Under the Dome

 June (!!!!) 1 - 14, 2024

Tombstone, Arizona

The Whetstone Mountains wrapped in color.

And Boom! it's June.

Being in the desert, being at the house, feels weird this time of year. It is decidedly different from the other seasons we usually spend here. Not just higher temps, but an even slower pace around us. Would be hard for our pace to be much slower these days! 

Plans for my solo travels with family, and a little yard maintenance keep me somewhat busy. The ugly Heat Dome moves in (here and a lot of other places) the first week of the month squashing most motivation to be outside. I'm even more grateful to be retired with nothing requiring me to be "out there in it". 

Eeeesh. I'm grateful it's not the norm here.

The first day we reach into triple digits the AC stops putting out cold air. I notice it on my way out the door for an appointment in Sierra Vista. Gone a little over two hours, when I return the problem has been fixed. Bill called our local HVAC service and they were at the house in 30 minutes with what was needed in their truck. A few days later the unit is just not keeping up so I call them again. Ten minutes the guy is a the door! The last time the tech missed something that is easily remedied, we're not charged for another service call, the house is cooled down quickly. 

For me good customer service doesn't mean mistakes are never made. It's more about how mistakes are handled. In this case we're pleased with the customer service!

We enjoy our porches in the morning, watching the birds, deer and the occasional lizard. Our wildlife trough is kept topped off in this heat. So far most of our baby Quail are surviving the Road Runners, snakes and Ravens. The big covey of ten babies still have nine, and the older covey of six is still six! The IPhone doesn't capture them as more than blurry rocks so I need to remember my camera. One morning a pair of Ravens dance overhead, it's so quiet we hear their wings wooshing in rhythm. Small blessings.

Stopping by for a drink.

Some mornings you can almost see "the dome" of heat.

Our electric service is a co-op, and I continue to be impressed by how they operate. With high winds, monsoons, snow, high temps, and the occasional driver taking on a power pole, there are year-round opportunities for outages. We've had a few of them each of the years we've had the house. Not only are they rarely lengthy, updates are provided via text with enough information that we're not guessing what and when. A few days after the AC repair, the power goes down. Fortunately it's a cooler day. A text tells me the time and location of the reported failure closest to us. In this case it's just down the street. Expected to be restored within 3 hours. The local FB page lets me know it's pretty widespread. Less than an hour later we're back on :-) Getting the texts is especially helpful if you're not at the house - so you know when to come back! Our friends and family in Texas should be so fortunate.

After the shop has the motorhome for a week they call and ask us to come "take a look at something we found". I don't imagine it's a stash of $100 bills? 

Nope.

It is however maybe an explanation for the ongoing large slide issues. We can't see it, but the tech "shows us" where the flooring has dropped on that side in the back, and explains how this caused the mechanism to shift and strip wires on that motor. Okaaaaay. He's been dreading telling us, but thinks he can fix it for us. They still can't find (and neither can I after much searching) a replacement door lock or dash stereo/camera unit so even with the slide working I don't know when we'll have a motorhome we can travel in.

<sigh>

Clearly it's a good thing we weren't able to head out last month, and in hindsight it's a blessing we're at the house for several reasons. 

But oh that beach sounds heavenly on these hot days! 

The best way to spend a hot summer day, Oliver contemplates the first bite.

Henry graduates pre-K!

Oliver joins cousins M&M for cherry-picking. Yum!