Next time ask TLE first....lol!

 7:51 am - Friday - December 5th - TWW - 22° F, humidity 37%, wind 2 mph out of the east....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 51° F.  On this date in 2019 TLE and I were in Riverside, CA.....

....attending the Festival of Lights at the Mission Inn.

Thursday morning we recorded the lowest low so far this winter....22° F.  The ceramic heaters we installed in the water bay, and the shed did their job keeping the temp in the mid 50's, and they don't use as much power as I thought.  Once they warm up they consume around 100 watts each.

The outdoor temp didn't reach 40° F until around 11 am....needless to say, but I'll say it anyway, we didn't do much outdoors before noon time.  Thankfully, there was no wind, so as long as one was in the sun one was comfortable.  Once one stepped into the shade the temp seemed to drop 15°.  

Since we left TWW last Wednesday to drive down to  Phoenix for Thanksgiving we have accumulated a lot of clothes in the laundry hamper, so around 10, or 11 am TLE headed into the house to do a few loads.  Once it was warm enough for me to work outside I spent the day taking care of a lot of little things like rerouting the solar, and charger lines in the house battery compartment so they go through the floor enabling me to now completely shut the bay door.....

The grounded charger cord (charger at the top of the picture) 

going through the floor now.

The old hole I drilled years ago has the positive and negative

 solar lines running through it now

Now I can shut and lock the battery bay door

....I already had one hole in the floor I cut back in 2021 to run some LED lights off the batteries, but I needed a much larger hole for the battery charger cord (grounded) to fit through.  Specifically I needed a 1" hole saw to cut the new hole.  While the actual job of rerouting these cables took about 5 minutes, I spent 30 minutes looking for the 1" hole saw....lol.  I forgot TLE and I had packed the box with my hole saws in one of our suit cases we store in the through bay.  It wasn't until I had exhaustively searched the trailer, garage, and CONEX several times that I finally asked TLE if she remembered what we had done with the box.....of course, she did, and I had the 1" hole saw in my hands within 60 seconds....LOL.

I did a lot of other small things throughout the afternoon like start our 1969 Jeep CJ-5, start up the Yamaha Rhino which hadn't been started for over a week, check the engine bays in Phyllis' Newell for mice, and found that we had caught two (one on each side), checked our engine bays for caught mice, and there were NONE (those new solar LED rope lights are doing the job!), reinstalled the solar porch light on the underside of the patio awning (we stowed the awning when we went to SoCal, so had to remove the light), and I know there are other things I did, but don't recall at this time. 

Around 1:30 pm we drove over to Dawn, the egg lady's off grid property to buy 4 dozen eggs.....love those unwashed, pasture raised chicken eggs!  It's always nice to chat with Dawn, and her husband Matt to catch up on the local happenings (she moderates a Facebook group for this area).  Their property is around 2.5 miles, as the crow flies, from our property, and it takes us just 10 minutes to get there.  They have a nice park model home, with a separate large metal garage (about the size of ours). They raise goats and chickens, and have a well established water catchment system catching rain water, and snow melt off the garage, plus a large solar array.  And just like TWW, they have to haul in their water.

By the time we returned it was getting close to 2:30 pm, and the warmth was leaving the air quickly.  I spent a little time in the trailer moving a few things around for easier access, but by 3:30 pm I was back inside the warm confines of the Newell, signaling the end of another TWW day.

Were at the beginning of a week long, clear, blue skies stretch so solar charging will not be an issue.  For the third day in a row our house batteries got back to 100% further proving the need for the extra solar panels on the roof of the trailer.  That extra 300+ watts of solar power are the difference between only getting back to 90%, and getting back to 100%.

Thanks for stopping by!

For the first time in 6 years......

 7:53 am - Thursday - December 4th - TWW - 21° F, humidity 47%, wind 5 mph out of the east......crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 47° F.  On this date in 2012 TLE set up our first nomadic Christmas tree in the Newell.....

....while we were in Campbellsville, KY working at Amazon.

It's been over 9 months since my last dermatological examine at Northern Arizona Dermatology, so I arranged for an appointment about a week ago for 11:15 am Wednesday.  Snow was forecast for the Flagstaff area Wednesday, so we got an early start to be sure we had time to account for possible snow and/or construction delays, of which there were none.  We were passing through the gate of TWW around 8:20 am, and by 8:45 am turned right on Route 66.  Our estimated ETA for Flagstaff was around 10:26 am.  

As we gained in altitude we began to see snow on the side of I-40.....

.....and by the time we were 10 miles out it was snowing.  We actually arrived in Flagstaff around 10:20 am, so had time to stop off at the local NAPA automotive store to buy some starter fluid, which we use to start our cold blooded Ford diesel loader with gannon. 

We arrived without incident at Northern Arizona Dermatology around 10:30 am, and by 10:50 am were called back to the little room.  For the first time in 6 years I had NO biopsies required, and just one tiny spot on the back of my right hand frozen....about the size of a small button.  Ryan advised he doesn't need to see me for another 12 months....the best news of all.....

Looking out of the waiting room window 

at Northern Arizona Dermatology

....by the time Ryan Wood (PA) finished his examination it was 11:15 am, the time of our original appointment.  Sometimes it pays to arrive early to a doctor's appointment.  Being called in early is certainly a rare occurrence, but so nice when it happens.

We headed back down the hill to Fry's Supermarket (Kroger) to do a medium shopping, then over to the Fry's fuel station to take advantage of our 20 cents/gallon off points.  We were on the road home by 12 pm.  It was still snowing the first 10 miles westbound on I-40, but after that the sun made an appearance, and the snow stopped.  We arrived back at TWW at 2 pm without incident.

We'll get back into the 50's by Friday, and back into the 30's for low temperatures each day by Sunday.  Our brief cold snap is coming to an end...thank you Jesus!  We decided to run the catalytic heater in the greenhouse on low all night Wednesday night.  The low got to 21° F, and the little catalytic heater kept the greenhouse interior at 27° F....it was over 32° F for much of the night until about 3 am when it  dipped below 30...don't ask me how I know.

Thanks for stopping by!

The planned and the unplanned.....

 6:55 am - Wednesday - December 3rd - TWW - 33° F, humidity 49%, wind 3 mph out of the south by southwest......partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 44° F.  On this date in 2012 TLE and I were walking home from the night shift at Amazon.....

....in Campbellsville, KY.

Tuesday began with mostly clear skies, but by 2 pm the clouds had rolled in again, and the temperature dropped.  First thing Tuesday (first thing meaning around 10 am) Charles and I worked on fixing a slow leak in the pump house (water).  Over the course of an hour, or slightly more we managed to reduce the leak to a drip every 2-4 minutes, which is much more manageable than 60 drips per minute.  Why the temporary fix?  Well, the plan is to install a much bigger expansion tank in the pump house making it necessary to enlarge the pump house.  The materials have been purchased, but we are waiting for Charles' handyman, Matt, to have time to come up and build the enlarged area.  In order to the leak we will need to remove the plumbing from the pump, which is a big job, so we'll do it all at the same time.  In the interim, the problem has been somewhat abated.

Before I arrived on the scene Charles had moved the painting tables, and firring strips into the greenhouse where it would be significantly warmer enabling us to paint everything in one day, and it worked quite well.  By early afternoon all sides of the firring strips, and 2 x 4's had been painted, so in the next few days we'll begin the finishing touches on the greenhouse.

Recently I bought a new battery for the 1969 Chevrolet C50 tilt bed truck, and wanted to put the receipt, and warranty into the truck glove box.  When I went to open the passenger side door I discovered the button you depress to open the door had become dislocated again....doh!  You'll remember I had to fix this problem right after we bought the truck last winter.  Anyway, a simple task of putting the battery receipt in the glove box turned into a 40 minute project in which I had to remove the door card, which is complicated all by istelf, in order to fix the problem. Finally, with TLE's extra hands I got it fixed.

By that time the aforementioned clouds had rolled into TWW, and our work day was over.  I put away my tools, and headed back to the Newell to take a nap before dinner at 4:30 pm.  Phyllis had made Turkey Tetrazzini from leftover Thanksgiving turkey with some leftover cranberry sauce.  Combined with the wonderful turkey/cranberry sandwich TLE made the other day for dinner that makes 3 meals we've had from that one turkey.

I put one of my temp sensors in the greenhouse Monday night, and the temp got down into the 20's, which is what we expected.  In order to grow things in there this winter we're going to have to use a heater at night.  Charles had brought a propane catalytic heater up to TWW last winter for use in the battery room, but it turned out we didn't need it.  It's not very big, but Tuesday night we set it up in the greenhouse to see how warm we could keep it.  On low the temp was dipping into the high 30's, so I turned it up to high and was able to keep the inside temp at 47° F all night long....as I write early Wednesday it is still at 44.7° F (coldest before the dawn, right?).  

Tuesday ended up being a day of planned and unplanned tasks, but we got it all done.  As I was walking back to the Newell from the greenhouse I observed the end of what must have been a pretty sunset....

....so I captured a few pictures to memorialize it, and was surprised at how well they came out.

Thanks for stopping by!

Road work.....

 7:56 am - Tuesday - December 2nd - TWW - 28° F, humidity 36%, wind 5 mph out of the east by southeast.....mostly sunny today with a forecast high of 53° F.  On this date in 2024 TLE and I were enjoying a sunset at TWW....

....we've been remiss in doing that this year.

We were expecting Charles and Phyllis to arrive between 2 and 3 pm Monday, and with lots of sun, and no wind was the perfect day to get a lot of small things accomplished.  First up we needed to unload the firewood from the Yamaha Rhino we had cut the previous day.  With all the wood we cut the previous two days we were able to fill the wood box on the deck, and the box inside the house.

Once that was done I headed over to the Ford diesel tractor to get it started, and warmed up so we could do some road work on the connecting road to the house.  You will recall that there is a 75 foot section that has a low spot, which collects water when we get a lot of rain.  It was all torn up from people driving through it after the week long rain event.  My plan was to use the gannon to drag dirt from both sides of the low spot to raise up the low spot, then smooth it out with the bucket, and rakes, and finally drive back and forth over it to pack it down....

.....TLE took a couple of short videos while I was compacting the dirt.  In all it took less than an hour to get it looking good again, but we still need to put more dirt in that low spot.

When Charles and Phyllis were here before Thanksgiving they brought a load of firring strips, and 2 x 4's to be used to finish off the greenhouse, but due to all of the mud they drove through the wood got quite muddy, so TLE and I pulled them out of the CONEX, and placed them on the painting tables (I wrote about that yesterday).  Before we can paint them we needed to remove the mud, which was now quite dry.  The only thing that worked was using a wire brush to remove the mud, and it worked quite well.  After all of the boards were clean I used compressed air to blow all of the residual dirt off them, and the tables so we can paint them Tuesday.

Additionally, we finally moved the wood pallets, upon which the wood had been delivered, over to our 'pallet' area, rolled up all of the long garden hoses which had been in use over the past few weeks, moved some more wood we had cut a couple of weeks ago in another part of the property into the wood box, lit the wood stove in the house so the house would be warm when Charles and Phyllis arrived, moved more wood over to the cutting/splitting area near the Eco Worthy dual axis solar tracker to be cut and split at a later date, moved the saw horses over to that same area to get the wood off the ground, making it easier to cut, moved the portable fire pit over to the 'sunset deck' (FINALLY!), and checked the fluids in the tractor adding some hydraulic fluid for the first time since last winter.

I was just adding more wood to the wood stove when Charles and Phyliss arrived around 2:30 pm, and with that we were done for the day.  We had dinner around 4:30 pm which featured scrambled eggs with salsa, and hash browns smothered with leftover Thanksgiving gravy....YUM....

.....we love sharing dinner with Charles and Phyllis, and, as always, the conversation was wide ranging.  With that another TWW day came to and end.  

Thanks for stopping by!

One out of two....

 7:46 am - Monday - December 1st - TWW - 30° F, humidity 41%, wind 7 mph out of the east by southeast.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today (a rarity lately) with a forecast high of 51° F.  On this date in 2021 TLE were boondocking 8 miles out of Borrego Springs, CA.....

.....we lit up our boondock site with solar lights.  When driving home at night from Borrego Springs it was so DARK we needed these lights to show us where to leave the highway to return to the Newell.  The view this morning....

We had very low ambitions Sunday, and just two goals: 1) Get the painting tables out of the CONEX, and place the new supply of firring strips on them to be painted when it got warm enough...

....and 2) Cut and split some more firewood for the wood stove in the house.  Well, we got the tables out, and the firring strips laid out to paint, but it never got warm enough to paint them.  It began as a sunny day, but by noon time clouds began to roll through the area, and the wind speed increased, meaning the temp never got much over 50° F, which is not ideal for painting.

We did, however, manage to cut and split enough wood to fill the Yamaha Rhino dump bed one more time....

.....so that's two loads of wood in the last couple of days.  As expected, the Stihl chainsaws worked flawlessly.

By 2 pm it was getting quite cold outside, so we called it quits for work Sunday, heading into the warm interior of the Newell for the balance of the day.  Of course, Sunday means NFL games.  The highlight of the day football wise was the miraculous victory by the Denver Broncos who won a thriller in overtime 27-26 when the Washington Commanders (used to be Redskins) failed to make a 2 point conversion, which would have given the Commanders the victory by a point.  That makes 9 consecutive games won by 3 points, or less....the most in NFL history.  The Broncos are tied with the Patriots for the best record in the NFL at 10-2.

We're in for a 5-6 day stretch of lows in the 20's overnight, and an even longer stretch of highs in the 50's.  There may be one day in the 60's, but that's it.  The connecting road to the property is finally drying out so we can go out and fill in the low spot with dirt, and smooth out the large tire ruts.  TLE and I remain in good health with just the aches and pains of advanced age being our only complaints.  We are loving our second winter here at The Wilson Wilderness, and are excited to be able to begin to use the greenhouse for its intended purpose.

Thanks for stopping by!

Proof of concept.....

 7:42 am - Sunday - November 30th - TWW - 38° F, humidity 50%, wind 8 mph out of the south by southeast......clear, blue skies today with a forecast high of 56° F.  On this date in 2021 TLE and I were boondocking 8 miles outside of Borrego Springs, CA.....

....just off S-22, and about a mile north of Rock House Road.  These drone shots will give a little perspective to our location.  Although we are just 100' off the highway, it is not a very heavily traveled highway, and at night there is pretty much ZERO traffic.

Saturday was another nice, sunny day at TWW....the kind of day where you can get a lot done, and we did.  I had two goals for the day: 1) Finish hooking up the portable solar panels I placed on the roof of the trailer to provide extra solar charging for our house battery bank, and 2) Cut more firewood for the house. 

First up was to connect the trailer solar panels to the house batteries.  As you know, we have 620 watts of solar panels on the roof of the Newell, which we tilt toward the sun, and they are connected in parallel.  I had initially connected the trailer solar panels in series, but the Victron charge controller (30 amp) put out an error message saying "over voltage".  I discovered this issue just before we left for Phoenix last Wednesday.  Apparently the series connection provides too much voltage, so Saturday morning I wired them together in parallel, and it worked!  Below are screenshots of the Bluetooth display for the panels on the Newell roof (first), and the display for the trailer panels (second).....

Newell panels (tilted)

Trailer panels (flat)

.....as you can see, the tilted panels on the Newell rooftop are generating more power right now than the flat mounted panels on the trailer roof at 8:05 am Sunday morning.  Ultimately, the sun is up high enough the Newell panels will put out around 500 watts, and the trailer panels will put out around 275 watts for a total of almost 800 watts.  Now that the 'proof of concept' has been confirmed I'll permanently install the new Victron charge controller in the house battery bay, but that will be a few days from now.

Next up TLE and I pulled the wagon with our chainsaws, and related tools, over to the two trees next to the Eco Worthy Dual Axis solar tracker to begin whittling them down a little more, and produce some more firewood for the wood stove in the house.  Our goal is to cut them down to ground level, but that will take a while.  We cut off enough wood off the dead juniper on the left  to fill the Yamaha dump bed twice over, but only managed to split about half of it Saturday..... 

Both trees are almost down to the ground

Before

Now

....we finished splitting wood around 2 pm, and we were ready to be done for the day.  The chainsaws are working great, by the way.  We've got about 5 piles of seasoned wood to cut, and split now, so we'll let those two trees alone for a while until we get those piles of wood split, and stored

We spent about an hour on the 'lido deck' relaxing, and cooling down before heading indoors....well, I should say I....TLE was inside within 30 minutes.  After a hot shower it was time for an afternoon nap, and a little NCAA College Football.  My USC Trojans managed to win their annual rivalry game against UCLA.  UCLA played SC tight in the first half, but the Trojans pulled away in the second half, winning 29-10.

Thanks for stopping by!

Three day recap.....

 7:20 am - Saturday - November 29th - TWW - 34° F, humidity 46%, wind 4 mph out of the southeast.....partially cloudy today with a forecast high of 59° F.  On this date in 2021 TLE and I were boondocking 8 miles outside of Borrego Springs near Rock House Road....

....we spent around 5 weeks at this spot.....daily temps in the 70's.  We sat outside on the 'lido deck' for hours each day reading.

As you have probably noticed I have been AWOL for over three days.  I will attempt to catch you up on the happenings in our life in one blog post, so here we go.

Wednesday - November 26th - The day before Thanksgiving:

Before we headed south to Phoenix to celebrate Thanksgiving with Charles, Phyllis and their extended family we had a few things left to do at TWW.  I had washed the VW a day, or two earlier, but still needed to vacuum, which I had not done for far too long, remove the dead battery from the Champion 7.5 kw generator to exchange it for a new one, get the Igloo ice chest in the car as we would be going shopping before returning to TWW, then lock up everything before we left (house, CONEX, Phyllis' Newell, the garage, the shed, the trailer, the Rubbermaid box in which we shelter the Bluetti AC200P solar charger, all of the storage bins on our Newell, and finally the Newell itself).  By the time all of this was accomplished it was 11:45 am, and time to get dressed, stow our travel bags in the VW, and hit the road.  

We were in the Beetle by 12:10 pm, and on our way south.  The distance to Charles and Phyllis' home is around 185 miles, and takes about 3 hours and 15 minutes depending on traffic.  We made one stop in Ash Fork (intersection of I-40 and Arizona 89) to top off the VW tank.  From there we headed south on 89 to 89A, which took us to I-17 southbound to Phoenix.  We arrived at their home around 3:30 pm without incident....just the way we like it.

Our niece (Charles and Phyllis' daughter), Christina, and her daughter Malena (Mălēna) had driven up from Tucson, where they live, for Thanksgiving.  We haven't seen them since May of 2020 when we were in Flagstaff, where they used to live.   We spent the afternoon talking, and catching up with their lives.  Their other daughter, Heather was also there to great us, so it was like old home week.  I don't think we've seen Heather for at least 7 years, so it was good to spend time with her, also.

Thursday - November 27th - Thanksgiving Day:

As is our habit we slept in until after 7 am Thanksgiving Day.  I usually don't sleep well the first night in an unfamiliar bed, but I actually did this time.  Go figure.  Christina (who was a barista in another life) took our coffee orders and quickly delivered them.  I had an Americano with steamed milk, which is the best one of that description I've ever had!  She hasn't lost her touch.

The rest of the family was not slated to arrive for Thanksgiving dinner until after 1 pm, so I watched some NFL football, and read until it was time to get out of my pajamas and get dressed for dinner.  The expected family members began arriving just after 1 pm.  There was Christina, Malena, Heather, Ron (husband), MacKenzie (daughter), boy friend Dillon, Sean, Dawn (Heather's daughter), and their son Mason, Georgia & Becky (Charles' sisters), Richard (son of C and P) and Patricia, Richard's wife.  In all there were 17 of us at the table....

  

....we ate on the backyard patio.  The outside temp was in the mid 70's, just they way they like it in 'The Valley of the Sun'.  Of course, as is the case with most large families, there was non stop conversation.  Eventually, following dinner we broke up into smaller groups and continued conversations.  Ron, Dillon and I watched the Cowboys (at home) defeat the K.C. Chiefs 31-28 in a back and forth game.  By 6 pm pretty much everyone had headed for home leaving Charles, Phyllis, TLE & I, Christina and Malena.  It was good to spend time with Phyllis' side of the family.

Friday - November 28th - Black Friday: 

TLE and I were up a little earlier Friday morning in anticipation of beginning the return drive to TWW.  Christina was our barista once again, and by 8:30 am we were dressed, packed, and saying our 'until next times' to everyone.  We made a quick stop at the local Fry's supermarket (Krogers) to do our weekly grocery shopping, and on our way home by 9 am.  Once again the drive back was uneventful.  We made another stop in Ash Fork to top off the VW tank (we'll be heading back to Flagstaff next Wednesday for my annual dermatological appointment), then stopped off in Seligman to have coffee at The Commodore, then across the street to Highway Hot Dog for for a scoop of their delicious ice cream, then drove the final 25 miles back to TWW where we arrived around 1:30 pm without incident.

I remembered last night that I had not yet provided pictures of the new rope lights, so here you go....

....for solar rope lights they are pretty bright, and should do the job in helping repel the constant onslaught of the local rodent population.

Thanks for stopping by!

Another productive day!

 7:54 am - Wednesday - November 26th - TWW - 38° F, humidity 40%, wind 8 mph out of the south by southeast......partially cloudy today with a forecast high of 60° F.  On this date in 2024 TLE and I were assembling our new cedar shed....

....at The Wilson Wilderness.  We were able to get it about 75% finished the first day, and finished it the next.

With another sunny day in store TLE and I were excited to get back outside and accomplish a few things.  It's pretty cold outdoors until around 10 am, so that is when we usually start working.  On this day I needed to apply the mouse attractant to the 30 some odd mouse traps and redeploy them between the two Newells.  It was the perfect job for early morning to sit outside in the sun getting the traps ready to deploy.

Next on my list was to start the Jeep CJ-5 for the first time this winter.  When we left last Spring I put Stabil in the fuel tank and ran it for a sufficient amount of time to circulate it through the fuel system.  Then I removed the battery and connected it to a trickle charger in the battery room for the house.  It took a few minutes to get fuel up to the carburetor, but it finally started and ran well.  Next up will be to take it for a drive.

By this time it was around noon time, and time to fire up the Ford tractor and drag the entry road to the property, which got chewed up pretty nicely by us when we returned from SoCal, and by Charles and Phyllis when they arrived Wednesday, and left Thursday morning.  It's all flat again, and looks pretty good.....

....once that was done I needed to move the 1969 Chevrolet C50 tilt bed over to the CONEX to add air to the left front tire, and then do a little driving with it that included moving the flat bed trailer Charles uses to move things from Phoenix up to TWW.  I had washed the mud off of it on Monday, and it was time to move it to the back of the property where it is normally parked when not in use.  This is the first time I've tested the new hitch I had installed last winter by Bryan.  Everything worked as it should, and after a lot of maneuvering in tight spaces got it moved, and parked.  I then brought it (Chevrolet C50) back to the garage and parked there so I can begin to work on the rear brake, and running lights.

And with that I declared our work day done at 3 pm. Before heading back to the Newell for the evening I closed up the CONEX, garage and trailer.  After a couple of weeks of getting virtually nothing done due to our SoCal trip, and then the incessant rain after we returned, we've gotten a lot done the past two days, and it feels good.

Thanks for stopping by!

Unforced errors.....

8:14 am - Tuesday - November 25th - TWW - 35° F, humidity 46%, wind 3 mph out of the east.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 59° F.  On this date in 2021 we were just sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner with family and friends...... 

.....as the sun set over Ocotillo Wells....there was a lot of dust in the air from thousands of side by sides.

After four days of being 'cabin bound' we finally had a day with no clouds, no rain, and no wind.  We were both eager to get outside and get a few things done.  If only I had kept it to a few....lol!  By the end of our work day (around 5 pm for moi) I was running on fumes.  But I get ahead of myself.

I cannot remember in what order it did the following things, but this is what I did:

1 - Gathered all of the mouse traps we deployed over the past year, and found that between Phyllis' Newell and our Newell we had 30 mouse traps!  I wanted to soak them in a bucket of soapy water to clean them, then fill their individual reservoirs with 'attractant', then redeploy them.  In in collecting them I found there were 6 mice which had been terminated since the last time we checked.  I managed to get them washed and dried, but will have to add the attractant Tuesday before redeploying them.

2 - Reinstalled the Jeep battery, but didn't have time to start it

3 - Deployed the new solar rope lights I purchased off eBay (pictures coming)

4 - Took the Toro blower over to the garage to blow out the rain water which had gotten under the garage door (used the Champion 7,500 kw generator to power it).

5 - I'm going to install a rain gutter on the shed to catch the rain water, but there isn't enough room between the edge of the metal roof and the door to install a regular rain gutter, so I'm going to have to cut a 1" x 6' piece of PVC pipe in half (length wise) to catch the rain and transfer it into a barrel.  I spent time finding out what the land could provide and found what I needed.  That project will be for another day.

6 - Install the four jack stands I use to stabilize the trailer when we are parked for more than a week.

7 - Rewash the VW Beetle to get the last of the mud off before our trip down to Phoenix for Thanksgiving with Charles and Phyllis.

8 - Wash the flat bed trailer Charles and Phyllis use to move things between Phoenix and TWW....

....it was really filthy!

9- Clean the spark arrestor on the Predator 5000 dual fuel generator, which I believed would take less than 30 minutes, but while unscrewing one of the two bolts which hold it in place I dropped it into the bowels of the generator necessitating the removal of the side panels, so I could remove the rear panel to get at it.  30 screws later, and over an hour later I had the rear panel removed (with TLE's help, and suggestions) and retrieved the bolt.  Every time I thought I had found the last bolt, there would be another, and another, and another.  From there it took less than 5 minutes to find that bolt, then remove the other bolt, clean the spark arrestor, and then begin the reinstallation of the 3 generator panels.  That took another 30 minutes.  I thought I would be inside taking a hot shower around 3 pm, but that didn't happen until almost 5 pm.

10 - Just as I was closing up the trailer for the night I discovered the Eco Worthy solar tracker had not returned to its overnight position (flat), so I spent another 30 minutes figuring out why it wasn't getting 12 volts to the controller.  Apparently when I was installing those four jack stands I needed to move the 12 volt line which powers the solar tracker, and in so doing caused it to pull out of the connectors where I spliced two lines together.  Once I discovered my error it took about 10 minutes to fix it.  

So, a lot got done, but two unforced errors added two hours to my day.  As I finally staggered into the Newell to remove my work clothes I was out of gas.  I took a longish hot shower, took some Tylenol, put on my pajamas, and settled into my recliner for a nap.  By 8 pm I was beginning to feel myself again.  In all I worked 7 hours with only a short break around 1 pm....two hours too many....lol!

Thanks for stopping by!

Cabin fever?

 8:12 am - Monday - November 24th - TWW - 37° F, humidity 59%, wind 2 mph out of the south by southeast.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 57° F.  On this date in 2017 I took a 7.1 mile round trip hike on the Grandview Trail at the Grand Canyon....the trail was extremely steep, and treacherous.....

The arrow indicates my destination, and turn around point....Horseshoe Mesa

Back at the parking lot after 3.5 hours of hiking....I was gassed

.....TLE began the hike with me, but did not like the condition of the trail, or its steepness....most of the hike the gradient was over 10%, so I did the hike solo.

For the 5th straight day we had rain, but it was over by 9 am.  The skies remained heavily overcast for much of the day, only beginning to clear near 4 pm.  It was too cold to do anything outdoors, so TLE and I spent the day indoors once again.  I hate to admit it, but we are beginning to get a case of 'cabin fever'.  On a positive note, relief is near.  As I write Monday morning there is not a SINGLE cloud in the sky, and there is no wind.  The view this morning.....

.....due to the lack of any sun to warm up the Newell we had to keep cycling the gas furnaces on and off throughout the day to keep it comfortable.  We both spend a lot of time reading with NFL games being played in the background.  My L.A. Rams won the night cap handily 34-7, and it wasn't even really that close.  They now have the best record in the NFC at 9-2.

Our Eco Worthy Solar tracking system finally tilted toward the late afternoon sun shower, but only for about 20 minutes.  We did have an interesting sunset....

Looking south

Looking west

....we really need to get out the stainless steel portable firepit, and be outside for the sunset.

According to the two week forecast for this area we will not have any rain during that duration, which takes us into the first week of December, but the overnight lows will be heading for the high 20's in the not too distant future.

Thanks for stopping by!

A new record....

 7:27 am - Sunday - November 23rd - TWW - 43° F, humidity 76%, wind 2 mph out of the south by southwest.....heavily overcast this morning, but sun is promised by early afternoon...the forecast high today is 54° F.  On this date in 2021 TLE and I had just arrived at Ocotillo Wells for Thanksgiving.....

The next day

....several of our kids, in-laws, friends, etc. would be arriving the next day.  Our assignment, from my son, was to secure an area for about a dozen RV's.  The view this morning....

When I left off in yesterday's post about Friday I wondered if we could get through Saturday without rain, and we almost did.  At 11 pm, as I was going to bed, it began to rain, and as I write this morning (Sunday) it is sprinkling.  That makes it 4 straight days it has rained here in the high desert somewhere between Kingman and Seligman (elev 5,500').  Going back to when we were in SoCal it has rained 7 of the last 8 days here at TWW....a new record (for us).

We awoke Saturday to blustery winds, high humidity, and cold temps (high 30's).  It was pretty obvious to me that we would be spending a good portion of the day indoors.  The only thing I did outdoors Saturday was to retrieve the Honda EU2000i from the garage to recharge the Bluetti AC200P solar charger battery that powers the trailer.  With virtually no sun the past week the battery had discharged to a point where it powered off itself.  It took a little less than 4 hours to get it back to 100%.  This is the first time this winter we've had to employ the Honda to recharge this battery.  Hopefully, by Sunday, we'll have enough sun to keep it charged via solar input only.  

Other than that TLE and I spent the day indoors reading, and watching college football.  Sadly, my USC Trojans (#15) were not up to the task of winning over the Oregon Ducks (#7).  They made too many mistakes, and lost 42-27.  

All of our off grid systems are working well, but we've had to run the Predator 5000 dual fuel generator longer on the days when there is NO sun, which has been the case pretty much every day since we returned from SoCal.  Things are supposed to return to 'normal' Sunday afternoon, and we should be able to resume working around the property once the ground gets somewhat dryer than it is a present.

Thanks for stopping by!