HOPE FOR A CHEAPER SUMMER

 We started May off with me baking Todd an angel food cake for his birthday and meeting them at Texas Roadhouse for lunch on the 4th.  It wasn't busy and we had a great time!

               Texas Roadhouse with Shane, Todd, Milli, LaTia

                          Todd's birthday cake at Texas Roadhouse

We had one meal of fresh peas from the garden and then I had to take the plants out because it was just too hot for them and there were no new flowers.  Something has been eating the leaves off first all the carrots, then the broccoli, then the cauliflower and now the Brussel sprouts so they are history.  However my one cherry tomato plant produced 500 tomatoes and is now dying.  There were 50 green tomatoes but whatever ate the leaves off the other plants ate most of the green tomatoes.  I'm so grateful 'it' didn't find the cherry tomatoes until after I harvested all those ripe tomatoes!  The zucchini plant is huge and has produced 7 zucchini so far.

                 Some of the bounty from my garden

Dawn and Vince took us out to Cracker Barrel for Mother's Day and then a few days later we took Vince and Dawn out to Texas Roadhouse for Vince's birthday.  Todd visited us the day the mini split arrived and that was good timing as he helped Larry unpack it and move it around.  He also gave me a cactus for Mother's Day that has a lovely 'trumpet' flower, something I've never seen before.

            Vince at Texas Roadhouse for his birthday

                                Mother's day gift from Dawn

                                      Us at Cracker Barrel

Trumpet flower on the Mother's day cactus from Todd

                                       Todd visiting on May 15

We made the decision to replace the RV A/C's with a mini  split A/C in the ceiling of the bedroom.  Larry did all the re-working except for the refrigerant which needed to be done by a licensed HVAC fellow.  Larry ran into all kinds of problems but we are praising the Lord for finding some serious mistakes so they are fixed now. 

Inside unit of A/C installed in the ceiling of the bedroom

Outside unit of the mini split A/C on the back of the MH

Larry building the frame for the mini split outside unit

 May 24 the HVAC fellow came out and hooked us up and BOY! what a difference!!   I checked last May one days usage against this year's usage with the new A/C and we used 40 kwh last year and 10 kwh this year!  That will really make a difference on the electric bill!

ALREADY HARVESTING

We started April off with rain and then some hot weather, way too soon! I saw a snake which I'm told is a good snake that will kill mice and rats. Todd visited us on April 2 and we had another good visit. On the 5th of April the

temperature dropped 20º which was most welcomed! 

   Beautiful AZ sunset I had to share
 

                                          Snake I saw

I again used Free Tax USA to file our taxes and am most happy with them. AZ had our refund in our bank five days after I filed which certainly was nice.

Since some windy days were predicted, Larry got busy and put up the last two guy wires to help our RV cover from swaying in the wind. He bought new drill bits and they made all the difference and the job went much easier than before. He is grateful that job is done! We did have quite a bit of wind afterwards and Larry could see the difference from our window when he looked out and compared the posts to the neighbor's wall.  

              Putting up the last guy wire

 It's getting hard for Larry to get up on the scaffolding!

My garden is doing well and we have enjoyed radishes, cherry tomatoes and zucchini from it. The zucchini went from three small leaves to a nice sized zucchini in 30 days! The peas will be ready soon and fresh peas are my favorite veggie so I'm looking forward to that.          

                       Peas about ready to harvest

                             Lots of ripe tomatoes

     

                       My first zucchini in 30 days no less!

GARDEN GROWING

 I started March off by planting my garden. This is the third year for my garden.

             My cherry tomatoes from last year

                                  Radishes

                Cauliflower and broccoli

                 Beets and Brussel Sprouts

                                 Peas

On March 3 we went through the car wash and it took off the driver's side wiper arm.  It got a little ugly and the manager called the police because we weren't leaving until we had the broken wiper arm in our hands. Someone else from the company came and he retrieved the broken wiper for us. The police arrived later and were very nice. We received the claim form and have had notice it was oked so we had the wiper replaced at Kia in Peoria. The day we went to Kia, Larry had a VA appt. so after his appointment we headed to Peoria and it started raining and was a real downpour!   I was petrified since the wiper on the driver's side was missing but as long as we were going 30-35mph the wind took the rain off and Larry could see OK. Anyway we made it OK and got it fixed and of course it stopped raining as we were driving home! The car wash people have promised a check this week.  

                    The mangled wiper arm

Todd visited us on the 12th and we again had a great visit. I'm so grateful we are again talking and

communicating when there were several years when the relationship was strained.  

       Todd and Larry just before Todd left

The 23rd I washed the driver's side of the MH (the side I see all the time) and just before I was finished,I was looking up to see if I missed any spots and tripped over Larry's rolling stool. Thankfully I didn't break anything but I did mess up my glasses (Costco fixed them for free) and I have several ugly bruises on my face and leg that are healing.   

                       Nice and shiny again

Larry worked inside as it was too windy to work outside so he finally put in 12 volt LED lights over

my stove and boy! what a difference!  I love them as I can really see better now to cook. 

                     Old light over the stove

               New LED lights over the stove

March 29 I harvested my first radish so that was really quick!  My cherry tomato plant (from last year

that survived the freeze we had) has gone wild and I have hundreds of green tomatoes and nearly as

many blooms. The peas are doing well and so are the beets so I'm looking forward to some good eating later on this summer.

                         My first radish this year

WARMER THAN USUAL

 After waiting three months we were finally able to get the battery for our car replaced.  A nice perk is we now have another 3 year warranty on the new battery!

Todd came to see us on Valentine's Day and brought me a lovely tulip arrangement that is extra special as it won't die like real flowers and looks very realistic.  We had a great visit too.  

Flowers from Todd for Valentine's Day

Larry became extremely ill  on February 15 and it lasted a week.  We are not sure what is was but he doesn't want it ever again!

The nice unusually warm weather we had in Feb. resulted in many cherry tomatoes which I have enjoyed.  The plant now has hundreds of new flowers on it so hopefully I will have many more tomatoes in the future!  

  Just a few of many cherry tomatoes from my garden

We also had some great sunsets with our weather.  

WE HAD WINTER!

We started out the month of January by celebrating Dawn's birthday by going to Texas Roadhouse and then had a cake at their house. 

Larry was finally able to find someone to help him figure out what was wrong with our  electric and why we could not get two A/C's to work on solar. It took him three days to fix the problem and now I can even use the stove on solar which I could not do before.  While he was working inside, outside was winter and killed my garden even though I covered the tomatoes and put a light on them.  So disappointing as there were hundreds of cherry tomatoes unripe.  Some in the middle of the plant are still green and attached and we have been able to eat some ripe and also had fried green cherry tomatoes.  It is supposed to get cold again so I'm hoping this round won't kill the rest of the plant!  

   

                                  Finished product

  Re-wiring the electric breaker boxes in the bedroom

                       Just beginning the project

The cold weather or something affected Larry and he got Covid again but is doing better now after two weeks of yo-yo feelings, good one day and not so good the next.

Todd paid a surprise visit on my birthday which was wonderful and we had a good visit.  He gave me some lovey vibrant Primroses and Shane and Milli gave me some Tweety slippers.  

                      Flowers Todd gave me

                                  Tweety slippers

We went to Texas Roadhouse again on the 30th for my birthday  and then back to Dawn and Vince's for angel cake, my favorite!  

                                 My yummy cake

Larry was tired of staying in and since it was sunny outside, went out to cut some aluminum to make a frame for a filter to put on the bedroom window.  He always has to have a project!  

                   Fitting the filter into the frame

      Cutting the aluminum in the sunny backyard

HAPPY 2024!

Somehow I totally forgot yesterday was the first so Happy New Year 2024 a day late!   

December started out with me having an early procedure at the surgery center.  I ended up having a 90% blockage in my main artery so I now have a stent.  The only pain I experienced was they couldn't stop the bleeding for several hours and my right arm swelled up and turned purple because they didn't tell me to stop taking my blood thinner beforehand.  I'm all better now though.

I attended two Christmas parties one with the church ladies and the other with the neighborhood ladies.  Great food and fun at both parties.

Granddaughter Cerét visited Phoenix for her 15th 'girls Christmas party' and also visited us.  It was good to see her again!

We had a wonderful Christmas at Dawn and Vince's with great food , nice gifts and lots of fun and laughter. 

Larry's main project was extending the exhaust pipe on the generator up and out of the RV cover to help with the diesel smell and heat. 

This is showing just the extension going up and not connected to the genny pipe 

We had some much needed rain and filled our water tank up once again.  My garden appreciated that!

Our outside tree and the full moon

  Hot air balloon over the neighbor's house