Even with five birdbaths in the garden area it can sometimes get crowded.
Thirsty birds on these hot days.
Redwing Blackbirds
A Backyard Resident
The remains of the Poinciana tree in our backyard. I had planned on cutting off the remaining branches off this week.
While pulling weeds I saw movement in the tree that definitely wasn’t a bird.
It was a Texas Spiny Lizard, and a big one at that. We have quite a few smaller ones that we regularly see on the ground in both the front and back, but this one is the largest one. A few years ago we had one we named Lizzy. We would always talk to it when we saw it and never tried to scare it. After a while it never even froze or scurried away when it saw us. Sitting out back in our lawn chairs it would walk all around us. We were sorry when it disappeared, never to return. The tree is going to have to go, but for the time being it has a brief reprieve. These lizards don’t live in trees, rather their home is a hole in the ground, but they do like to spend time up high. Lucky lizard, temporarily lucky tree.
This is Really Really Not a Good Thing
I can’t believe I didn’t connect the condensate tray outlet to the drain hose when I reassembled the air conditioner. It took a while but eventually there was water dripping from the bottom of the unit. When I removed the cover this is what we saw. I know at one time when I was reassembling the unit I had the outlet and the hose joined. I guess they weren’t locked in place and separated when I was trying to get the condensate tray to snap into place.
Image taken after reassembly, but before placing the cover back on. This time there was no leak. One of the YouTube videos had the comment that the more times you disassemble and reassemble the unit the easier it gets. I can absolutely verify the veracity of that statement. I probably took more time taking photos and video than it took to do the disassembly and reassembly.
Two More Try’s at a Breakfast Burrito Photo
Label me stubborn, or maybe just an incompetent photographer who doesn’t know when to stop. Actually I think this is my best breakfast burrito photo to date. Getting the lighting right is very difficult, especially taking photos inside an RV early in the morning.
I think the composition is better on this one. I also tried for a different style of lighting. I just wish the sour cream was as white as it looked I guess it is time to start watching YouTube videos on how to photograph food. Maybe shining a bright led light on it would help? In the future I will try to limit the number of Breakfast Burrito posts to no more than one a month.
Cleaning Our Mitsubishi Mr. Slim AC
After watching a number of YouTube videos we attempted to clean our Mr. Slim unit the “easy” way. While the section of the case where we wiped it with a damp cloth and then brushed the blower vanes may look clean it really wasn’t. The brush only removed the dirt from the front section of the blower vanes, plus we couldn’t clean the case behind the blower. So much for the easy way which meant disassembling the unit. After another round of watching YouTube videos – why does each video leave out a step or two? – we were able to disassemble the unit. I say we because my wife handing me tools and carefully laying out the parts I removed made the task so much easier. Plus she remembered things from the videos that I didn’t. I’m so lucky to have married a farm girl. Smart Rob.
I can guarantee we will never let the unit get this dirty again.
The blower partially cleaned. A garden hose, a bucket of water with Dawn added (if it cleans oil off a sea bird it should clean an AC blower shouldn’t it) and you can see the difference it makes with the right half having been cleaned.
Build up of residue in the condensate tray.
The unit with the blower and water condensate tray removed.
After cleaning the case, the last step was to clean out the drain line. I opted for the water rinse method, using a water wand we use to clean out the 5th wheel RV’s hot water tank.
What came out of the drain line.
All cleaned up and reassembled. It wasn’t all that hard to do I say with a great deal of hindsight. Thank you YouTube.
