Fulltiming Road Runners

The days are going wayyyy too fast. It seems like we get breakfast, chores ‘n personal stuff done & it’s time to cook dinner and go to bed. My time with Mom is going way too fast. My brother will be here on Sunday to pick her up and take her home on Monday. *sigh* At least we have the hope of her coming back in Feb. or Mar.

We’ve had so much fun watching the birds in our yard. We’ve had well over 30 dove on the ground in the mornings. I’m still getting new birds in, which is very exciting for me. The latest being the female Ruby Crowned Kinglet.

Sandy came by yesterday to show me her latest knapping projects. She is one talented lady! I’m sure it isn’t all that easy…. I’ve been arrowhead hunting in eastern Oregon and from the shards, etc. we found, those Indians from days of old messed up a lot! She’s offered to teach me how to make trees from wires & I’m going to take her up on that offer. Of course, that means I’ll have to clean up a spot on my coffee table or kitchen table or kitchen counter, but I think I can manage it.

We had our “Introductory Meeting” with the BLM today. It was basically an informational meeting on what we, as volunteers, need to be/do/offer, and on the changes from last year, and the changes to come. I expect things to pick up at the contact station now. We see the LTVA’s getting busier and fuller every day.

We met a new couple yesterday in the same make and model of RV we have, only 1 year newer. We’ve had fun comparing and sharing.

Time to take my shower so I don’t chase the new campers away tomorrow at “work”. Toodles!

PS…. I’ve got a couple of pics, just no time lately to upload them. Maybe Sunday or Monday.

Yesterday and today were days that I particularly like. We got the chance to help some folks. I got an e-mail Friday from woman looking for her brother.  It seemed that he had dropped off the radar and she was concerned.  She found me through the datastorm users group and saw that we were working in Quartzite and thought we might be able to contact her brother.  We posted a note on a bulletin board at the entrance station and before the day was out in he walks. we gave him the e-mail from his sister and today I sent her a reply that all was well with her brother and he would contact her as soon a he could.

Ain’t the internet wonderful.

And today, with the help of another neighbor Bill, I pulled a neighbor off a hump he had high centered his car on.

Not a big deal but nice to be able to help someone.

Now if I can get the information put together and sent to My daughter that I promised she would get before we left on this adventure….

Thom

The pace picked up today (see yesterday’s blog), we registered 4 today.  hehe

It was wayyyyyy windy today but was warmer, still in the 60’s but felt warmer than yesterday.  We got to the “shack” this morning and Larry (camp coordinator) already had the heater going.  What a sweetheart!  Mom walked down this afternoon to visit a bit and then spent a good portion of the afternoon going down to the wash, gathering medium size rocks and lining our gravel pathways.  She never ceases to amaze me.

We had the last of our TG leftovers for dinner tonight.  We froze some so if we get a hankering for turkey & dressing before Christmas we’ll have it.

Going out to join the family at the fire now.  It really looks inviting.

We have gone from 15 degrees above normal temps to 10 degrees below normal temps.  It was cold today…. not warm yesterday, but near normal.  Today was down in the 60’s and normal is 70’s.  We also had pretty hefty winds this afternoon which made the temps feel even cooler.  Riding my bike to work this morning and back this afternoon was not especially comfortable, but the short trip was totally do-able.

We turned the heater on in the contact station today and when there was no-one around to watch, we fought over standing in front of it to warm up (Just kidding).  We only registered 2 today, but expect the pace to pick up rapidly now that Thanksgiving is over.

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving day and are able to still be thankful for all you have.

Our day was very very good…. with a minor little glitch.

We slept in until 8:10, got up, had breakfast, started putting dinner together. Got the 12 lb turkey in the oven at 10:45 a.m. and ran out of propane at about 11:45 (minor glitch). Thom was at South dumping the tank and I don’t know how to change tanks. I finally reached him on the cell phone and he was on his way back. Found that both tanks in the trailer were empty, so we drug the 100 lb tank over and hooked it up. In the meantime when I couldn’t reach Thom on the phone I turned on the Weber BBQ got it up to temp and moved the turkey to it. It wasn’t a big “Uh Oh”, but did postpone dinner about 45 minutes. After we got the big propane tank hooked up, I moved the turkey back to my oven.

Our next door neighbor planned on grabbing a sammich in town so we asked him to join us for dinner. He brought a pie called a “Pumpkin, Cheese, Pecan Streusel Pie” (YUMMMM).

Dinner was great! Everyone raved about Mom’s candied yams & my dressing.

It was cold today. Even sitting in the sun felt cooler than I like.

Got my shower tonight, going to work tomorrow and Saturday. I kind of worry about Mom being here by herself, but she’s quite self sufficient so she’ll do okay. I expect she’ll walk down to visit with us a bit at the registration shack. Heck… maybe she’ll do the dishes I’m leaving until tomorrow night. hehe

PS… Thom saw a Road Runner in our site yesterday.  He showed me the tracks.  He tried to get a pic with my camera, but it didn’t have a card in it.

It’s been wonderful having Mom here. Yesterday Mom and I took a walk in and along the wash, north to the power lines. I think that’s pretty good for an 83-year-old woman. We had dove and quail flying and running in front of us almost the whole way. We found a Mesquite tree at the edge of wash that had about 5 Verdin nests in it. I read that Verdins make separate nests for roosting and breeding and will make 4 to 7 nests in one year.

This is Mom’s 3^rd year visiting us while we are down here. Every year she finds a unique piece of quartz she takes home with her. She lives in Southern California.

Being here is so very good for her. She is able to totally relax and do whatever she wants, with no schedules. She’s already lost a dozen wrinkles!

Yesterday we did our Thanksgiving dinner grocery shopping at Safeway and Bashas’ in Parker. We came home by way of Mojave Rd (hwy 1) so she could see the difference between that valley and this one…. That one being farmed in alfalfa and cotton by the Indians.

Meals can get a bit boring here with one of us being allergic to beef and sensitive to pork (we eat pork anyway), and the other being diabetic which makes pasta not a desirable meal. Good fish is a rare find in this part of AZ so chicken becomes our mainstay. Today I decided to try to fix something different with the chicken so I’m cooking chicken & dumplings. Luckily, today was a very cool day so cooking inside is not a problem.

Tomorrow our Thanksgiving dinner will be roast turkey, dressing, gravy, candied yams and saute’d asparagus. Curt is doing a peach cobbler in his dutch oven. I’m lucky, my oven will cook a 12 lb turkey. (going to be cool day again)

Today was really quite cool. We woke up to 57F in the trailer and with the breeze it felt like high 60’s at the warmest today. Tomorrow is supposed to be a couple of degrees cooler and by the the weekend, highs down in the 60’s. Tonight we will have nearly all the windows closed to try to hold in the warmth.

It was cloudy all day with the clouds dissipating right around sunset. We got a pretty good one.

My brother, Russ, & Mom arrived just fine yesterday. Russ is leaving tomorrow, and Mom is staying a couple of week! Yay (for Mom’s staying, not Russ’s leaving)! I have to say, next to Thom, Mom is my bestest friend and we just talk forever when we are together. We love to go for walks together and watch for birds & other critters. I got my love for wildlife & nature from her & Dad.

Today Curt took her to church (they are of the same faith). While they were gone Thom and Russ got the black tank dumped, and I got a couple of loaves of bread baked. This time my bread turned out fantastic, so I can put the Australian Damper bread behind me and feel vindicated in my baking abilities.

Thom and Russ walked into KB Tools today. Thom bought that magnet he needs to pull the nails out of the fire pit.

All in all, it was a good day. Dinner was great…. BBQ’d chicken Breasts ‘n legs ‘n a wunnerful green salad along with sliced fresh baked bread.

Yep!  The banana cream pie was yummy!  The secret is to make your own pudding, not use a mix.

My days seem to be running together, I can’t remember what we did on Wed. and what we did on Thurs.

The other day we took a rectangular plastic tub about 12 x 15 and set it in the ground to put water in for the critters.  It only took the birds an hour or so to find it and be comfortable enough with it to use it.  We’ve had bunny, squirrel and kit fox tracks around it in the mornings.  Remember  I mentioned the march of the stink bugs way back when (also called Clown Beetle because of the way they stick their rears in the air when threatened)…..  They like our water and we’ve found 8 to 12 stink bugs floating, dead, in it each morning.   We dish them out and set them by the trunk of the tree next to the “watering hole”.  By the end of the day they are all gone.  When I looked the stink bugs up on the internet it said the Loggerhead Shrike (common here in QZ) eats them.  We figured that is the way they disappeared, but weren’t sure.  To find out for sure what’s happening, this morning I fished 10 stinkers out of the watering hole and put them in another tub so if they weren’t, indeed, dead, they couldn’t walk away.  It appears they create an air bubble and put themselves into “stasis”, then after they get out of the water one way or another (evaporation, etc), it takes time for them to come back to life, but come back to life they do!  All ten of those stinkers were walking around that tub.  I had Thom dump them out on the other side of the wash.  Maybe they will stay over there.

Yesterday we bought a rock rake and raked the bigger rocks away from the area I wanted to put my “patio rug”.  While Curt & Thom were dumping the gray tank I finished the rock raking and put the mat down.  I got it all snug and tight and perfect…….. all by myself!  I put it right where the dirt is the finest.  Hopefully it will keep the dust down a bit.

We worked all day today at the contact station registering new campers………. all 1 of them.  We work tomorrow too.  Mom and my brother are coming in tomorrow, so tonight we need to get the sheets on the hide-a-bed and I still have to do dishes.

Yesterday Phoenix area had some rain and the “storm” apparently  kicked up a big dust cloud that drifted our way.  We didn’t get big winds, but we sure got limited visibility and lotsa dust.  Here is a pic of the sunset…… no clouds, just dust.

Tonight when we got home from “work”, Curt had baked potatoes and foiled wrapped onion cooking in his dutch oven.  I just had to do the chicken to make it a meal.  Was his first time for potatoes and they turned out perfect.  It was very welcome.  Doing nothing all day at work is extremely tiring.

I’m not going to blog tonight…. just going to go have a piece of the Banana Cream Pie I made today and enjoy being decadent.

My server seems to be really slow tonight, so I’m not sure I’ll get this posted tonight…… at least I got the important stuff done, like banking! Not a lot to say anyway (& then she rambles on).

Yesterday was pretty quiet. I baked a loaf of Australian Damper bread - from a recipe I found online looking for “diabetic bread”. It’s a real easy bread to make, but I don’t think I’ll do it again. It has yeast and baking powder in it, regular flour, milk, salt, water and a tad bit of butter. You don’t let it rise before baking it. It turned out quite dense (which I expected) and tasted a lot like biscuits. Would be great with sausage gravy on it. Guess I’ll try potato bread next. It’s pretty low in carbs and something about having the potatoes in it keeps it fresh much longer than regular bread. Currently I’m still eating Damper Bread for toast & sammiches.

Both yesterday and today Thom rode his bike into town, for the exercise, and to see if there were any pallets at our secret supplier’s. There were two there yesterday and 1 today, so we went in to get them both days. You don’t dare leave the pallets sitting out at the vendors even if you do have an exclusive agreement. It’s almost like a game…. Who can get there first.

We went to get diesel in Ehrenberg today and to make it worth the miles, went into Albertson’s in Blythe to pick up some chicken breasts & legs ($0.99/lb), apples ($0.59/lb) & a few other things. Wish someone would tell me where I can get wild bird seed inexpensively.

Curt left today to go into Phoenix for a couple of days. He has membership in Gold’s Gym which is located in many cities, including Phoenix. He uses it on a regular basis to help control a medical condition he has. He hopes to get into Phoenix once a week or every other week to use the gym a couple of days. Using the gym like this and being careful with his diet keeps him off all the meds the Docs want him to take.  He said the thing he’s looking forward to the most is staying in the KOA and being able to take a shower for as long as he wants!

Think I’ll go join Thom at the fire until it’s time for the Dancin’ With the Stars results show. Isn’t it silly how one gets hooked on these silly shows!