleaning, the choke function on the carb wasn't working correctly, and  the oil needed changing.  I bought 3 gallons of Rotella 10w-40 a few weeks ago....it came in a box.  By the time I figured out what was wrong with the choke and adjusted it properly it was after 1 pm, and I was tired of standing in the sun (I moved it out of the garage at 10 am where it was warmer), so I deferred the oil change to Monday.  I needed to transfer the new oil from the box to three one gallon jugs I've been saving for just this situation, so I did that, but called it quits for the day on the Jeep and pushed it back into the garage (I've got the battery on trickle charge in the solar room).

I spent another hour in the CONEX rearranging a few things on both peg boards (there is one over the workbench as well), and am now happy with the accessibility of all the tools.  I still need to go through a number of boxes on the other shelving unit, and then I should be done....at least until the next time....lol.

With no winds in the forecast TLE and I headed out to the 'sunset fire deck' to watch the sun slide towards the cloudless western horizon one more time....

...even when there are no clouds to be lit up by the setting sun it is still so serene, and peaceful.  We were treated to several glowing CONTRAILS, too.....it's like they are on fire.....

....and then the long afterglow lingering over the western horizon.....

....which lasted until almost 7 pm when we headed back indoors for the evening.  I love the natural rhythms of TWW....we wake up to the sun cresting the eastern horizon each morning as it lights up our front windshield, then watch it kiss the western horizon each evening, and in between do the things we want to do.  Talk about stressless living!

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A day off.....

 7:39 am - Sunday - March 8th - TWW - 32° F, humidity 19%, cloud cover 1%, wind 7 mph out of the east....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 66° F.  The view this morning....

.....and on this date in 2017 we had just arrived at Roy's Motel.....

.....and Cafe in Amboy, CA on Route 66 on our way to Tecopa Hot Springs, CA.

We were planning on taking a a day off work here at TWW on Sunday, but Saturday brought us winds over 20 mph beginning around 8:30 am, and continuing until after 6 pm, so we changed up our plan and refrained from work on Saturday spending a large portion of the day out of the wind.  I ventured out once early afternoon to check on charging power tool batteries in the CONEX, but that was it for me.  

We had ZERO cloud cover Saturday, and all three of our battery banks were at 100% by early afternoon.  The temp did finally get back over 50° F (all the way to 55), and from Sunday forward they will not dip below the low 60's for the next 15 days.  In fact, we will have at least 4 days in the 80's with lows in the 50's in the next 10 days.  Is winter over? I'm not sure, but the trend seems to indicate that.  For sure, no tears will shed here at TWW over that possibility.

We've gotten so used to getting up after 7 am each day this winter that I'm sure it will take some adjustment once we get back to LPG&RVR to getting up by 5:30 am half the time on the days we work, but that is still at least 7 weeks in the future, so I'll just continue to enjoy sleeping in until 7 am each day, or later, as the case may be.  Here at TWW sunrise is now 6:53 am, and sunset is 6:35 pm.  Today was the beginning of Daylight Savings Time, but since we are in Arizona ZERO clocks must be reset twice a year.....we are now on California time, and will be until late October.

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The CONEX conundrum....

 7:25 am - Saturday - March 7th - TWW - 32° F, humidity 30%, cloud cover ZERO %, wind 14 mph out of the east by northeast....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 55° F.  The view this morning....

.....and on this date in 2025 this was the view out the same window....

.....and this is what happens if you forget to stow the patio awning BEFORE the snowstorm....

....then when you try to rake it off with a leaf rake you pull your left shoulder and are in a lot of pain for a week....lol!

It was too cold Friday (high was 48° F) to spend much time outdoors , so I chose an inside job at which to spend a few hours. Continuing the reorganization of the CONEX interior into an actual workshop in which projects can be started and completed, instead of a pseudo storage area where some work is done from time to time, but you must work around a lot of construction supplies, and you usually must finish your project somewhere else due to lack of work space.  As you enter the CONEX there is a wall of peg board on the right (south side) which has never really been organized....

.....I spent the bulk of my three hour stint in the CONEX working on this wall (above) removing many random things hung there in haste, and reorganizing the space to be able to access the tools there easily.  With the removal of numerous items I was able to transfer tools, fasteners, etc. from the work bench surface making the top of the work bench visible for the first time in a year....

.....there were a lot of power, and hand tools on the workbench that moved to the 'new', unused shelving unit (just below the peg board) we moved to the CONEX from the garage on Thursday.....

....and soon the south wall of the CONEX had symmetry, and accessibility....a place for everything, and everything in its place....

....there is another shelving unit (out of sight in this picture) to the left of the peg board which needs my attention, and I hope to get to that Saturday.

Thankfully the breeze was blowing out of the north (the door to the right faces west) so no wind got into the CONEX.  Nevertheless, I wore my insulated jacket and gloves all day long.  I called it a work day around 1 pm after 3 hours.  Frankly, it didn't seem that much time had passed.  I love jobs like this, and have used my organizational skills numerous times like this at different workamping jobs.  Most specifically in South Lake Tahoe at Tahoe Valley Campground, and at Ramona Oaks RV Resort.  They both had CONEXs that needed my special skill set.

While I was occupied TLE did a couple loads of wash in the house.  Having access to a washer and dryer out here at TWW is such a blessing.  You will recall we had to go into Seligman to the laundromat a couple times per month to wash clothes last winter, which took away from time we had to work on the property.  Now we can wash clothes and still get work done.

I watched golf for a couple of hours, but around 3 pm TLE and connected all of our fresh water hoses together to refill our fresh water tank, and dump our black tank for the first time in almost 10 days.  By the time we finished it was close to 3:30 pm, and almost time for dinner.

And with that another TWW day came to a graceful conclusion.  A lot was accomplished resulting in big smiles of self satisfaction our collective faces.

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TLE's choice....

 7:28 am - Friday - March 6th - TWW - 27° F, humidity 27%, cloud cover 15%, wind 6 mph out of the north by northwest.....mostly clear, blue skies today with a forecast high of 48° F.  The view this morning....

....and on this date in 2014 TLE and I were attending a Spring Training baseball game.....

....at the Peoria Sports Complex between the San Diego Padres and the Texas Rangers in Peoria, Arizona.

Thursday dawned breezy, and bitter cold with a forecast high of just 50° F (it got to 51...lol).  Charles and Phyllis were packing their truck to make the drive back south to Phoenix, and were on the road sometime after 8:30 am.  After saying our 'until next times' we headed back into the warm confines of our 1982 Newell Classic, determined not to reemerge until around 10:30 am.  It was just too cold to be outdoors.

TLE was in charge of work assignments on this day, and she advised we would be reorganizing the two car garage where we keep the Jeep, our chainsaws, and wood splitter, as well as two shelving units full of stuff we do not wish to haul north and south with us anymore.  This is how the garage looked just after we rolled our 1969 Jeep CJ-5 out of the garage to begin our work day.....

....and this is how it looked 3.5 hours later.....

Everything on the existing 2 shelving units is now much more accessible!

We actually did get the Jeep back in the garage...we had to move the insulation board to do so

....we pulled everything off the two shelving units, moved almost everything else outside, and then moved the now empty shelving units a few feet to the right to make room for a third shelving unit we just purchased off eBay.  It was delivered to Charles and Phyllis' home down south while they were here this week, so they'll bring it back with them when they return next Tuesday.  We're about half way done with the reorganization, but once we have the new shelving unit the 2nd half will go quickly, and the garage will be much roomier, and useable.  The insulation boards you see stacked on the ground in the above picture above will be installed in our cedar shed in the next few days, so they are not long for the garage.  It did not seem like we had worked 3.5 hours, but then you look at what we accomplished it is obvious it took a while.

By this time it was 2 pm, and the winds were freshening again making the outdoors very inhospitable once again, so we put away everything, and headed indoors to watch some PGA golf on the Golf Channel.  This week is the Arnold Palmer Invitational at in Orlando, Florida (Bay Hill Club and Lodge).  The winds began to abate around 5 pm, and by 7 pm it was only slightly breezy.  Facing a forecast low Thursday night/Friday morning of 26° F we had to run both heaters in the greenhouse, and we had to turn our ceramic heaters in the water bay on once again for a couple of nights at least.

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Much accomplished....

 8:05 am - Thursday - March 5th - TWW - 39° F, humidity 31%, cloud cover 21%, wind 9 mph out of the west.....mostly clear skies today with a forecast high of only 50° F.  The view this morning....

....and on this date in 2017 TLE and I were boondocking at Rock House Road....

....near Borrego Springs, CA.  The natural beauty of that Clark Dry Lake Bed Valley is always breathtaking!

I was in the middle of composing my latest blogpost Wednesday morning when TLE surprised me with the first harvest from our greenhouse....broccoli!  We're going to consume it....

.....Thursday evening as part of our dinner.  This is another landmark point at TWW....we're about to eat something we grew right here on the property!

TLE and Phyllis were busy early Wednesday moving, and consolidating rock piles to another part of the property.  You will recall the large pile of rocks we had by the water tower....

....and how cluttered the area still looked even after cutting out the dead pinion pine tree....now it looks like this.....

The consolidated rock pile on the east side of the property

 ....while they were thus occupied Charles and I moved and connected up the two additional 400 watt, bifacial solar panels we used to use for Phyllis' Newell to the other 8 in the field behind the barn.....

.....now there are 10.  After that he and I transferred a few hundred gallons of water from the lower water tank to the upper one using one of the two Predator motorized water pumps we have at the property.  I also put out the awning mat which goes with Phyllis' Newell, so now the move is complete...

....Charles and I moved a lot of construction supplies (2 x 4's, roofing, siding, etc.) out of the CONEX to the barn which will be used in future construction projects yet to be started, so now there is much more room in the CONEX.  We'll be adding adding another shelving unit to the south wall of the CONEXT to hold all of our corded and cordless power tools, of which there are many now.

In the afternoon TLE, Phyllis and Charles went through several bins of stuff they brought from Texas which held hundreds of dollars of almost new contractors extension cords, pigtails, power strips, etc. to sort them out, and determine what to keep....we kept it all.....

We put the cords, pigtails, timers, power strips, etc. in the solar room

There were two reciprocating saws (one corded and one cordless), and a Skilsaw, and a corded 1/2" drill

....we put the power tools in the CONEX, and the cords, timers, pigtails, and power strips in the Solar Room behind the CONEX.  By the end of the day there was nothing left behind the trailer...

....everything had been inventoried and put away for future use.  It is amazing how much can be accomplished with four people!

We met in the house for dinner at 4 pm.  Charles grilled hamburgers and served us potato salad he had made, so it was a Charles dinner beginning to end, and it was good!  We were going to have another sunset fire, but the wind freshened significantly enough to change our minds.  We're entering a two day cold snap here at TWW where the day time highs will barely reach into the 50's, and the overnight lows will be in the low to mid 20's.  After that it warms quickly into the 60's and 70's again.  Right now the day time highs in Phoenix are in the 90's, so we're enjoying the much cooler temps here at 5,500' elevation.

Thanks for stopping by!