Fulltiming Road Runners

I love Thanksgiving… even when I get to do ALL the cooking.  Actually, Curt bought a pie, so I didn’t have to make dessert.  But……  I’m ahead of myself.

Night before last it rained a little, but not enough for my weather station to measure it.  We went to work yesterday, but only had to work 1/2 day because of the holiday.  It started raining in the morning while we were still at work and rained off and on all morning.  It got serious in the early afternoon.  From the beginning of the rain through last night we got a total of 0.77 inches of rain.  That’s really quite a lot for the AZ desert in the winter, the get most of their rain in the late summer, early fall.

Yesterday I watched a stream of water come down the wash behind the trailer.  It was only about 2 ft. wide and 1 inch deep, but was fun to watch it crawl to and behind the trailer.  I thought of it as a “wannabe” flash flood.  As soon as it quit raining, the water in the stream seeped into the ground.  The rain was wonderful, even when we had to be out in it, getting wet and cold.  our world is now clean and crisp  ‘n smells so nice.  I’m always amazed at how dusty it is out here until the rain comes along and washes off all the trees.  They really are more green than smokey colored.

I got up this morning at 8 a.m. (slept in) and immediately had to get busy.  First things first… make our coffee.  After the coffee was done, it was time to start putting the dressing together.  I had the turkey in the oven by 10:00 a.m. and it was done by 2:00.  It was a yummy dinner, ‘n now I’m stuffed ‘n not sure if I want a nap or a walk.  Prolly ought to take a walk to bring my blood sugar down after all those carbs.

Tomorrow is my last chance to get the house ready for Mom’s visit.  Looks like I’ll be inside all day.  That’s okay, it’ll be worth it.  I should have done more today, but it seems I couldn’t break away from the kitchen long enough to accomplish anything.

I got a phone call from our friends Melani and Kirk.  They are just beginning their full time experience.  They decided to move into their new RV and get everything figured out, as well as bills paid off before retiring and hitting the road.  I’m hoping they are still planning on coming to visit us this winter.

My mind just went blank, so all those wonderful things I was going to share with ya’ll will have to wait until my two brain cells start moving again.

Ya’ll stay healthy ‘n happy.

Tah!

We have 6 days before we get to go pick up Mom and bring her back for a week, but we effectively only have 3 days to get ready for her.  Tomorrow we have the nearly all day orientation with the BLM, so because we are off work at the contact station tomorrow, we will be working on Tuesday and Wednesday.  That means we only have today, Thurs. and Friday to get organized and read to go get Mom.  We’re going to be leaving early in the Morning on Saturday.

I sure wish we could recruit 4 more people to join the ranks of volunteer at the contact station so we (Phyllis ‘n Larry ‘n Thom ‘n I) didn’t have to fill in on Wednesday and Thursdays.  Anyone reading my blog staying in La Posa North and want to have a great time meeting new people and learning bunches about our BLM lands and the desert?  Please?!!

I woke up this morning with a nasty sinus headache… could barely move my head.  I got my Flax Seed headache pillow and put it on my eyes for about 1/2 hour.  It got rid of the headache, but now it’s back with a vengeance.   I don’t know what it is about Flax Seed, but it has all kinds of wonderful properties.

The other day the gal we got Willow from inadvertantly called me, thinking my number was the number of a person interested in adopting Willow’s brother.  Our friends and fellow volunteers really like Willow so I called Jana to see if the other person took the dog, he didn’t.   I called our friends and told them he was available and it appears they adopted him.  It’ll be interesting to see Willow and her brother together.   When I get a chance I’ll take a pic and show you her brother.

I guess I better get busy.  I have to make a big coleslaw for the potluck tomorrow after the BLM meeting.  I don’t know what we’ll do with Willow all day.  I hate leaving her in her carrier that long, even if it is quite roomy.

Ya’ll stay healthy ‘n happy!

Toodles!

The guy down the road who was life flighted out of here is home and okay.  Apparently he didn’t have a heart attack, but some kind of chemical reaction that produced the same symptoms of a heart attack.  We are so very relieved he is okay!

Night before last I went out to start the BBQ and it wouldn’t start.  Didn’t even hiss with the gas going thru the regulator to the burners.  *sigh* The regulator isn’t working.  Thom went all over town looking for the right regulator and couldn’t find a thing.  I cooked the hamburgers on the stove… not even comparable to BBQ’d.  And we so seldom do beef of any kind, it was a real disappointment.  Yesterday we went into Blythe to the big ACE hardware store and even they didn’t have the size regulator we needed, so as a last resort we went to K-Mart.  They didn’t have the regulator, but did have a Kenmore BBQ at a very good price, so we drove the car home, took the truck to Blythe to haul the BBQ with and bought it.  We’re definitely keeping the Weber.  One day we should be able to find the right regulator and I will have two BBQ’s to cook on.  I LOVE that Weber.  Tonight I did our first dinner on the Kenmore and after I managed to learn the settings, it turned out okay…. only a couple of crispy spots.

We’ve learned Willow is a chewer.  She now gone through 2 halters (at a cost of $15.00 each).  She doesn’t like the straps across her chest so in idle moments she’s not so idle, and she chews those straps in two.  From now on we are going to use just a regular collar and if she pulls too hard and chokes, sobeit, maybe she’ll learn manners on a leash.  The book my son sent me says to use a choke chain, they learn quickly with them.  To be honest, Willow has learned quite well to not hit the end of the leash at a full run…. unless she’s chasing a grasshopper or squirrel.

It’s time for me to go shower.  I was going to do it last night, but we misjudged the level in our gray water tank and Thom filled it up with his shower.  Ummm, we even had standing water in the shower.  We’ve never done that before in all these years of RV’g.  I think I’m going to start logging the dumps so we have a better idea of when to do it again.  Of course, the sensors on the tanks are totally worthless, as most of you know.  We dump them to totally empty and the gray always reads either 3/4 or full, the black always reads full.  We do it “by guess and by golly” on the gray and by shining the flashlight down the toilet on the black.

Ya’ll stay healthy ‘n happy!

Tah!

Time flies down here in retirement land.  I can’t believe it’s been 5 days since my last post.  We haven’t really done much between then and now, so where’d the time go?

Since Willow is getting settled in and less demanding of my time, I was able to get back to work on my beaded American Goldfinch.  I finished it yesterday.  This being my first attempt at the Goldfinch, I’m sure I’ll be making changes in the pattern for my next one.

We just watched an ambulance & EMT vehicle come in, drive past us and go to the motorhome of some people we know down the road from us.  They are just passing acquaintances, but out here in this BLM LTVA community, you feel like you are all family (granted, the BLM LTVA family has some skeletons too…scarey ones!).  We sincerely hope everything will be okay, and it’s nothing serious.

We are going to go to Wildomar, CA on Nov. 29 and pick up Mom to bring her back for a week.  Even Mom is disappointed that Sandy and Bob aren’t here this year.  Actually Mom didn’t get to meet Bob, but she thought the world of Sandy.  We’re going to leave the birds home and take Willow with us, so it will have to be a one day turn around trip.  It’s only about a 3 hour drive one way, so it won’t be a hard day.  Maybe when we take her home the next weekend we can spend a night and get to see my brother Ed, his wife April and their 3 kids (who are almost all grown up).

We haven’t heard yet when Russ will join us, but I’m betting it will be by the end of the year.  He’s anxious to get here.  I told him he HAS to be here by Jan 12th.  We’re buying him a ticket to go see the New Christy Minstrals.  They will be back this year.  They put on such a great show last year.  It was amazing that they even came to this little town last year and even want to come back this year.  The price has gone up $2 for tickets, but heck, where else can ya get concert tickets for $12 each?!

I found a pattern for a beaded snowflake.  It is about 1″ across.  They’re really fast to make and I think will make a cute addition to all of we RVer’s tiny Christmas trees.

A friend of the folks down the road the ambulance stopped at came by and told us the man was transported by ambulance to the life-flight helicopter and taken to Yuma… heart attack.  His wife is being driven down by a friend.  Apparently she called the gentleman who stopped here.  He stopped wanting to know if we knew how long ago they’d left.

I have a dog training book to read and snowflakes to make, so I better get off the computer and do other “stuff”.

Ya’ll stay healthy ‘n happy!

Tah!

I’ve got dishes that need to be done and a shower to take, but I’m retired… I can take my time!

Today I went in to the Gem Club to take the Casting class.  Come to find out it was the 3rd of 3 and I hadn’t been able to go to the first 2.  Luckily, I was the only one there so dear Tad took me through the first two and I hope to be able to get Phyllis to fill in for me for an hour ‘n 1/2 at work so I can go in for the final pouring of MY casting.  Since the first part of the project only took about 45 minutes and I’d mentioned to Tad that I’d love to make something from Chrysacola (turquoise like stone), he found me a small chunk of it and turned me loose in the lapidary shop.  I don’t know if he was trying to teach me a lesson (discover the properties of the stone before working with it), or if he thought I could handle it, but Chrysacola is a tough stone for a beginner to work with.  It’s soft and fragile.  By the time I got a workable cabochon out of it, it was about 1/3 the original size.  At the end, with the final polish, I managed to break a small chunk out anyway.  I learned I need to work with sturdier stones until I know what I’m doing and unless I can learn to work magic with wire wrapping, I didn’t get a “cab” worth more than a reminder to set my sights a bit lower.

Larry and Phyllis had to go out of town this week so Thom and I worked on Wednesday.  Tuesday was Veteran’s day so several campers came in on Tuesday, parked and came to the contact station on Wednesday to register.  We weren’t busy like we’ve liked, but we did 9 registrations.

Yesterday we went back in to Lake Havasu.  We’ve been looking for a used motorhome to buy and found one last week that was a tremendous buy.  It is a 1996 Fleetwood Bounder 38Z (38 ft).  We made the offer and put in our application for loan.  We drove the motorhome back to Quartzsite yesterday.
I bet ya’ll are wondering what the heck we, who own a high end 5th wheel, want with an older motorhome.  The motorhome is parked next to our area and my brother, Russ, will join our “lifestyle” when he can get things taken care of and organized… probably sometime in December he’ll move into it.  We will be having lots of company this winter and since Russ is just one person, the motorhome will also be a place our family and friends can stay.  Our 5er is nice, but not a lot of room for company.  There are lots of options for down the road when it’s time to leave Quartzsite and we’ll decide later what road to take then.

Our little Willow is doing wonderful.  She’s learned her name.  She’s really smart and has learned several limits… as in, how long her tie down chain is, how the retractable leash sounds when it’s coming to the end, and how far my patience goes.  She almost never jerks at the end of the leash or tie-down chain anymore, therefore isn’t coughing and gagging now from collar choke.  She almost never jumps up on Thom anymore and though she still jumps on me some, she’s beginning to learn I mean business when I say no or down. Thom appears to be alpha dog and I come somewhere between him and her.

Sorry I’ve not got pics to share.  It appears our motorhome shopping and our Willow have taken so much of our time we haven’t done hardly any of the normal “stuff” retired people do.

Ya’ll stay healthy ‘n happy.

Toodles!

Not a lot to say.  Things are pretty much status quo.  Willow is doing the new dog normal battle of who’s alpha.  She is really quite good for Thom, but I have a horrible time getting her to listen to what I want.  I don’t want to, but I may have to have Thom step in and instruct her on what’s acceptable with me…. she’s certainly not listening to me.  The only issue is her jumping up on me.  Thom has her so she doesn’t jump on him much, but she still jumps on me whenever she wants.  We want to train her to not jump on anyone.  Out here in QZ, most of us are older and have fragile skin so her toenails tend to do more damage than normal.

Tomorrow we go to Lake Havasu again.  We’re going to leave dear Willow at home locked in her carrier, so we are going to try to keep the trip up there to a minimum of time.  We took Willow with us to Blythe on Monday evening and she apparently got carsick and vomited in her carrier.  We’ll have to work on what we do with her during travel times.  *hmmmm*

Ya’ll stay healthy ‘n happy.

Toodles.

Today we brought a new member of the family home and before that we had a wonderful color show in the form of a sunrise.  This post is going to be really short.  I’m going to share photos of the sunrise and photos of our new member of the family, the Whippet/Heeler cross dog, Willow.  Willow is a sweet, loving, smart dog and we have high hopes she’ll be a real positive addition to the family.

I’ll start with the two photos of the start of my day.  I got up at 6:45, looked out the window and this is pretty much what I saw.  Getting up early is certainly worth it!

And now you get to be introduced to our sweet Willow.

Ya’ll stay healthy ‘n happy.

Toodles!

We worked Monday & Tuesday, Nov. 3 & 4th.  Still not a lot of people coming in yet so both days were pretty boring.  I did get a couple of photos of a pretty little Side Blotched Lizard.  He was only about 3 inches from nose to beginning of tail.

Yesterday, Wednesday we drove to Parker to do some banking and pick up a small turkey at Safeway.  They have turkeys on special right now for $0.47/lb.  Great price.  I got a 14 lb turkey for $6 and some change.  I was going to pick one up for Larry & Phyllis also, but I got the last of the small ones.  We’ll be going through Parker again tomorrow on the way to Lake Havasu and will check again for a turkey for them.  Larry & Phyllis have a stand alone freezer in their trailer and were kind enough to let us keep our turkey there until Thanksgiving.

We picked up the White Sheet (a classified ads flyer) and while browsing through it, I saw an ad for a dog.  They are giving it away because they will be moving to an apartment or condo back east and don’t want to take the dog to that kind of environment.  The dog is a Whippet/Healer cross and is barely 1 year old.  I called the lady about the dog and we are going to look at her tomorrow.    It sounds like she’s just the right size at 23 lbs and 18 to 20″ tall.  The gal said she has the body of a whippet only not as skinny and the coloring of a Healer.  I looked up both of the breeds on the internet and they both have personality types that we are looking for.  We’ll see what she’s like tomorrow.

Today we joined the Quartzsite Gem & Mineral Club.  Get this… they are called the Quartzsite Roadrunners… fitting, yes?!

The orientation took 1/2 day because it was an introduction to the club, equipment, etc, as well as a workshop.  We made cabochons from agate slabs today.    The slab was already marked for the cutting and grinding.  We learned how to use the 6″ rock saws, the grinders of varying grit and polishers.  My Cabochon ended up being about 1-1/4″ x 7/8″.

The club offers several different classes.  I’m going to take the casting class (can make a mounting for the cabochon), and I’m going to take the wire wrapping class (can wire wrap around the cabochon to mount), and I’m going to take the chain making class (make a chain to hang the cabochon?), and I’m going to take the Opal class  and Bead Making class.  When I’ve got extra money I want to take the faceting class ($15 class charge).  Prepare yourselves…. if I’m any good at any of these, you’ll probably be seeing photos of my “stuff”.

The weather is staying cool this week.  In the 70’s all week.  We think the hot weather is pretty much gone and if the wind will quit, it’ll be very comfortable here.

It’s time for me to get dinner going.  I’m cooking inside tonight because it’s too windy outside for the BBQ.

Ya’ll stay healthy and happy.

Tah!

Ron ‘n Terry arrived yesterday afternoon.  I happened to stop at there trailer as I was walking by.  They gave me the grand tour of the new rig ‘n all I can say is “Wowzer”!  It is really  nice.  I’m really happy for them… they seem to have pretty much what they want and are doing the little tweaks to make it exactly what they want.   Way to go you two!

I mentioned the other day I was going to try to bead a Lazuli Bunting.

The above is the pic I used to pattern the beaded  bird after.
This is the finished beaded bird.

It probably could use some modifications, but all in all, I’m pleased with the results.  His eyes aren’t really that big and white, but his beak really is that small and I need to adjust the pattern for that.

Speaking of birds… we had a new one here today.  He’s new even from last year.  I’ve not seen this guy in all the years we’ve come here, even though he’s supposed to be pretty common here.  This one is a juvenile so his markings aren’t as sharp and distinct as an adult, but he’s still  an attractive bird and kinda cute to watch and listen too.  His call is melodic and happy sounding.  Here’s a couple of shots of the Horned Lark.  You can see in the first pic why he’s called a “horned” lark.

And this is a sample of the beauty of the “dull ol’ desert” that draws us back every year.

Now I need to step outside and cool off.  I sure hope the weather prediction is correct and it’s cooler tomorrow.

Ya’ll stay healthy ‘n happy!

Toodles.