It’s been a little over 3 weeks since we got back. The HUGE mountain of limbs, branches and sticks has now been reduced to a medium sized pile of mulch….courtesy of the local volunteer fire department and their chipper. The yard immediately around the house looks completely back to normal. Outside of the fence (which is all repaired now) there is still carnage from the ice storm. There is way too much for any one human to ever clean up so it will have to stay there and Mother Nature can take care of it. The motor home is serviced, clean inside and out, and safely back in storage for the next several months.

We had a wonderful visit from our friends from Canada, Bernie & Susan (part of the Desert Rats crew) when they stopped by on their way home to Ontario, Canada. We’re hoping that some of our other friends from Desert Valley will also stop by for a visit on their way home to Michigan and Ontario. We hope to see Tami and Craig and Jackie and Tino soon.

We’ve had some nice warm days and absolutely perfect nights. We’re hoping that it will continue for a long time, but this is the April, the rainiest time of the year, so it can’t last forever. Mike is keeping himself in shape and getting very fit with his walking… a regimen that he started when we were staying at Desert Valley. He’s up to about 8-9 miles almost every day and is cranking it out in about 2 hours. I’m about as much of a couch potato as ever, but I have been getting out and training dogs every day that the weather permits. The dogs are enjoying sleeping out on the deck all day long….. only jumping up to chase the occasional squirrel. Gandalf and I were entered last weekend at the Harrison Kennel Club shows and he did very well. He should stay ranked in the top 10 for quite awhile because he qualified in Harrison 3 out of 4 times in the ring.  He qualified in Open B both days and on Sunday he also qualified in Utility B so he got his first UDX leg!! His scores ranged from 189.5 to 195 out of a possible 200. He still never ceases to amaze me. He also qualified in Open B at the Tucson show just before we left. At that same show Strider took Best of Breed on one of the days. He went out and acted like the good looking show dog that he is.

And the biggest news we have is that Chase Michael Grimm 6 lbs 4 oz 29 inches long arrived on April 16th in Maryland to proud parents Adrian and Jessica and brother and sister, Cameron (Bubba) and Courtney. We don’t have any pictures yet, but as soon as we get one, we’ll share it here. Check back in later.

It’s only taken a few days, but most everything is back in its’ rightful place in the house and the motor home is all but empty. We’ll not put it back into storage until it gets a thorough cleaning both inside and out. The inside is done except for the carpets. I’ll do that while Mike is cleaning the outside. We’re on hold with the whole project until we get some decent weather. The first couple of days were great. The dogs spent almost all day sleeping out on the deck on their beds …that’s when it was in the 60-70’s. Now they’re all hunkered down in the laundry room. You have to force them to go outside. Night before last, it thundered and there was lightning for about ½ hour. Nali had to come spend the rest of the night in our room because she can’t handle the storms. She’ll be in there with us a lot in the next few months, I suspect. Then last night was 32 degrees with high winds. Right now the wind is blowing 20-40 mph and we’re expecting a hard freeze tonight and with rain and possible snow. Yuk! We have a 50 amp plug that we can keep power going to it, but we only came home with about ½ tank of propane so I sure hope we don’t run out because we’ll have to run the furnace to keep things from freezing.

We’re missing Arizona big time!

And yes even with all this stuff can happens while we’re gone, it’s a sure thing that we’ll back next year. We got the news just before we left that Mike and I are going to be grandparents…sometime in Late November. The kids don’t know yet if it’s a boy or girl..so for now we’re calling it Tuesunday Bebean. Don’t ask!… It’s more or less a private joke between the kids and us. We’ve had a lot of fun with them and with the nickname and we’re looking forward to big event. So everyone should plan on seeing us again and not be surprised if we look a lot older. Grandparents are supposed to look old, so I’m betting that we’ll fit the bill.

Got to the photos section and check out the new pictures of the ice storm aftermath and what we came home to. We tried to get out and pick up some of the biggest branches in the front yesterday and the wind was so cold and the whole task seemed so insurmountable, we just gave up. We have some really awesome neighbors who came over last week and at least cleaned out the driveway so we could get the motor home in…..and then we have some really low life neighbors who knew we weren’t home and they cleaned out their own front yard and dumped the sticks and branches in ours. Too bad we can’t prove it was them…we’d haul them all back.

We’ve tackled almost all of the branches in the front yard and some of the side and have a rather tall pile started at the edge of the driveway. Then we moved on to the back….Geezo Peezo…what a mess! Some of the branches are so big, it takes both of us to move them…and upon closer a look at the fence…there are a couple places that are really damaged and are just going to have to be replaced. What we’ve done back there is a drop in the bucket compared to what’s left There are still trees lying across the fence. We don’t own a chain saw, but I think we probably will before the week is out. Some of the trees are so big that you can’t use anything else to cut them up with. Then there’s the hauling them out to the front of the house where hopefully we can get a chipper in to get rid of them.

Gandalf and I are entered in the Harrison AR shows the 18th and 19th so there is a certain amount of training that needs to be done to get us ready for that. There’s only one large tree that’s lying on the field so we’ll just have to find a way to work around it. But neither one of us is interested in going out until it warms up a little.

We know that Arizona has had some nasty winds and serious blowing dust, but Mike and I have both agreed that we’d trade what we have here for what’s there. Missing you all…wherever you are.

We made it home about 2:30 pm. We hit no rain until we got into Arkansas …then it poured off and on the rest of the way. It was really coming down right after we pulled in at home so we opted not to unload the motor home right away. Came in and got water and heat turned back on. It was about 44 degrees and raining and windy so it’s friggin COLD!. We both are missing the warm temps. Glad I didn’t take the electric blanket off the bed.

Mike got the computers back up and running and online, got the Direct TV going again..but not without a call to customer service because they deactivated our receiver box. I went to work on the freezer and cleaned all the thawed and refrozen stuff out of it. Dogs are happy to not have to be in crates and just be loose in the laundry room again. I’m thrilled to have a dishwasher again.

The yard isn’t quite as bad as I was expecting, but the fence is smashed down in about 4 or 5 places. It’s not all the way down so the dogs can still go out and stay secure. They were pretty happy to get out and run and the boys had a marathon peeing contest remarking everything they could find. Duncan would’ve been the happiest of all of them, I’m sure.
There are several really huge limbs in the yard. Some others are laying on the fence and even more piled next to the driveway from when our neighbors came and cleaned it up. I discovered as soon as I walked into the garage, that our saying, “well at least nothing hit the house” wasn’t quite true. A branch broke off next to the garage, hit one of the the garage windows, tore a hole in the screen and broke the window. It’s dual pane so it only broke the exterior pane, but still….it’s just one more thing to have to fix.

Tonight is supposed to be in the 30’s but tomorrow is supposed to be warm (70) and no rain. So we should be able to finish getting the motor home unloaded and I can get started on mountains and mountains of laundry. A trip to the P. O. for mail, the grocery for a few things, and the hardware store for fence fixing parts will have to be squeezed in too. Mike wants to get the motor home cleaned up and get it back into storage asap before any more storms hit

I’ll get some pictures of the yard carnage tomorrow…and get them posted to an album. It’s two hours later here than in AZ and we’re having a hard time adjusting.