It’s all About the Weather: Cold, Warm, then Cold again

December 30 – January 6, 2014 

So far we have not escaped the cold from the north.  Yeah we know it isn’t as cold here as up north.  But the effect is the same for us, we have to wear way too many clothes and we can’t go in the pool.  So far, in the 9 days we have been here, we have had 3 days at 70 degrees or higher.  Then, out of the 6 cold days (40-50 degrees) we have had rain on 5 of them.  This is the coldest and should be the driest time of the year here with average high temperatures at 71.   We are really hoping this weather changes as we are just a little tired of hanging in the RV all day.

Monday the 30th it rained continuously all day with temperatures around 50.  I haven’t seen rain like this for a long time.  We mostly just stayed in the RV and surfed the internet.  I also wrote the last blog.

Tuesday the 31st it is still raining!  By Tuesday night it had been raining continuously for 48 hours!  We arrived at this camp site with only a bottle and a half of propane.  The park has a propane company that services the place with refills on Saturdays.  This being only Tuesday I was afraid that we wouldn’t make it with just the one 30 lb. propane bottle until Saturday so I decided to drive into town and get a refill.  The area where the RV sits is gravel with no more room for the truck.  So the truck is parked in the grass next to the RV.  I hopped into the truck and moved it about 4 feet until the front tires sunk a little into the ground a few inches from the road. Now my dual rear tires were just spinning and I was going nowhere.  This would be a great time to use 4 wheel drive or so I thought.  I can change to 4X4 either electronically in the cab or manually at the front wheels.  First I tried from inside the cab, it’s raining you know.  The truck needs to move a little to engage and I wasn’t moving at all.  Now I got out into the rain and locked the front wheels into 4X4 and jump back into the cab and try to move.  I went 8 inches straight down in one spin of the tires.  I am now buried up to the truck axle. I tried to rock the truck and only made the front tire holes a little longer.  

Truck is parked across the road now just beyond the white car.

The maintenance man here saw what happened and got a neighbor with a 2500 dodge to pull me out.  Of course the Dodge guy was eating this up pulling out a 450 Ford!  The Dodge was too light and with only single rears he couldn’t move me by himself.  I had to start spinning slowly in 4X4 to help get me out of the rut.  I am now parking in a small parking lot across the road until further notice.  I did finally get to town and got the propane tank refilled.

We had made plans to go to the New Year’s Eve Dance/Party at the park clubhouse.  However, Patty wasn’t feeling up to it so we watched TV instead.  It really sort of sucked on TV as we are an hour later than New York here so the ball dropped an hour early for us.  There wasn’t anything local on TV for New Year’s Eve so we just listened to the fireworks in the park at midnight.

New Year’s Day January 1st it was still raining off and on but mostly on.  It has now been raining for almost 62 hours! There was a potluck brunch at the clubhouse that we attended at 10 am.  Then at 4 pm we attended a New Year’s Day Levee featuring Moose milk.  Seems this is a Canadian tradition and a reason to drink.  Moose milk is 1/3 milk, 1/3 ice cream and 2/3 booze.  The moose milk was tasty and we were reminded that no moose was injured or milked as part of this event!

Thursday the 2nd we spent inside again as it was just cold at 45 degrees!

Friday the 3rd the sun came out and the temperature went up to 70 degrees!  We made a Wally World run to get various stuff in the morning and then rushed back to be outside in our natural summer attire.  Then at night we hung out at the community campfire for awhile.

Got our new flag.  The old one you could see through and was torn. This one is embroidered.

Saturday the 5th the temperature got up to 78 degrees and full on sun!  Everybody came out like bears that had been hibernating all winter.  We walked the park in the morning.  Each lap is just about ¾ mile long.  Then in the afternoon it is water volleyball!  I played about 2 hours with enough people to make 3 teams.  We only play to 9 points to make it faster for everyone to be playing.  Now if the weather can cooperate we could get multiple days of play in.

This resident builds all of the art around the park.

This is near the park office.

It says this is the complaint department.

The gossip bench.

This is Sandy's Bar where the Wednesday happy hour is.

No idea what this is.  

A nice garden for quiet time.

Got a new tool box. The old one is close to 40 years old.  I got that
just before I started work on the Railroad.

The blue tag is from the mover Conrail used to move me in
1980 from Indiana to NJ.

Saturday evening we had a dance at the park with a live band.  The band is called Renaissance Players.  The band is made up of doctors from the local Renaissance hospital. They played mostly classic rock which we like for dancing. They played until 10:30 with the crowd still wanting more. It was a great time.

Sunday the 6th was an OK day.  The sun was out and the temperature was 75 in the mid-morning.  Around noon the wind shifted from the south to the north and the temps started dropping.  We played volley ball at 2 pm with the temp at 65.  We ended up quitting after a little more than an hour as no one wanted to jump up out of the water.  The temp was now 59!  The temp kept dropping until we were at 41 by midnight.

Monday the 7th we got up to 41 degrees.  I had an appointment with an ENT doctor in McAllen that I had made before we left to go north for the holidays.  I have a cyst in my right ear lobe that has gotten bigger to the point that you can now see it.  No one really sees it until I point it out and then they too can see it.   Anyway, at this point I just want it removed.  I had a cyst removed from the same place about 8 years ago but it came back after a year.  It was real small for a few years and then it would grow a little and stop.  

I put off getting it removed as it will take more time and effort on my part this time.  The first time it was removed the doctor did it in his office.  He was an old school doctor and didn’t do it the right way in an operating room so it came back.  To remove this the right way the doctor needs to get all of the cyst out or it will definitely come back.  Even with that it still may come back though.  I’m hoping this time they get it all out.

The appointment was at 9:15 am about 13 miles away.  The doctor spent about 20 seconds looking at it and saying what I had heard before.  That it is 99% not cancerous and I could just leave it alone if I wanted.  He also said he could cut it out if I wanted to.  I said that I wanted it cut out and that was it with the doctor.  

I then spent ½ hour with a women who schedules the surgeries.  This Dr. does surgery on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  It looks like I will be having this done sometime on this coming Thursday the 9th.  The hospital is a little closer to the RV park which is good. However, I need to go to the hospital and register the day before.  So that means I will need to go to this hospital 2 time to get this done.  Guess when the weather is to get nice.  That’s right, this Wednesday the weather gets nice and is to stay that way for multiple days!  Now it looks like the first 2 of these days I will be messing around at the hospital!

We picked up the ingredients to make chili this afternoon.  I also have some local dried hot peppers I can use.  I was going to just make enough chili for the 2 of us and maybe leftovers of one more meal.  Oh no, I can’t just make a little chili.  I ended up making a 6-quart crock pot overflowing!  I guess I should have known when I started out with 4 lbs. of beef!  The chili is some of my best I have ever made.  I also say that every time I make it though.  I also never make it the same way each time.  

This is the recipe this time:
2lbs Ground round
2lbs diced chuck steak
2 20oz cans of crushed tomatoes
2 20oz cans of diced tomatoes
1 15oz can of black beans
1 15oz can of red beans
2 large sweet onions
2 green sweet peppers
2 red sweet peppers
2 yellow sweet peppers
1 large hot jalapeno pepper
4 dried minced chili ancho peppers
1 TBSP black pepper
1 TBSP Chipotle Chile pepper
2 TBSP white flour
2 tsp. Hot Hungarian paprika
2 tsp. garlic powder
2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cumin
1.5 cups dark red chili pepper
1-2 cups of dark brown sugar to taste

Finely cut the chuck steak into small cubes and brown.  Then brown the ground round. Add the salt, garlic, chipotle pepper, and black pepper to each of the meats as they brown.
After browning the meat add the flour to thicken the meat juice (fat). 
Add meat to a large crock pot on high heat.
Finely mince the sweet peppers, ancho peppers, jalapeno pepper, and the onions (use food processor).  Add to the meat.
Add all of the canned items.
Add the dark red chili pepper and cumin.
Let cook for a couple of hours on high heat.  Season to taste for desired spiciness. Cook another hour and add dark brown sugar to desired sweetness contrasted to the spicy hot.  
Cook 1 more hour or until the vegetables are done.

Chili making stuff.

OK, that is the recipe for today anyway.

Tomorrow is to be cold and rainy.  Tonight is to be the coldest yet at maybe freezing.  Note:  As I write this on Tuesday last night the temperature didn’t make it to freezing, it was 37 degrees.  So we have another day of inside stuff. We think we are going to play WII bowling tomorrow afternoon.

Stay tuned!