Our June weather has been hot and dry. My indoor thermometer registered briefly 104F this afternoon. This heat is hard on both the dogs and me. The monsoon can not come soon enough. We have a 24% chance of rain on Thursday. I'm hoping it poors!
To keep the dogs cool, I have them tied outside under the RV. Getting a fence put in the front will cost me $750 and I may just do that so that I don't keep fighting with the dogs wanting to bolt down the street to fencefight with other dogs.
The dogs sleep most of the heat away under the RV, but I try to take them on car rides as much as possible. Yesterday I took them with me to The Toad, where I sat with Steve inside sipping beer for almost three hours, getting home by 6:30ish. Today I took both dogs with me to the Carnett Clinic, where I had blood drawn for my post-October check-in (to see if my cholesterol has dropped; I weighed in at 124.8 pounds but the phlebotomist did not take my blood pressure). That was at 8:30am
To give the dogs some relief, I took them down to the river, stopping on the north side of SR90 near the San Pedro House. Here I walked the maintenance road until I hit the first wash, then took the wash to the river. This is a short, level loop.
There was deep water here which both dogs enjoyed, but it smelled like effluent. At least the dogs could cool off some. We stayed in the shade for the return walk, crossing the open grassy field near the water gauge, returning back to the truck. Everything along the field was dead and dry; very few flowers were out.
This is an easy 1.75-mile walk that I last did over a year ago with Susan and Allie, after taking Hansel and Gretel on some refresher training with snake avoidance. Susan and I haven't been getting together as much since the house fire.
It was already 85F when we got done with the walk at 9:30am. We encountered no one, although an SUV was parked off the road nearby.
As for off-grid living, I'm getting used to the more primitive lifestyle. I've made several tasty meals in the SunOven. I make a big chicken-vegetable dish and eat on that for 2-3 meals before the dogs get the rest. It's easy cooking as the SunOven does everything. All I do is throw in the meat and veggies and sauce. This helps me cut down on my fastfood meals.
I can't handle this heat, though. I'll need a few powerful solar panels to completely cover the RV and the air conditioner, but I'd rather have a fence installed so that my RV dogs can walk around the front yard undisturbed.
My last big purchase for off-grid living was a 50L Lion Cooler. I got it last week but it struggled to keep my food chilled while outside. I brought the cooler inside the RV and it's doing much better, powered by a 90W solar panel during the day, and a lithium battery at night. It's a well-made cooler, but I can't seem to keep the temperature at a steady 40F.
My next focus is clearing out more debris from the house. I'm still finding sentimental items, like my mother's typed autobiography, a golden "G" clip from my father to keep his ties straight, and some art work Erin made while in middle school. I still have quite a bit to do, though.
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