So yeah.  I'm being consumed by bills.  The culprit of the problem is the electric bill, which went way up much earlier in the year than I had expected.
I just sent out the last payment on the other trailer and will be expecting the lien release so I can put it up for sale and try to get my money back out of it.
I think I am going to need that money this summer, to be quite honest about it.
But, at the same time, the expenses I have incurred with the other trailer in fixing it and getting it up to the property are over. There are more things I want and need to do in it, but none of it is pricey stuff.  Well, some things might be pricey but they aren't on the priority list.  Replacing those gear handles that open and close those old-style windows is one thing.
But, I won't be doing that anytime soon.
So perhaps that will allow this situation to improve since the monthly payment for the trailer is now history after that check clears the bank.
Wow, time to leave for work already!
ben

Well it certainly wasn't any fun out there yesterday.  I believe it got to 109 degrees.  The truck AC is not working correctly and does not keep it cool in there. It only keeps it from getting boiling hot.  Well, whatever.  I didn't feel too well after getting home after being out in that all day long yesterday so I didn't really get much of anything done around here.

It takes awhile for me to adjust to the extreme heat, which, by chance, is going to go away starting tomorrow, allegedly and the temps are coming WAY back down.  I'll take it for what it's worth and run with it.

I am going to buy a new smoke detector for that trailer - it has an old one in there but I'm sure it's ready to be trashed and replaced.  Though, it is unplugged when I am not there so I guess not a lot to worry about.  I am glad I wrote myself some emails from up there about the things I need to fix/acquire for it, I would have forgotten the half of it.

Just chattering.  Looking forward to another trip up North and spend a couple of nights there away from all this big city chaos.

Time for work.

G'day.

ben

Absolutely beautiful morning.
The new pump is still going - meaning it's not all clogged up - but going at a bit slower pace.  I'll take it out when I get home from work and clean it.  It has some catching up to do and it may be days or even a week before it gets all the gunk out of the pond and be nice and clean again.

My Elephant Ear/Taro plants are making a comeback as well.  Huge windstorm threw everything into disarray. I tried to rearrange the plants back into some mode of what they once were, but only nature can totally fix it.

Well, just threw that out there. Nice morning, but it's going to get into the 105 range later on today, lol.

G'day.

ben

Exchanged Direct TV receivers with the guy in a parking lot - some 15 miles from here.  Not the end of the world excepting he had just gotten off work and wanted to meet "now".  He backed off a bit when I told him I was 20 minutes away and couldn't get there any quicker.  At least the guy was congenial when we finally met up.  I have no idea if this one is going to work or not and frankly, I am not going to try right now.  IN fact, I am not going to mess around with it until I get it up to mom's property as the card for it is up there, not down here.

I also received my new pond pump today.  That was some FAST shipping and this pump is far better than the one I had in the pond it is going into. That one bit the dust.  Lasted 2 years running 24 hours a day so I am not going to complain about it, but the intake housing design is flawed at best.  It gets clogged up too easily because of a very narrow housing. The one I got today has a very long and wide housing, takes much longer to clog this one up.

Now if I just had the energy to go out there and do all of that.  I can't just dump it into the pond and plug it in, the waterfall filter has to be cleaned now and that takes some effort, to say the least.

Lol, okay, I got the energy and got it done.  I have some very nice Koi in there and I don't want them getting sick from fouled up water : )

G'nite.

ben

Standing Down...........

I wrote earlier how my dad was being kicked out of his wife's house.
I emailed him via reply all to all that he had sent that email to and told him I would be happy to come down and help him move if he needed the help.
He has now replied to me saying that I must have missed his email saying that they are back together and that he is tending to his wife's every need.
No, I did not miss any emails, I never got that one.

But no big deal, reverting back to my original plans of spending next weekend, which is Memorial Day weekend, up at the property.  Nothing is ever set in stone in life, is it?

My Dad........

..........has been thrown out of their house by his wife!
I opened one of my email accounts a few minutes ago to find a reply to his original letter from one of my uncles.   I went searching for my dad's email and there it was.  His wife is sick and he says that she feels he isn't taking care of her.  She's a nice lady and things, but there is one thing that has remained true with all of the women that he has been with since mom and him divorced: they don't really like us, his sons.

I can understand that with my brothers shunning him, but I don't get it with me. I communicate with my dad regularly as well as my mom.

Anyway, this lady has told him to leave and apparently he is going to have to take all of his stuff out of there.  My dad is - 83 I think - and not in that great of a condition.  I read the email about how he has been "thrown out several times before", though I had never heard this from him about this situation, it isn't shocking.  The lady he is married to is still in love with her now-deceased husband and whenever I have been around her that's most of what I hear coming out of her mouth, not about how much she loves my dad.  I thought it odd to continue to hear that long after that man has passed.  She has also spoken very foul of my brothers - though really, they deserve it - still, I always got the feeling that same sentiment was coming towards me.  When I went down there for Thanksgiving a few years back and he grown, adult children were there, the sentiment coming from THEM was very strong as well.  It was a very uncomfortable situation and I really wanted to tell one particular individual who was deeply in love with the sound of his own voice what I thought about his sentiments towards my family, but I decided to keep my mouth shut since it was Thanksgiving and didn't want to ruin the holiday.

Whatever the case, I just wrote him an email and offered to go down there and assist him with moving if he wants the help.  Not that I want to spend Memorial Day Weekend moving dad, but, I will do it if he says he wants the help with it.

Welcome to Monday.  It's about 175 miles down to his place in Sierra Vista.  In reality, if he really wanted the help, I would just ask my manager for "emergency" time off.  In my mind, a situation like this with a man that is that old in the health that he is in is going to need the help right now, not this weekend.

Ummm, wow.  Okay, take one step at a time here.  Just going to wait to see what kind of response I get from him, if I don't get a response then I will call him this afternoon.

Whatever the case, life goes on and I must be off to work.

G'day.

ben

Pics

If you click on a pic, then it enlarges and all the other pics end up in thumbnails below it so you can just scroll through full-screen pics.

That's one view from my trailer door.

View to the right of the first shot, again from trailer door and then a view to the west underneath.

These are the stumps my oldest brother took me to shortly before he left.  He said he used to sit there and watch some awesome sunsets.

This is the view towards the west, from the stumps, that you will see the awesome sunsets.  I took these this morning, hence, no sunset. You can the dirt road below, it's the only road in and out of this community.  People frequently stop there during sunset to take pics and enjoy.

This is the exact same view towards the west, but zoomed in.  See the mountain? A HUGE swatch of the trees on that mountain are gone, fire consumed them a few years back.

From the stumps, looking back towards my trailer.

View of my trailer.  You can see one of the nice, chrome hubcaps is missing, fell off on the way up.

My mom's water tank.  It's pretty big, if you use it conservatively, yes, you probably can make it through a summer.  Trailer to the right, you can also haul the thing down to the local cement company and fill it up - with a garden hose, lol - for a small fee.

This is a view to slighty north and east.  It's the rim.  It's from the top of the property.

The trip would have been 117 miles one way, coming back, but I did 2 loops looking for that missing hubcap.  I did find it.  Some scratches on it but not dented or otherwise ruined.  I figured to find another cap like that?  Probably next to impossible so, worth the extended search for it.  Trip was 2 hours, but I could have made it in about and hour and forty or forty-five minutes without the hubcap search.

Dogs are plain worn out.  I took them on a good, long hike this morning and they are absolutely crashed out on the living room floor.  Yesterday, on the first hike, Prince got tired and decided to............sit down under a tree.  Yup, he just sat there, staring at me.  He was telling me he had had enough. Sorry, buddy, but we gotta hoof it back to camp.  He begrudgingly got up and made the rest of the trip back, lol.

I let Sophie off the leash this morning.  It was a gamble to say the least, but, it was at the property, not while on a walk.  She started to take off in a big, big hurry.  She didn't listen to me the first 2 times, the third time I quietly walked up near where she had stopped and called her name again. This time, she came trotting up.  Goooood doggy! I told her and then immediately put her back on the leash, lol.  We'll take this slow and eventually I won't have to worry about her running off.

My brother and his wife showed up yesterday to help out.  Though we were already done, he did have a few tidbits to offer.  He then informed me that mother undoubtedly had a large list of things she is going to want me to do.  Oh???  Listening to him talk, I gathered why he doesn't go up and visit her too often.  Apparently, she was asking him to do something every time he visited.  It also became evident why he eventually moved his trailer and then his motor home off the property and built a cabin down the road about 7 miles.  I think mother has learned from the experience, she isn't being as pushy as she used to be, but I also think it must be too late in the case of my brother.

I am not sure I could live up there year round.  I am used to being around people.  I love the quiet and the fresh air and beautiful scenery, yes, but, dunno about actually living there.

Anyway, good trip, glad the worst of this is over, still plenty to do to the trailer but it's all good.

ben

The World of Craigslist

I bought a Direct TV receiver from a guy a few weeks ago and when I tried to hook it up, well, it didn't work.
So I contacted the guy and told him about it and asked if he still had the other receiver he had for sale.  Yes, he does.  We went back and forth and he finally said to go ahead and throw the receiver I have in the trash and he will just give me the other one.

Fast forward.  Time constraints. I have not had time to meet up with this person and get the other receiver because I have been too busy working on the trailer.  So, I contacted him again this morning and he writes back and tells me: I have had 4 other offers on it but I have been saving it for you.  If you do not show up on Monday to get it, then I am going to sell it".

In other words, screw the fact that he sold a defective receiver, he's going to make his money regardless.  Which pretty much tells me when he gets this receiver back, if he indeed does honor his word, he is going to sell it.

I'm not sorry to say: whatta jackass.

Whatever.

Took the dogs for a long walk/run this morning in the woods.  I was able to let the Danes run free, but I cannot yet let Sophie run wild.  I did let her go, on the property, this morning to see what she would do.  She took off.  I followed after her, giving her firm voice commands to come back.  She did, indeed, finally listen.   So, just giving it more time and some day I will also be able to let her run without have the fear of her just running off and never seeing her again.

It felt good to get a good heart rate going and enjoy the cool, fresh air and hear the breeze whispering through the pines.  Lord willing, I will be coming up here next weekend and probably staying Saturday through Monday morning.  There are quite a number of things I need to do and fix next time I am up here, or at least get started on.  I forgot coffee cups.  I would like a wall clock.  This, that and the other thing. Some air fresheners will definitely help.

Well that's it.  Time to pack it up and head on out.

ben

So, I am just below the Mogollon Rim right now, on my mother's property, attempting to get situated.
I had totally forgotten about internet and such in the business of getting things set up, but here  it is.
3G network, yes, I expected that.  Does it work? Well, I just go on Blogger and pulled up this page to write an entry, so, so far, so good.

It's a good 3G connection, too, not a weak one.  3G works well enough for me, if it continues to work, I will be happy.

We had 2 mishaps coming up.  1st, one of the nice, chrome moon rims came off the trailer.  I know where it landed and it is possible I might be able to retrieve it on the way back.

But 2, one of the bedroom windows mounting latches on the bottom broke, sending the window flying straight up!  It was still attached to the trailer, but it was only a matter of time .  Well, we got it taped down and it worked fine the rest of the way up. The only other thing was to get this trailer into a rather tight hole.  That took some doing, but we got it in here.  It's absolutely beautiful up here.  I knew I wouldn't regret this.

Anyway, break time over, I have a lot to get done before dark.

ben