Laundry Day

   Today is laundry day. Who wants to pack dirty rugs, sheets and clothes for the big move? Not me!!! Tomorrow we pick up the rental truck and start loading. Pa Kettle's daughter and son in law and my son in law are coming over to help us load up. God bless them !!!  Of course the weather changed and it is now a might chilly but not as chilly as where we are going!! Tuesday will be a high of 50, low of 20 , Wednesday high,45 and low of 13 and Thanksgiving day, high 45 and low of 13.  Quite a change from Vegas. I have no idea of how we will keep the pipes from freezing in the motor home. For that matter, I have no idea of how we will keep the dogs from freezing! I packed their own suitcase with dog sweaters and coats but they are desert dogs and will be completely out of their environment. Pa and I each take two dogs and stuff them in our sleeping bags at night to keep us all warm. Is that called "A Two Dog Night?"
    This will be my last post until I find a computer I can post from. Please say a little prayer for us that all will go well. Until then, signing off! Ma Kettle

Ransacked?

  The house looks like it has been ransacked! But who ever they were, they didn't get away with anything. At least I don't think they did. How could you tell in all this mess? Pa made an early morning trip to Clear Channel to pick up a panaflex tarp. That's what all the billboards are made of. Clear Channel gives them away for free but only after raising your right hand and swearing on a stack of Bibles that you won't let the printing on the tarp show to the public. Before leaving Clear Channel, Pa once again had to swear that no one would see the sign. Little did they know that not only would no one see the sign, no one would see us either once we got all moved. While Pa was gone, I packed up most of the kitchen ( no cooking for me for the next few days!) I have to tell ya, stop what you are doing right this minute, go into your kitchen, take out your pots and pans and look at what they were sitting on. I consider myself a fairly clean person, but Lord have mercy, my pots and pans were sitting in dirt! It's a wonder we haven't come down with some rare disease from cooking with those pots and pans. I was horrified and can't let the new owner see the bottom of the cabinet. She will think she bought her new house from one of the three little pigs. I think I will use Scrubbing Bubbles so it will sanitize and clean at the same time.

    It must be a guy thing but I was beginning to wonder when 1 in the afternoon arrived and Pa was still not home.  How long does it take to go across town? He left at 8 this morning. He finally called so I asked him to bring me home some El Pollo Loco. Oh, I am going to miss that place!!!! Turns out Pa had to stop by Harbor Freight to pick up his free flashlight. I think that makes 30 of them so far. I guess you never can have too many flashlights. Is that a guy thing too?  Of course Pa is going to miss Harbor Freight with the nearest one being almost 100 miles away. He did pick up more boxes so I had to forgive him for being gone so long and leaving the packing all up to me. Which reminds me, I had better get packin'.

Morning Surprise

    Pa Kettle left Monday to take another load to the ranch. All those manly things like a steel work table and big steel shelves and some chain link fence we found thru Craigs List. He was supposed to return this afternoon. At 5:30 this morning, the dogs went crazy and lined up at the garage door, tails awaggin'. In walks Pa. Turns out he couldn't sleep so drove thru the night. Well it scared me half to death and all I can say is it's a good thing he didn't open the door to find a shot gun pointed at his belly. I guess it is also a good thing that I don't have a secret boyfriend....that could have been awkward! Anyway, he is all tucked in catching up on his sleep.
    I spent yesterday running errands with a quick trip to Michael's Craft Store to see what I could find to use my coupon on. Couldn't find a darned thing so gave 4 coupons to various customers. I like to consider it a random act of kindness when I pass coupons out. I also hung out behind liquor stores trying to find more boxes to pack our stuff in. Is it just me or is that creepy? You never know who or what you will find lurking in dumpsters. Pa's niece in Oklahoma finds wonderful things and fixes them up and sells them. All I ever find is rotting produce and lots of flies.
  Speaking of our stuff, we have two 40 foot ocean containers, a 20 foot ocean container and a 48 foot semi trailer at the ranch, full of our stuff. We still have everything left in our house to pack. How much "stuff" do we need? I mentioned to Pa that just about everything in those containers will not go in the house which in my mind means all that stuff is his! We packed the 48 ft semi trailer five years ago when we first tried to sell our house.  All those shows on HGTV stressed that a house would sell faster if the walls were empty and the house was reduced to just the essentials.( they lied!) Well of course with all that stuff packed away, we had to buy new stuff as the years wore on because our old stuff was sitting at the ranch. We did go thru the trailer finally and started bringing back different things. Back on the walls went our pictures, I found 5 or 6 boxes of craft goodies (how on earth did I live without those for 5 years?) and little by little "stuff" made it back to Vegas. Over the course of five years, Pa has been going to garage sales, stocking up on manly things he will need at the ranch. When you live so far from town, you can't drop everything to run to Ace Hardware just to buy a certain bolt. Our Ace Hardware is the size of a postage stamp so they probably wouldn't have it anyway. May I just say here that we have every nut and bolt, every size nail, two of most tools and enough rakes and hoes to outfit an army? I'm thinking we are well prepared. Pa doesn't think so. It's a man thing.
  If I can do it quietly, I need to start packing. I don't want to wake Pa.

Purpose of this blog

     After 30 years of living in Las Vegas, my husband ( Pa Kettle) and me (Ma Kettle) are moving to 40 acres in NE Arizona. We will be living totally off the grid, 20 miles from town, 9 miles further down a dirt road. 80 miles from the nearest Walmart! This blog is mostly for family and friends but you are all invited to join us on our big adventure. Pa and Ma don't usually work well together so there might be some fireworks further down the road as we get the land cleared off and our manufactured home moved in. I am so excited to be leaving city life for the country life where it is so quiet, your ears hurt. After the lights of Vegas, our lights will be the zillions of stars in the night sky. We will be sharing our property with coyotes, range cattle, elk, antelope, rattle snakes, pack rats, mice, hawks, hummingbirds, and other birds and our 3 mini schnauzers and 1 Scottie dog. Down the road, we will have a garden and hopefully a horse or two and some chickens. I love chickens!!!! We are planning on having a flock of quail also. So come along with us and see how two retired city slickers make do in the great outdoors of Arizona.
    Posting may be spotty at first because we won't have internet for a couple of months but I will beg my friend, Daisy Mae and her hubby, Lil Abner to let me use their computer from time to time. They have been living at the "ranch",  for 5 years so they have lots of experience to pass on to us Newbies.
     We named our little ranch "Hell N' Gone Ranch" because people were always asking us where our property was and Pa Kettle would always answer, " Clear to Hell and gone" because it was so far away, in the middle of nowhere.
      We will be loading up the moving van on the 22nd and leaving on the 23rd. Question....how do you move 3 vehicles with only 2 people? We will have to drive back 7 hours to pick up our vehicle. Not much fun! I know the dogs are really going to be tired of traveling by the time we get back to Arizona.
     There are some things I will miss about Vegas. My daughter and her family, my favorite thrift store, Savers. The 99cent only store, Hobby Lobby, Liberio, our favorite Mexican grocery store. I won't be missing the traffic, people everywhere you look, the crime, the haze over the city, the noise, police sirens, ambulances, cars speeding down our street, lots of dogs barking, and so much more. Yep, I'm trading all that in for peace and quiet. There are so few people where we are going, we could run around in the nude and never be seen. Not that we will! Well, not very often anyway and definitely not in the winter.
    Until next time!