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

SEVERAL FIXES

 We started the month of November with some adjustments made to our RV cover to make it more stable. Connor and his BIL came out and in short order with the help of Larry's scaffolding got the job does.  

                      Repairing the RV cover

Todd came to see us on the 7^th for another nice visit as we will not see him and his family for Thanksgiving as they will be in OR visiting their daughter and grandkids.

Larry discovered one of the pillars on the east wall had come loose due to the wind and the shade screen so he set out to fix it by putting steel rods on both sides of the pillar all the way down into the ground. It is now good and solid once again.  

Our side of the fence
 

Other side of the fence
 We had  Thanksgiving with Vince, Dawn and grandson Shane who had to stay home because he had started a new job and to watch the dogs while Todd, LaTia and Milli went to OR for  Thanksgiving.

Shane at the Thanksgiving table

Larry again put up a string of lights on the wind sock pole to form a “Christmas Tree” so we could look more festive for the Christmas season. Hard to believe the year is coming to an end soon.

  

One morning recently I saw two coyotes out the window in the neighbor's yard.  I was able to get a picture of the bigger one.  Always fun to see wildlife close up!

         

                    

FALL IS HERE!

 We were able to go off grid for about half the month so hopefully that will help the electric bill.  Oct 19 we hit 101º so hopefully that will be the last 100º day of 2023!  Most of the month was really nice weather wise, a welcomed relief.  

On Oct 14 I ended up in the hospital observation ward because my heart rate went up to 155 bpm and won't stop for two hours.  Of course as soon as I got there it slowed down but I had signs of a heart attack in my blood but no other signs so they wanted me to stay so they could 'observe' me.  I was there two nights.  Todd surprised me with a very nice visit and that made the time on Sunday go by really fast.  I still don't know why or what went wrong and have to figure the doctors don't know either since I've heard nothing from them.

We ended the month by going to see the movie "Miracle in East Texas" with Kevin Sorbe.  It is a true story from 1930 and the oil they found helped the Allies win the second world war according to Winston Churchill.  That was not mentioned in the movie.  It is a comedy love story about redemption.

                 Sunset Oct 30, 2023 from the backyard

Lemon cake I bake for Larry with cream cheese frosting

Sept NOT so Bad

Sept. was not as bad as I expected thankfully.  It started out with a high of 89º and many days below 100º with one night going down to 68º!

We had two really nice visits from Todd.  The first on Sept 2nd and he brought Larry a nice US Navy veteran hat  and the second visit was on the 19th.

Larry's birthday hat from Todd

                        Father and son

On Sundays after church we usually go for Chinese but twice we changed our plans.  On the 3rd we went to Olive Garden (for Larry's birthday) and beat the rush and were seated right away.  We had a super server and had fun with him as he liked to kid around and Larry 'kidded' back!  The other Sunday we didn't have Chinese was the17th and the church had a pizza party after the service.

Larry kept busy putting lights in the "He" and "She" sheds.  They are 12 volt lights and run off the MH.  He also has been busy fine tuning the solar as he keeps learning more about it.

                             Between the sheds

                             Light in the shed
 

Larry sitting on the tires hooking up the solar wires

I had a loop recorder put in by my Cardiologist.  Hopefully it will help him figure out what's going on with my heart.

The IRS sent a check we were not expecting from 2021.  Always nice to have money surprises!

We continue to play Train on Fridays with Vince winning 3 out of 4 games.  We've added Farkle so the rest of us can win sometimes!

                               Almost full Harvest Moon