Progress, A Fish Fry and More Progress

Most North Ranch lots with houses also have a RV hookup.  It appears none of the previous owners of this property had a RV—there was a start made for the RV hookup—the water was there but capped, the sewer was in place but the pipe stuck up out of the ground knee high and there was what appeared to be electrical conduit buried with no wire inside.  Well, now, I guess we need parts as we plan to stay in the motorhome while remodeling the house.

Off to Wickenburg we went Friday morning and off to Wickenburg I went again after lunch as the cowboy bought the wrong size PVC fitting for the sewer.  It takes about 35 minutes round trip to go from North Ranch to Wickenburg and back again.  In the 35 minutes I was gone the cowboy cut down all three trees along the side of the house, cutting them into lengths easy to handle.  Wow!! 

By the end of the day Friday we had a sewer connection and a water faucet--the cowboy was still stewing about the electrical.  At the bi-annual North Ranch garage sale he got a great deal on some heavy gauge wire—the problem was how to get that wire through the underground buried conduit, 120 feet. 

Friday evening we made our third trip of the day to Wickenburg to have dinner with our ATV friends.  Lesson to self—don’t order salmon in Arizona.

Saturday morning Michael and I were out bright and early loading tree branches onto our handy/dandy little trailer.  Larry and Fred stopped by to help and by 9am all the tree debris had been taken to the land fill!!  Michael was then off to help Joe and the rest of the gang install a new awning on Joe and Kathy’s fifth wheel.  The ladies headed up the hill for a little retail therapy and lunch at Yarnell.

 

Saturday evening we were invited to Jim and Ellie’s for a fish fry—as usual the food was outstanding and so was the company—we had a great time!

Today, neighbor to the rescue!!  Tom across the street is a builder, Michael asked him if he had a “fish tape”—you push it through conduit, attach the wire and pull the wire back through the conduit.  We have a “fish tape” at home but not here.  Tom said, “you don’t need a fish tape, you need some lightweight string, a plastic bag and a vacuum cleaner.”

Attach the plastic bag to the string, slide this into one end of the conduit and attach the vacuum cleaner to the other end of the conduit 120 feet away—turn it on and almost instantaneously the bag and string were at the vacuum cleaner end!! 

Michael then tied the string to the electrical wire and neighbor Jim pushed and Michael pulled—soon we had electrical wires in the buried conduit—one end at the RV hookup, the other end at the electrical panel. 

We’ve eliminated the clothesline—I love to hang clothes outside but I dislike the look of a clothesline in my back yard.  In Montana I have a retractable clothesline which I use all the time.  The clothesline in the backyard was built by short people—the upright poles were at the exact height to hit Michael, Larry and me right in the eye—not good!!!  I’ve ordered another retractable clothesline for this house.  

While all this wire business was occurring Emmi was getting a bath and major haircut.  All day long she has acted embarrassed—I cut her hair really short! 

Late this afternoon we returned the borrowed chainsaw to Caryl and Jerry passing by the Bayfield Bunch house—it looks good—cactus and palo verde tree are blooming. 

It’s still amazing to me that in April people have all these beautiful flowers in Arizona.  Montana flowers won’t be blooming for a while yet!  All the blog photos tonight were taken with my iPhone—that too is amazing to me!