Fresh Veggies

We try to find something of interest to do each week. This week we attended a University of California Extension program called FARM SMART. As you may know, we are in the Imperial Valley of California which is sometimes called the salad bowl of the nation. Agriculture is big business here. It's amazing how well things grow in the desert - if they have water. And they do have water, brought here from the Colorado River by a canal system.

The UC Center is located about 7 miles east of El Centro CA on 255 acres of level desert.

Workamper volunteers live on-site and help with the program activities. They have three wagons pulled by tractors to take the participants from the Center to the fields. Straw bales on the wagon are the seats.

Dave with a daikon radish. We got to pick a variety of vegetable crops to take home. Each of us got a sack (like the orange one on the right) to fill and take home. We brought home cabbage, lettuce, daikon radish, beet greens, broccoli, and cauliflower.

Pat picking cabbage. The guy with the trim knife is one of the Workamper volunteers. He also drove the tractor for our wagon.

Dave doing the siphon tube thing. It's not as easy as they make it look, but Dave was successful in getting a tube to flow. In some types of irrigation the siphon tubes are used to transfer water from the canals to the fields.

Provided lunch was a large plate of chef-type salad that we munched in the shade of a large pine tree while some of the staff provided lunch hour entertainment. The lady with the guitar is Nancy Robertson, Extension director of the FARM SMART program.

Dave holding his "Siphon Hose" award and gift cup with ice cream at the conclusion of the day's event. There were about 200 people, mostly senior citizens, in our tour group.

The next morning was taken up, in large part, by the processing of some of the veggies for freezing. For sure, this week we're having a lot more salad and fresh veggies than we usually do. And since our micro garden is now producing red, ripe tomatoes at the rate of about 2 per day along with zucchini our salads have definitely improved.

We'll let you know what happens next week.

Winter is almost over

Today is February 17, and we're feeling like "winter" is nearly over. I put " around winter because we have a hard time realizing that we really are in the winter months. The California low desert is perhaps the finest climate zone we have ever lived in, at least the winter part of it.

Last week we took a tour of a new, almost completed, solar energy farm near Niland. The farm has been under construction for about a year. Some of the workers, and the supervisor, live in our RV park and they provided some of our senior citizen residents with the tour. Within sight of where we are for the season we can see geothermal power plants, natural gas power plants, and solar power systems. To the north of us is the largest assemblage of wind turbines we have ever seen. Lot of alternative energy here.

This was the first time we've ever been so up close and personal with a solar energy farm. Very impressive, and if it performs like the owners are hoping it will be a showcase of how to make electricity where the sun shines. And it does shine here! We've been getting some return from our garden since January, but the tomatoes are now turning red.

Here is part of our group waiting to be escorted through the solar panel array. This farm is about 140 acres and contains about 100,000 panel assemblies.

A view of some of the solar panels, all of which, they apologized, were made in China

Guard shack at the gate to Five Star Electric.

Pat with some of our garden produce on Feb 17.

Our garden is not covered in any way (it almost never freezes here), but we do have drip irrigation installed throughout. 80+ is typical daytime temp for Jan/Feb.

This is Presidents' Day weekend, one of the busiest for our campground. I think we are pretty much filled to capacity for the next three days. Pat is working in the office and restaurant. I have the day off, but am on-call. So far, just enjoying the day and getting some personal chores done.  Stay tuned. More next week.

More of summer 2011

After the Grand Canyon and Pat's trip to Minnesota it was on to California and Yosemite. From there, we continued westward to San Francisco for a visit to daughter Lyn and her family in Novato. Then we continued up the California and Oregon coast to Washington, seeing things we had never before encountered. Talk about scenic overload! Regrettably, one of the reasons we're so late with our blog updates is because of a photo problem. Actually, it's a computer problem. My laptop "crashed" and I don't have all of the pix from the last six months recovered yet. Doing the best I can with what there is to work with.

One of the incredible mountain lake/waterfall scenes in Yosemite National Park.

Lyn's family in Novato CA. Noah, Lyn, Hayden, and husband, Joe.

 Beach scene along the Oregon Coast. Pat and Annie fairly well being blown away.

Just a delightful little cafe along the Oregon Coast highway, The Greasy Spoon.

Home cooking, for sure! We try to take the road less traveled as often as we can.

While in McMinnville OR we visited the Evergreen Aviation Museum, home of Howard Hughes' Spruce Goose. There I found a Grumman Mohawk on display, one of the aircraft I flew while in US Army Aviation back in my youth.

Here we are at the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.

This is the Spruce Goose. Made mostly of plywood, with 8 engines. It never flew successfully.

After leaving Oregon, our first scenic stop was at Mount St Helens WA.

We joined up with Pat's sister, Fran, and her husband, Jerry near Poulsbo WA. There was a Civil War re-enactment nearby so we spent a day there soaking up some American history. That's Jerry on the right, you might recognize the guy he's shaking hands with.

There was a lot of shooting, but nobody was killed permanently.

The participants really get into the life as it was in 1865.

Sisters, do I need to say more?

After we escaped the Seattle area we headed across WA to the eastside, Newport to be exact, where we lived since 1999. This is Dave with Carol Mack, left, and Janet Lambarth, right. Worked with these ladies in the county extension office until retirement. It was great to visit them after more than three years since retirement.

Upcoming: Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, and Minnesota.

Happy New Year, 2012

Wishing all our friends, family, and visitors to this blog a very happy new year. May 2012 be a great year for you.

As we look back on 2011 we realize how much we have done, how much we have seen, and how many miles we traveled. It was an ambitious agenda, to say the least.

One year ago, on Jan 1, 2011, we were at Glamis North KOA, near Niland, California, working on the campground, Pat in the office and restaurant and David building and fixing stuff on the facilities. Exactly one year later, Jan 1, 2012, we find ourselves in the exact same place, albeit in a new home, doing pretty much the same things. Ah, but what happened in between will take a lot of pictures and writing to explain.

January, February, March, April, and May have been fairly well covered in previous blog entries. It's June, July, August, September, and October that have been only marginally explained. Without a long explanation, let's just say that we had a lot of computer "issues" while traveling, and the speed of our travel and the way too busy schedule we kept just didn't make blogging all that convenient. Hope this catches things up for you.

June 2, 2011 - we left Glamis North KOA and headed out for the summer. This KOA closes for the summer and (almost) noone stays here as it gets way too hot. Our first stop was the General Patton Museum, just a few miles east of Palms Springs CA and at the gateway to Joshua Tree National Park, which we also toured.

From Joshua Tree NP, we moved on to sites along old Route 66 which took us to Williams AZ for an Escapees Head Out Program to tour the Grand Canyon and the Williams area. After the Grand Canyon, we headed for Phoenix where Dave, Molly and Annie waited while Pat went to Minnesota for grandson Gregory's graduation.

Dave, Pat, Molly and Annie at the start of Route 66 (in Arizona). June '11

Old Route 66 is mountainous, windy, with steep canyons flanking the narrow roadway. We really needed our smaller, 21', trailer for this road. Could never have done it with a 36'. June '11

Downtown Oatman AZ. Oatman pretty much consists of whatever is on both sides of the highway, and at that only for a few blocks. Can't get lost in this town. June '11

Wild burros sighted along historic Route 66. June '11

Williams AZ, gateway city to the Grand Canyon, south rim. June '11

One view of the Grand Canyon. June '11

Indian hoop dancer performing at the Hopi House, south rim Grand Canyon. June '11

Ancient cliff dwelling near Sedona, south of Williams. June '11

This is in Bodie ghost town, a CA state park. Doesn't belong in this sequence, but I can't find a way to delete it. Live with it. June '11

Some bighorn sheep we saw along historic Route 66. June '11

Oak Canyon, between Williams AZ and Sedona AZ. June '11

Pat flirting with one of the cowboy/gunmen at the Grand Canyon Railroad Station in Williams AZ. June '11

The Tree Project

There was a dead pine tree at the entrance to Chicago NW KOA that looked pretty ugly. Tried to get the owner to cut it down while we were working there summer 2010, but no go. Wasn't ready to cut it. This summer, 2011, I offered to sculpt the stump if the owner would cut the tree. Agreed, and I had a month-long carving project. Results are posted here.

De-barking and prepping the stump

Forming in some detail, after the chainsaw work.

Continuing with the detail work.

Nearing completion. The smaller "branch" has been carved into a squirrel with an acorn-in-a-cage feature.

Completed project. Finish is two coats of boiled linseed oil. Every camper coming to Chicago NW KOA is greeted by this welcome sign.

Back in California for the winter

We're back in California for the winter a the same old KOA, Glamis North KOA near Niland. Looks like the summer here was really HOT. So glad we weren't here. Back to work doing all the usual campground chores; Pat in the office and Dave out fixing things. October 22 the mid-day temp was 110 degrees, so that doesn't mean that fall/winter on the calendar translates to the type of weather we're more accustomed to "up north". But then, that's why we spend our winters here.

In a few days we'll be receiving delivery of our new Cedar Creek fifth wheel. Hadn't planned to replace our Wilderness Advantage just yet, but we went to the Dallas RV show and fell in love with the Cedar Creek. And if you've ever shopped, you would know that you get the best deals during the shows.

This is Mike Hartley, of Funtown RV, in Cleburne TX. Mike showed us how we could afford to buy a new house now in stead of waiting two years. Thanks Mike, now we have something we haven't had for several years - a house payment.

Here's Pat lounging in our new home in front of the 42" flat screen TV.

Yet MORE of our summer vacation

A few words, a few more photos - with any good luck we'll have the entire vacation posted before the summer is completely over. Yea, I know it's already autumn, but we're still on vacation. This post includes some of what we saw at the Grand Canyon and Sedona AZ.

One of the old-time steam engines used to haul the GC tourist train from Williams AZ to the Grand Canyon and back.

Hoop dance at the Hopi House on south rim of Grand Canyon.

This is us, but you knew that, at canyon edge of Oak Valley Canyon, south of Grand Canyon, north of Sedona AZ.

This magnificent home is merely a week-end cottage for Dr. Lasik, of the eye surgery fame.

Our Grand Canyon tour was part of an Escapee Head Out Program centered in Williams AZ. They fed us well.

Some of the entertainment in the passenger cars on Grand Canyon train.

Part of the flavor of the train ride is a "hold up" while enroute.

This is from the south rim of the Grand Canyon. It's truly beautiful.

Come back soon for another chapter of our summer vacation.