Tortuga Thursday
In 2012, on the plains of Northern Arizona, two families joined forces and
began the trials and tribulations of building a small family farm with
nothing in the bank but love.
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| A site on the way into Tonto Basin |
I start every Tortuga Thursday with the same paragraph. We're still getting through the trials and tribulations, and there's no more in the bank financially speaking, although there is more love with the addition of Sadi two years ago. Hard to believe there would be room for more love but that room expands quite easily.
I should've renamed this blog Tonto Thursday for the winter. Frank and I spend more time at the RV than the farm. But the grass is growing now, the garlic needs more weed attention, and there will be clean up to start on soon, so we may find ourselves heading to Tortuga Flats more often. Late May or early June, we'll move the RV back to the farm. It gets hotter here so we may be ready to bail. But right now, spring is unfolding and we have warm days and cool nights. Love it.
For now, we're living like retired people (not me really because of writing but no one but me sees that as a
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| A local hangout next to Lazy JR |
job) on the cheap. I always promise to share some of those tips. Here's a good one. The first month here, I was miffed at the electricity bill. I didn't budget $62 for this little RV for power. We were still using the heater and it's propane. We also cook on gas. The hot water, refrigerator, and whatever small appliances we plug in was all that pulled electric. We made some adjustments. By switching the hot water over to gas and unplugging everything when not in use, we dropped our bill over $20 the following month. I believe most of it was due to unplugging. We have a Keurig coffee pot so that ran all the time. Not now. And I'd heard that even when appliances are not in use, they pull juice. Now I believe it.
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| Have to ford the river to get across |
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| Tree along Tonto Creek |
If I haven't mentioned it before, we also switched from crock pot to pressure cooker. Not only does it cut the plugged-in-appliance time from six plus hours to thirty minutes, we can do last minute meals easier. And I like the flavors better, too.
By choosing a park that has three lakes close by, lots of hiking opportunities, and a fun group of people, we spend next to nothing for
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| Water provides entertainment |
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entertainment. Life is good.
I believe that appliances pull power, too! I've been unplugging my smaller appliances every time I finish using them, which also cuts the possibility of a kitchen fire.
ReplyDeleteVery smart, Ashantay!
DeleteI was recently in England and my sister has a gizmo that measures the amount of electricity is being used. The surprise for me were the chargers for phones and computers. Even when they are not charging they still draw power and quite a lot of power at that. It's something to think about.
ReplyDeleteI yeah, should've mentioned that, Marlow. I use to disconnect my phone or computer from charger but leave the cord plugged in. No more. Have to take it out of the wall!
DeleteMight be a good idea to use a power cord and turn it off when you're done using your appliance.
ReplyDeleteFunny you say that, Pepper. We use one for ease. Our RV has a limited number of outlets - one is way under the table. We keep an extension cord in that one and use it for multiple devices that get unplugged when not in use. The cord doesn't draw current if nothing is plugged into it.
Delete