7:16 am - Monday - March 16th - TWW - 43° F, humidity 19%, cloud cover 21%, wind 6 mph out of the northeast.....mostly sunny today with a forecast high of 71° F. The view this morning....
....and on this date in 2017 TLE and I were staying a few days at the Pahrump, NV Elks Lodge....
....we were on our way to Las Vegas, NV to attend a college reunion. We stayed there twice that year.
Sunday we took another 1 mile out and back walk.....
......once again we average 2.9 mph. On a side note, the sun now rises at 6:42 am, and sets at 6:41 pm.....
Charles and Phyllis will be back at TWW on Tuesday so we needed to finish transferring as much water out of the lower tank into IBC totes as possible. Up until Sunday we had been using our 12 volt SeaFlo water pump to move the water, but running it continuously for 45 minutes runs the battery down quite a bit, and then it takes the rest of the day to recharge it. I had noticed a 120 VAC water pump in the CONEX that might be a good alternative, but it turned out one of the threaded nipples on the output side of the pump was broken, so I guess that is why it was sitting there unused....doh! Then I remembered seeing what I thought might be a water pump in the solar battery room, so I went to look for it, and sure enough it was an even bigger (1.5 hspr) water pump, so I took it out to the greenhouse where we were trying to fill both IBC totes.....
....once we were done filling that tote we began to water the two potato growing beds using the water from the lower tank. I'm not sure how much water is still in there, but has to be getting close to empty....I hope...lol!
Now that we have the 1.5 horsepower, 120 VAC pump we can retire the 12 volt SeaFlo pump. I really can't explain why I didn't think of this sooner, but I am a creature of habit, only changing habits when conditions demand it, and running our small 12 volt battery down so quickly made me consider other options. It takes much less time to set up this pump....we just plug it into the greenhouse outlet, connect two hoses (inlet and outlet) and flip the switch! Plus it takes about 1/2 the amount of time to fill a water tote as the 12 volt pump....the land provides!
After taking a midday break I spent time starting the Jeep again.....it started right up again, and idled wonderfully. Then I moved over to the tractor to service it (check oil, coolant, hydraulic fluid, etc.), then started it again without the aid of starting fluid. It always runs a little rough at startup, but smooths out within a minute, or so to a nice, steady diesel rumble. I also hit all the grease fittings to lube all of the moving joints on the loader bucket. While I was doing the service I decided the driver seat needed some shade. There is a roll cage of sorts, but no roof attached. I've got this piece of plywood (3/4") that has been sitting in the garage for a year unused, so I moved it over to the tractor, then found four hex bolts long enough to fasten it to the roll cage....
....we should be able to affix that plywood to the roll cage Monday morning, and then I will have shade when operating the tractor.
I finished drilling the four holes just after 4 pm, just as TLE came out to let me know dinner was ready, which turned out to be one of my favorite salads....crispy chicken salad with croutons, tomatoes, olives and lettuce.
Around 6 pm we headed to the 'sunset fire deck' to see what kind of light show the setting sun might provide us, and did we ever get a good one....
....the sun touched the western horizon around 6:30 pm, and then the light show began. The sunset continued to evolve for about 40 minutes until the grand finale (picture above), which was mesmerizing. Another great ending to another great TWW day!
Thanks for stopping by!
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