Archive for ‘July, 2017’

Ten years of complaining about Summer heat…

I started this blog in June 2007 as I headed out in the motorhome.

It was a memorable trip. I got sick about 2 days in and was fairly miserable for the next ten days. I recovered enough to make it to my folks’ house and give myself into the care of my Mama!! She did my laundry, cooked for me … listened to me whine … did I mention it was HOT!

Mostly recovered, I headed for home on July 3… through more heat and a failure of my RV hydraulics. But we (me, Karl and Bob) rolled home on July 6 to the tune of 94F at 2:00 p.m.

Fast forward to July 2017.

Hot. Not quite as hot as 2007, but HOT!

And in between that 2007 trip and today’s 2017 heat, I have mostly complained about heat in July and August.

Broken record…

All things pass and this will also.

Meanwhile… last week’s veg…

I should have taken a photo before I bundled everything up, but in the cheesecloth is: carrot tops, fennel tops and green onion tops.

The bean broth is outstanding!

Looks kind of like dirty ditch water, but the flavor is tops! It is in the freezer for future soups.

Cold brew. It is too hot for normal coffee making. Plus I like cold brew:

101 g coffee
6 cups water

Let sit for 12-24 hours. Filter/strain and refrigerate.

Result = coffee concentrate for iced coffee or add water and heat for hot coffee.

And my hot weather savior: Instant Pot! Beans, pasta, turkey and chicken … all to perfection and no added heat to the kitchen.

10 years.

Too HOT!

Counting the days until Fall.

Rearranging things

There is a room in my house that is technically the living room.

Really, it is Bear’s room.

I don’t have TV and I typically sit to read in either the kitchen or the sunroom.

As Bear has moved into his very senior years and the back legs are not so strong, the living room as well as the rest of the house has non skid rugs so that he can navigate and get up and down. And there is a single mattress on the floor for his comfort as well – easy on/off.

As it heats up this week, I got to thinking that a bit of rearrangement might make things more comfortable as well as giving Bear more room to get into a cool corner he likes.

I opened things up and moved the A/C unit…

… so it points the length of the living room and into the bedroom. A booster fan keeps the bedroom nice and cool.

The sunroom chair now boasts a VERY large footstool!

Another booster fan helps some cool air from the living room reach the kitchen and sunroom.

Like Bear in his corner, Auggie also slept through the entire rearranging.

But later, we all enjoyed the cool – the new arrangement DOES work better with the real test to come later this week.