Tag: Full Time RVing

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Whitewater Draw

This morning I only drove a little over an hour from Willcox, to Whitewater Draw Wildlife Management Area. It’s one of the places where sandhill cranes hang out all winter, and they come to the ponds at night and take off in a huge cloud of giant birds in the morning! Can’t wait to see that!!  It does mean I have to get up around 6:00 a.m. but I hope it’ll be worth it. Roxie has been waking me up awfully early anyway. I wonder if she’s still on NC time??

Camping is allowed in the parking lot here for up to 3 nights. It’s much nicer than I expected! I thought it would be just a big parking lot but there’s a vault toilet, dumpster, and picnic tables….LUXURY camping, compared to what I’m used to.

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My fridge has gone back to its lazy ways, and is not cooling very well. Sigh….back to using block ice. I hate how messy and drippy it is, but it’s better than having ruined food. I wish I knew what was wrong with the fridge though; I thought last fall that it needed the burner cleaned but I had that done (and he said it wasn’t very dirty).  It’s so odd that sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn’t.

I ordered a replacement aluminum folding step and had it sent to the Bisbee post office. I went over there today to pick it up, what a fiasco. I  had to drive round and round until a parking space opened up at the post office about 12:20 and of course they were closed for lunch. So I thought I’d check out the REALLY cute historic section of town while I waited for 1:00. Nope. There was not a parking spot to be had anywhere near the shops. So I drove around a bit…the Copper Queen Mine is certainly a very impressive humungous hole in the ground!  And then went back to the post office; drove around in circles some more while I waited for a parking space to free up. Finally 1:00 arrived and by the time I walked down to the post office, I found myself 13th in line! And of course everyone had Christmas packages to mail. I finally made it to the window after 30 minutes and the woman said “Oh we don’t handle General Deliveries here; that’s at the other post office”.  Oh. So I drove over to the other p.o. and the line was not as bad there; finally got my package and came back to camp but that little excursion took more than 3 hours!! I decided I definitely am staying here at least two nights; I need a day of rest. Even though I spent 5 days at Big Bend, I was in the car driving around for the better part of each day, and it’s been 13 days since I left SC…..driving every day. I’m tired.

Yesterday I asked a guy if he’d seen the cranes take off in the morning and he said yes. I asked what time, and he said he thought it was around 6:15. So this morning I was up by 5:45 a.m. and stumbling the 1/4 mile or so out to the viewing site by 6:10. All the cranes take off at the same time in the mornings! In evenings they come in all at different times. As I was walking down the path, barely lit by my tiny flashlight with bad batteries, I heard several coyotes howling nearby. Oh. Do coyotoes attack people???  I wouldn’t really be afraid of one coyote, but several??   I kept going anyway and sat on one of the freezing cold metal benches provided. And I waited. And I waited. In 33 degrees, wearing just levis and a fleece jacket. Of course I had my camera ready for the action, so my hands were out in the cold. What a cacophany of sound all those cranes make!

Well that bit about them all taking off at once is a bunch of hooey! There was no action at all until 6:45, and then 10-15 at a time started leaving. I finally left and came back to the camper at 7:15 and there were still quite a few birds still there, but I was soooo cold! I hadn’t planned on having to sit there for over an hour.  My hands were so cold, I couldn’t turn the car key to start the car….it took both hands! While I was gone, Roxie had peed and pooped in the camper. (I had walked her before I left!) Nice.

Here’s a lone great blue heron fishing in the dusk last night…..and I didn’t even notice the little duck in the foreground!

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I’m sure I will go back this evening too and maybe I can get some better photos.

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All those “things” in the center are sandhill cranes.

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Needless to say, I was pretty disappointed in this morning’s action. The birds here are quite far away so it’s hard to get any good photos without a huge telephoto lens. Now I wish I’d stopped off at Bosque del Apache NWR again, in southern New Mexico. There are thousands of sandhill cranes there, plus snow geese and many other bird species. And you can easily get to within 15′ of where they take off and land.

Not sure what a Sandhill Crane looks like? Here’s one up close and personal, taken from the Bosque del Apache website:

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Texas

Arizona!

Finally I made it to Arizona! I didn’t get quite as far as I’d hoped, but I drove 350 miles and that’s a pretty good day for me. I just have 55 more to go tomorrow morning. Much of today’s drive was on the back roads again, through the desert which is pretty boring except for trying to figure out what all the squished animals are on the road. In case you’re wondering, there were probably 100 jackrabbits, with a few raccoon and a coyote mixed in.

As I left Guadalupe Mountains National Park I drove over to the Frijoles Ranch Museum exhibit. The buildings were not open so I just wandered around a bit.  The ranch was started in the 1870’s, then changed hands in 1906. The Smith family added onto the house and made their living by truck farming and a small orchard. The nearest market for their produce was in Van Horn, 60 miles away. So they would load up the wagon, hitch up the horses, cover the produce with wet paper & rags to protect them from the dust and heat, and drive all night, arriving the next morning to sell to their customers. Phew, sure sounds like a hard way to make a living!

This is the little red schoolhouse, built in 1925. The Smiths hired a teacher who was paid $30 a month plus room, board and the use of a horse! They had as many as 8 kids in attendance.

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And here’s my last view of Guadalupe Mts.

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Ahhh Arizona! Back in the land of magnificent sunrises and sunsets. The past few mornings I have been up in time to catch the sunrise, thanks to Roxie. (Grrrr) It’s definitely worth seeing; I just don’t want to get up and go outside at 6:40 a.m.!

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Texas

Guadalupe Mountains National Park

I said a sad farewell to Big Bend this morning, with a hug from neighbor Neal and exchange of email & Facebook Friendships. I believe we’ll run into each other again somewhere in Arizona this winter. I think this time in early December is a really good time to visit Big Bend….not many people, good weather, and plenty of campsites to choose from. I hardly ever saw another car on the road!  As I was going out our bad dirt road this morning I saw the remains of someone’s bike rack or something in the road….three separate piles of “stuff”. I hope they were able to pick it up and put it back together on their way out.

I drove all day on little 2 lane roads (speed limits usually 70-75, but I only go 60). I was getting tired when I got to Van Horn, TX but I went another hour and made it to Guadalupe Mountains National Park. The Pine Springs CG here is just a big paved lot with no shade but the price is right; $4 with the Geezer Pass! There’s a really cool Aussie-style camper across the road from me. I wish I had the guts to ask if I could see the inside….but I don’t.

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Here’s our campsite; barely got set up before dark! Pretty nice view.

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It’s pretty windy here; hope it calms down soon. It seems impossible to keep the wind from blowing straight through the camper, even with all 4 corners stuffed with foam.

(Next morning) The winds remained really gusty all night long…we were really rockin’ and rollin’! I was again giving thanks for my good friend Jenni’s help in installing the handy wind straps that keep the roof closed tight.  I was grumpy this morning because Roxie made me get up at 6:45 but what an amazing sunrise I got to see! And the mountains are bathed in beautiful golden light….compare this sight to the photo at the top that I took yesterday.

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I guess I may as well get an early start on today’s drive….if I do really well, we could get to Whitewater Draw Wildlife Management Area today! It’s 325 miles though, that’s quite a long driving day for me. So we’ll see.

Categories
Texas

Big Bend Day 5

Today we went to Castellon and Santa Elena, where the whitewater trips through the Santa Elena Canyon take out. Without hiking over a mile, I couldn’t get any photos of the canyon. This is the closest I could get, and the river runs through that big vertical crack in the middle of the photo.

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For some reason most of the photos I took today turned out a little bit out of focus, not sure what that’s about! But there was a magnificent sunset and I’m posting one of the blurry photos of that anyway.

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These are from our first day here; I love this purple prickly pear! (Try saying that three times real fast!)

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And these are some kind of quail or ?; can you find them?

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Finally, Neal’s 1969 Playmor camper. Isn’t it cute!

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Categories
Texas

Big Bend Day 4

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Today we went outside the park on the west side, to the ghost town of Terlingua. I was interested to see it because I used to own  5 and 13 acre tracts of land near there at Terlingua Ranch, which I bought and sold sight unseen. I got gas in Study Butte (pronounced Stoody Byute) for $2.609, not cheap but at least it’s $.10 a gallon cheaper than inside the park. Terlingua is a really funky little place, with people living in shacks, nice homes, teepees, tents….you name it! I really like adobe and this isn’t this the cutest little adobe tiny house!

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And the next door neighbor is this teepee! There are quite a few old adobe and rock remains of homes.

Near town is this place, shaped like a clipper ship. In case you can’t read the sign, it says “Passing Wind”!  At another house that had a completely sand yard was a sign that said “Keep Off The Grass”.  

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In Terlingua there’s a really nice store with Texas and Terlingua souvenirs and gifts, and next door is the Starlight Theater. You can get dinner and a show! There’s going to be a live band tonight and I think my neighbor Neal is going.

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I keep seeing coyotes coming and going on “our” Grapevine Hills Road but they always disappear into the brush when I get close. Today there was one that slipped into the brush but when I got to the place where he left the road, there he was! He stood and modeled for me while I look at least 6 or 7 great photos, then trotted off. Then I noticed the little yellow blurb in the camera that I’d been ignoring, it said “No memory card present”. I didn’t get ANY of those photos!!!  As I continued toward our camp, I saw another coyote that was trotting up the road and went around a bend. When I got around it, there was our campsite. And the coyote was right there! He sure had no fear of humans; Neal was standing in the doorway of his camper and the coyote went within 4′ of him! He too stood around for long enough to me to get some photos but I’m sure they are not as good as the ones I couldn’t keep.

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On the way home I drove up to Chisos Basin; there’s a visitor center, campground, store and lodge there. The terrain is completely different….lots of conifer frees and there were signs warning of bears and cougars. There was even a “bear crossing” sign but I guess I was there at a time when there weren’t any crossings scheduled, as usual.

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Uncategorized

Big Bend

I made it to Big Bend National Park! Finally. And just in time for the Arctic Blast….today’s high is 35 with a brisk wind, and the clouds are so low, I can hardly see the mountains. Drat! I may have to extend my visit.  As soon as I entered the park I saw my first wild critter…a big fat tarantula crossing the road; how exciting! I did not stop to take a photo of him. Then I noticed another, and another…..a really disturbing number of tarantulas!! Eww. Once I got off the paved road I didn’t see any more, but I bet they’re out there, just waiting to jump on me! Also waiting to leap on any unsuspecting person or dog are cougars and bears.Spiders, cougars and bears, oh my!

I am camped in a Backcountry site in Grapevine Hills. I was hoping there’d be a cell signal here but no, at least not on my phone. I really wanted to get the Government Springs sits as it’s quite close to the paved road, but it was taken. So my site is down 4 miles of very bad dirt road, but it’s nice once you get back there. It’s a sort of double site, and my neighbor is a young guy with kayak and bike and he’s camping in an old vintage Playmore camper! It’s cute as a button. (and so is he, if you care about that sort of thing) Oh no, I just tried to enter some photos and again my USB converter doesn’t work!  I really hate when that happens.

In the middle of last night I had to go outside and gather up my canopy, as it was too windy and the poles were banging on the camper. Oh the stars!! That song is right, “The stars at night are big and bright, deep in the Heart of Texas”!

It was so nice to not have to get up early and drive today. I made a big breakfast of “everything eggs” (sausage, ham, green pepper, onion, potatoes, eggs and cheese) and dawdled around all morning. I came out to empty the porta-potty and use the free wifi at the Panther Creek Visitor Center, which is only about 7 miles from me. On the way out the dirt road, I saw a coyote, a bunch of some kind of quail, and a roadrunner! I did take photos though they were kinda far off, so I don’t know how they turned out yet.

At the visitor center the ranger identified the thorn that went through my shoe as  mesquite, and he said the same thing happened to him the other day. I’m now very careful what i step on, but it’s already feeling better.

I’ll keep playing with the camera disc converter and hope to post photos the next time.

 

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Uncategorized

Ft. Stockton, TX

I drove nearly 400 miles today and made it to Ft. Stockton, TX. I went cross-country on more 2-lane roads and also Hwy. 45, a toll road with speed limits of 80 mph!  No way!!  I’m pretty sure that’s faster than my guardian angels can fly, so I just padoodle along at my usual 60 mph. while towing.  The toll booths didn’t have any place to pay; apparently you either us a pass or else you get the bill in the mail! I guess that’s convenient, though the mail rate was quite a bit higher than the pass rate.

I’ve been having a problem with my clothing bin falling off the bench and ending up in a big jumble by the time I get where I’m going, so I stopped at a gas station halfway here, put up the camper and shoved the bin back where it belonged. It worked good; everything was in good order when I got here except….sob! I left my $75 aluminum folding step back at that gas station! I guess I just drove off without it. What an expensive pee break! I can’t believe I did that!  And I can’t blame it on bad luck this time; this was sheer stupidity.  I need that step too; Roxie doesn’t “see” the little built-in step so she leaps over it and usually ends up doing a face-plant. So I had to order another one today and have it sent to the post office in Bisbee; I’ll pick it up next week when I get there. Sigh.

We are parked overnight at a defunct RV park. I pulled up and put up the camper and then noticed a lot of really tiny but lethal-looking thorny things on the ground that are so sharp, they stuck into my rubber clogs! So I decided to move, as that would NOT be good for Roxie’s little feet! I accidentally stepped on an old dried-up twig that had 1″ thorns, and one went all the way through my clog and into my foot! OW! I don’t know what it was but I hope it wasn’t one of those cactus things that cause infections.  I moved over to where there aren’t any of those nasty things plus I carry Roxie over to the pavement to do her business.  Luckily she will go anywhere; in fact I think she prefers pavement to grass!

Here’s the big thorny thing that went through my shoe:  dscn6579

I finally got my photo adapter to work, so now I can post pictures again! Here’s my campsite at Tinkle Park in Gary, TX:

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And I bought a Christmas tree, isn’t it cute?! It’s about 6″ tall.    dscn6578

So tomorrow, only 100 miles to Big Bend National Park! I’m excited to be able to stop driving every day and sit still for 3 days! Well I’ll still be driving around the park, but somehow that doesn’t seem as hard as dragging that camper around all day. We’re supposed to be getting an arctic blast and maybe even some snow/sleet! Oh joy.

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Uncategorized

A Slight Delay

Yesterday I set out on my big trip to AZ and failed at finding a free campsite! I was in Tuscaloosa, AL and the Wal-Mart didn’t allow overnight parking and neither did the Cracker Barrel or even the Flying J Truck Stop! (Flying J didn’t allow RV’s) So I ended up at Sunset RV Park in Cottondale; full hookups including cable TV and good wifi signal and nice spacious sites for $29. Gosh that’s more than I planned to spend on the next 6 months of camping total!!!

As soon as I exited I-20 I heard my brakes making a terrible grinding noise….oh no! So early this morning I took the car to the Firestone dealer. I dropped the camper and took the car in, told the guy the brakes were making terrible noises. When they checked them out, they said the front brakes were in great shape but the rear brakes really needed replacing, they were almost down to the rotors. They also said my brake fluid was really dirty and needed changing (to the tune of an extra $60) When they add stuff like that I always wonder if it really needs it, or are they looking to make a little extra. There’s no way for me to know but now I have nice clean brake fluid. Oh and they didn’t hear any noises!!  Hmmm, how strange!

Well Princess Roxie and I sat in their waiting room from 8:20 until 1:00 and then I paid my $239 and hooked back up to the camper. As soon as I started out, there’s that screeching noise again. It was the TRAILER brakes, not the car!!  So now I need those too!! I just dialed them back on the brake controller so they’re not working now; I’m sure they can wait until I get to Yuma. Luckily my camper is light enough that it really doesn’t need brakes (until that deer steps out in front of me….) Well we’ll just hope that doesn’t happen.  I know I would not be able to find a trailer place to work on it on a Sunday, and I’m not going to waste any more time sitting around. I wanted Firestone to lube the bearings on the trailer but they said it had to be hoisted up and they didn’t have any way to do that with the trailer. (??) I guess that means I need to find a trailer repair place.

I only drove 180 miles today and it was raining the whole time. I really hate towing the camper in the rain. I found a Cracker Barrel that allows overnight parking, near Jackson, MS. I had my route all planned out but now I’ll have to do it all over again because of today’s low mileage. I think it’s also supposed to rain all day tomorrow so I’d better not plan on driving for a real long time; it really tires me out.

BUT….we’re on our way, just a little slower than I’d hoped. And a lot more expensive. Two people in the Firestone waiting room commented on how well-behaved Roxie is.  Haha, if they only knew what a demanding little brat she is at times!

 

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Uncategorized

Squirrels…ugh!

Well I successfully made it through another birthday. I loved being with friends on my birthday but am not crazy about being 68.  I’m now camped with my 3 best camping buddies at Twin Lakes CG near Clemson, SC. It’s one of our favorite places; an Army Corps of Engineers campground with nearly all sites lakefront, with water & electric for $13 a night with the Federal geezer pass. I believe it will be one of the very few times I’ll be paying for campsites in the coming year! Due to the drought, the lake is WAY far away from the campsites now, with a huge beach.

On Tuesday, a stupid squirrel chewed through my less-than-a-month-old propane pigtail; the hose that goes from the regulator to the tank. And naturally, the one on my camper is an odd size; it’s got a 3/8″ connection. I ran all over town Tuesday afternoon searching for the right sized pigtail and/or an adapter to get it from the (apparently) standard 1/4″ to 3/8″, with no success. I even thought of replacing the regulator, but it’s a non-standard size too! The outlet on mine is 1/2″ and the standard size now is 3/8″. I guess that’s the penalty for having a 13 year old camper.

On Wednesday morning I called 13 different places in Anderson, about 1/2 hour away, and nobody had one, but finally a mobile home parts place had an adapter. We went to lunch at the Red Lobster in Anderson for my birthday (very yumm!) and got the $3 part. I got it all put back together yesterday afternoon and it works! So that squirrel’s little snack cost me around $40….$27 for a new pigtail, $3 for the adapter and around $10 worth of propane that escaped. I hope the blast of propane in his face taught him a lesson! I did read that squirrels are attracted to rubber hoses, etc. But I kept wondering, WHY ME??  Why not the people on either side of me who also have exposed propane hoses that are the standard size & easily replaceable, and who have way more money than I do???   My chronic bad luck continues to stalk me. I wrapped the new hose with aluminum foil; that’s supposed to make it unattractive to squirrels. There’s also a coil thingie that I’ll get to cover the hose, for around $11.

I got new internet-ordered glasses! I got them from a place called EyeBuyDirect.com.  They have a no-questions-asked return policy, and many of the others don’t. But thankfully, the new glasses are amazing. I put them on and said “WOW!” two or three times. So nice to be able to see again.

I leave this morning to head west to Arizona! Eventually. First I’m stopping off at Big Bend and Guadalupe National Parks in Texas. I dread that long long drive.

Sorry no photos; I’ve misplaced the little adapter that allows me to get photos off the camera disc and into the laptop! I was going to buy another one but I decided it was too expensive. I know mine is in here somewhere; it must have fallen out of the camera case.

 

 

Categories
North Carolina

Fun With Fire Extinguishers

ACK! I pulled out a plastic bin from under the bed and my fire extinguisher sent a big blast of super-fine powder into my FACE!  The extinguisher was laying down and Roxie dish was in front of it, I guess I put pressure on the trigger by pulling out the bin. I didn’t notice that the safety pin thing had fallen out! I scooped up Roxie and dashed out the door, leaving it open. Huge clouds of yellow dust kept billowing out as I was gagging and choking. (Roxie seemed unaffected though she did have some yellow hair) A bit later I went back in and turned on the roof fan to suck some of it out but there’s this fine yellow dust EVERYWHERE.  What a mess! And all that from only a 1 second blast. So today turned out to be a cleaning day.

The hair on the side of my head was all yellow too and even though I rinsed it with water a couple times, it’s still sticky. It did, however, give it a LOT Of body! I believe I could effortlessly brush my hair to stand straight up and it would stay that way. However that look doesn’t seem to be “me”.

We have moved to a nice meadow site in the Uwharrie National Forest. The camper is facing the full sun all day long on the door side and I couldn’t put up my little canopy because the poles are buried in the back of the car somewhere behind the back seat. With the sun so low in the sky, I’m not sure the canopy would help that much anyway.  We are under an oak tree that is dropping acorns on us though…sounds like hail! Luckily they are very small.

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That black “thing” is a shade cloth I’ve rigged up over Roxie’s exercise pen.

There’s a nice trail through the woods for horses so Roxie and I hiked a little bit of it. My knee is feeling MUCH better so we were able to go about 1/8 mile before it even got a twinge of pain. We turned around then and came back but I am pretty sure I could have gone farther. I’m going to try and do this every day, maybe it will strangthen my knee. Frankly I tend to not do anything because I am terrified that I’ll hurt it again.  I was thrilled to be able to do that 1/4 mile!!

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A Walk In The Woods

When I first got here, I had good Verizon cell service but only 1 bar of 4G wifi service on my ATT Unite hotspot. I need 2 bars in order to do anything. Then I remembered the little antenna I bought on ebay for $17. I was really disappointed when it arrived because it’s only about a foot tall! It has a magnetic base which is kind of a problem in an aluminum camper, but I just propped it up as high as I could and lo and behold, it boosted it just enough to be able to work!! Yippee!

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Tiny Homes

Tiny Homes

While researching info on tiny homes, I ran across these figures. According to the advocacy group Wider Opportunities For Women, the monthly expenses for Americans 65 or older in 2013 totaled $1,645 for a single person living in their own house without a mortgage, $1,966 for a renter, and $2,481 for a single person with a mortgage. This includes housing, food, transportation, healthcare and miscellaneous expenses. Well gee, no wonder I have such a hard time living on my income then; I’m obviously about $400 short every month! Though that figure includes some expenses for utilities & taxes that I don’t have, I think I could live well on $1645 a month.

I could also live well in one of those tiny homes, but boy, are they expensive!! I know I could build a cute little cottage for way less, but my body is just not up to it any more. I built a 10×16 cabin with loft when I first moved to NC, and an 800 sq. ft. home across the driveway later, with help from 2 good carpenters. I worked as the “saw man” for those same two carpenters when I ran out of money. I later built a 12×24 houseboat pretty much single-handedly and a 13×22 barn-style cabin. My brain tells me I can do it but my body objects strenuously to the idea.  My aching back would make me stop working after about 10 minutes of bending, and then I’d have to rest up for awhile, so I’d end up maybe being able to do 30 or 40 minutes of work a day……it would take months to build even the smallest cabin. Sigh. I really want a place to call my own, where I can have a little garden, a stove with oven, and a refrigerator with freezer. Throw in a comfortable chair and I’d be in heaven!

I read somewhere that you can use just plain vinegar and water as a shampoo! So I tried it today on both Roxie and I. The vinegar does not smell once the hair dries. I’m pretty happy with the way mine turned out; Roxie is still wet. If this works, it will allow me to keep Roxie MUCH cleaner, as I just need enough water & vinegar to get her wet all over, no rinsing necessary. For my own hair I was using a No-Rinse Shampoo (which I did rinse a bit, as it felt a bit sticky without it). I really didn’t like putting whatever all those chemical are, on my brain pan. I have enough memory problems now without adding chemicals to the mix!

 

Categories
North Carolina

Wandering Around Asheville

On Tuesday, Jenni helped install the propane line for my new Olympian Wave 3 heater. (As usual, that means she did all the work while I sat around being supportive) She had to crawl up inside the very small outside storage compartment!  What a good sport.

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I’ve been house-and-dog sitting since Wednesday. That first day I made too many trips from the camper to the house (it’s on a hill), and too many trips in the house so my calves were killing me for the next three days! Better now but I wasn’t sure I was going to live through it.

In the camper, the “bathroom” (porta potty) is one step from the bed and the door is 2 steps. I can take Roxie out and let her go potty in about 5 steps. In this gigantic house, it’s 40′ from the living room to the bathroom, and 60′ to where the dogs can go potty!  My knee is doing surprisingly well in spite of all the exercise.

Thurs-Sun I hosted the third annual Pajama Party with two friends. We had a great weekend of good food & good company! On Friday we drove up the Blue Ridge Parkway to Pisgah Inn and had lunch. I believe the fall color is at it’s peak! The sun was coming from the wrong direction to get really good photos.

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Jake really took a shine to my friend Patricia, who played with him a lot. He’s usually not that friendly. On Saturday morning he snuck into her bedroom for a cuddle, and he’s not allowed in that room. Bad Jake….bad Patricia for leaving the door open!  He was ushered back out quickly.

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Jack has some wind chimes that he pushes with his nose when he wants to go out, and a sort of doorbell that he steps on when he wants to come in.  It takes some getting used to, when the doorbell rings and it’s the DOG!

One of my friends noticed this huge snake in the strawberry patch:

blogsnake

We were all agog until finally we realized it never moves……it’s an inflatable snake to keep out the strawberry-eating critters!!  I don’t know if it works for them but WE weren’t going to go anywhere near the strawberries!

Princess Roxie got a haircut today. I hated doing it; I like her to have the natural coat her breed (Havanese) is supposed to have. If I could bathe her often, she’d never get matted but I just don’t have access to that much water, and she’s horrible about being brushed or combed. So off with it! I took her to a friend who has a grooming salon and he’s really good; he gave her a very cute scissors cut. The only thing she got to keep was her long tail. The rest is about 2″ long all over. And she can SEE now, without all that hair falling into her face. I don’t hate it as much as I thought it would. Maybe in a few days I’ll even think it’s cute. (That’s Jake’s doorbell at the top right of the first photo)

roxie8roxie7

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