We have entered what is called the Monsoon Season out here. I'm told that it used to start on July 1st but now starts with some combination of temperature, humidity and dewpoint. On a practical basis, it means that we see high building cumulous clouds each day and they bring a good chance of rain. Phoenix got rain yesterday, their first in 122 days. We've had rain here the last two or three days but nothing significant so far. It takes about an inch of rain to put water back in the tank and so far we've had less than a quarter of an inch. The change in sunshine and the cloud cover are welcome but the higher humidity means that the swamp coolers don't work as dramaticallcy and so the heat feels stronger at times.
We are still preparing for the trip and part of that involves moving animals to other locations. Tomorrow, we move two horses up to Flagstaff so in anticipation of that we had to first take feed and the panels used to construct the pen up so we'd have a place to contain them when we get them there. It was quite the adventure.
We have a large horse trailer to use to carry the feed and panels and livestock. It has been parked next to the pasture for the last several months, so first we had to drag it out from where it was with the tractor. We got the tractor out and backed it up into place under the hitch only to discover that we had the wrong blade mounted on the tractor. The one with the hitch ball welded to it was still out back of the barn. So, change the blade. It's mounted with a three point hitch which means getting out two pins and a bolt. Do they the slip out and line up? No, of course not. There were four of us working at it and it was finally accomplished. Back to haul out the trailer. We pull it out and discover that it was concealing a large hole in the fence. The horse spotted it at about the same time we did so it was a mad dash to head her off and put a temporary patch in place with plywood, barrels, wire and whatever was at hand. Now we have the trailer to load but first we see that it has a flat tire on the left side. Well, we'll just haul it up to the barn and air it up. We get it up there and air it up and all is good. That is until we spot the large chunks of tread missing on our newly aired tire. Change to the spare. Good. Oh look, there's a tire on the other side with a six inch slash in the side wall. Well, the trip is off until we get new tires. Wait, we've got a very questionable tire but we also have a chunked out spare and a light load. Maybe we can make it after all. Ok, load the panels and hay and feed on the trailer. Thank God for grandsons and friends who are young and strong. Off we go down the road, keeping a carefull eye on the bad tire out of the window. We get about 15 miles down the road and are about to get on I17 North so I get out and check all of the tires when I hear a plaintive wailing coming from inside the trailer. We have a stow-away. It turns out to be gray kitty and we coax her out of the trailer and into the truck cab. We don't have anything to put her into so now we try to keep her somewhat calm and away from the driver. We drive on with no further mishap and reach our destination and unload. They have a cat carrier we can borrow, they feed us and we return as the sun goes down. I tried a shot of the sun shining down through the clouds but it didn't show up nearly as gorgeous as it was in person.
Here's what the tire we rode on looked like. It went 175 miles without any problem at all.
And here's the spare. We went to a local tire service and had them both replaced today in advance of our trip with the horses tomorrow.
For dinner tonight we had steak and stuffed zucchini and beets. We had gone into the local Sprouts, a produce store, for regular beets but next to them were bunches of Golden Beets so we decided to give them a try. We cooked them just like we would the red ones and they tasted just about the same, maybe a touch milder. I'd never seen them before but they were good.
On the bus front, the latest news is that a badly leaking wheel bearing seal has been found. A new one will be sourced on Monday. The brakes will simply be cleaned with brake cleaner and re-installed.
We are now informed that the bus conversion will take somewhat longer than planned. None of us here are surprised nor dismayed by this news. Our starting date will be pushed back but how much remains to be seen.
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