Verna and Bob's Weblog

Bob

First Day of Winter

new-house-christmas.jpgHere is how our new house looks as winter begins for us in the northern hemisphere. Verna put some red Christmas decorations in the palo verde (which means green wood) tree by the road. It looks very holiday festive.

Image: Our house on the first day of winter – click to enlarge

Today, we saw the coyote that has been hanging around our little hollow. Bay Bay barked at it and it ran away. Our little thirteen pound dog doesn’t understand that the coyote has at least thirty pounds on him. He also barks at the cottontails, jackrabbits, quail and squirrels that come around our hollow.

Verna and I anticipate a great week of football, food and enjoying our little family during the upcoming holidays. We hope that you will also have a good holiday season.

December 21, 2011 by Arizona Holidays Photography

Decorating the House for Christmas

shotgun-christmas.jpg

We bought several strings of Christmas lights when we moved to Arizona early this year. The novelty is that these are made from used shotgun shells. Sort of like recycling in a gun-friendly sort of way. I took a close-up of one of the shells and inset it in the image. Click to enlarge.

December 16, 2011 by Arizona Holidays Home & Garden

Football Playoff Season

football.gifOver the next several weeks, we will be enjoying football. The last three weeks of the NFL regular season is upon us with the playoff season after that. Additionally, college football bowl season is here with three games coming up on Saturday.

Most games are on television during prime time. That is when we usually write our blog posts, so expect that we will be posting sporadically until February.

December 15, 2011 by Blogosphere

Draining the Spa

ice-hose.jpgVerna and I decided to drain the spa for the winter season. Even though we are likely to get 70° + days during the winter months, we figured that keeping the spa heated up would be a losing proposition.

Image – ice chunks coming out of the hose – click to enlarge

I hooked up the hose to the drain on the spa after running the other end down to the wash west of the house. I was mildly surprised by the chunks of ice coming out of the hose as the water started draining. I should have expected that since there was a layer of ice floating on the water in the bucket under the RV drive hose bib.

After we got the spa drained, I went to the spa manual and read the section about winterizing. I have to get out the shop vac and remove the water standing in the spa’s internal pipes to avoid freezing damage.

I saw a bumper sticker in town the other day that said “RETIREMENT IS A FULL-TIME JOB.” I’m beginning to believe that very thing.

December 7, 2011 by Arizona Retirement

Healing Up

Yesterday, I went to the clinic where I had the minor surgery performed two weeks ago. The surgeon removed the stitches from the incision he made to remove suspicious tissue that may have contained additional carcinoma. The lab report was good. They found no more basal cell tissue.

The surgeon brought a student in the treatment room to observe the suture removal and to discuss the technique used for the procedure. He referred to the process as subcutaneous suturing. The Better Half was in the room and told me that he clipped off a knot at the bottom of the incision and then pulled the knot at the top to remove the remaining suture.

You can view the incision with the sutures at this post. You can view the “after” result by clicking in the rectangle above right. Voila! the subcutaneous technique left very little scarring. It is nothing like the spiderweb scar that a former surgeon left on my back a few years ago.

December 6, 2011 by Retirement Weirdness

Avalon 1998

Categories

Archives