Two Aero Gardens

We now have two aero gardens and they are growing like crazy:)  In one we have a Tomato plant Thyme and a Basil, in the other we have lettuce all growing well.  No tomotos in site yet.

Aerogarden Update March

We just bought our second Aero Garden and here is a photo showing we have pulled out some herbs to make room for a tomato plant we pulled three plants and put them in dirt a few weeks ago.  As you can see the plants in dirt are growing about a third as fast.  With the aero garden we could use/trim herbs like Basel and Parsley at least three times a week.  We are lucky to get one trim of Basel or Parsley a week.

Get a scanner

A scanner to keep in your RV, we scan photos and records all year.  We keep a copy on a SD card and another on a portable hard drive.  We have also emailed key documents to our kids and they to us as another back up.  We have got tired of shredding documents and keeping paper copies and paying annual fees for a bank safe deposit box

To be fair we do keep a handful of paper documents in a Walmart 8X11 (inside dimensions) Firebox/Safe.  It is about 7 inches tall on the outside.

Butter Dishes

Our old Tupperware butter dish finely died so we went on the hunt for a new one and could not find one.  While in our local hardware store we found one and bought it:)  Lesson here, never forget your local hardware stores.  It is cheaper to use a stick of butter then a tub of butter, with the sticks we buy four sticks for under three dollars and keep the others froze till needed.

We bought three spare ones so we have them in the future, of course we also put one in the house as well.

Electric Heater Test

Testing the portable electric heater in the RV.

Set the heater on the dinette behind the drivers seat facing toward the back of the RV, kitchen then R&R and last the bedroom.

• 9am 40 degrees outside 38 inside, Turn on heater low 3/4 setting
• 10am 43 degrees outside 57 inside, turn up heater to high and 1/2 setting could feel the heat increase coming out of it.  
• 11am44 degrees outside 58 inside.  I covered the driver compartment with a sheet for some minor isolation.  11:30 just took out a second heater and the inside temp is up to 61 degrees.  Please note the temp LED is in the kitchen.  So even the thin sheet helped increase the inside temp.  Also all blinds are closed.
• Noon it is 46 degrees outside and 67 in the RV:)  We will go one more hour. 
• 1pm it is 47 degrees outside and 72 inside.  I will leave it on a little longer to see how it holds the heat and warms up the furniture.  
• 2:30pm 47 outside and 76 degrees inside and the furniture no-longer felt cold.   So we ended the test with smiles.

Small smoker for the RV

We bought a small two rack Master Built smoker that has legs and carry handles that fold down.  This allows use to store it in part of one of our basement apartments.  Here I am doing a test at the house doing a rack of ribs.

 Below are the ribs being smoked, in a few hours we will be enjoying a great meal:)

Here follows a pork butt we just made as well.  This little smoker will be just fine.  Now when we move which kid gets the big smoker?

Emergency Water

The government recommends every home have at least three days of food and water and a to go bag for each person.  My mom taught me to keep a few weeks worth of food especially can goods with their own water.

 Above shows a corner of our basement with 5 gallons and a half, I am refilling the 6th gallon in this shot.  Plus, the water heater has 40 gallons of water as well plus what is in the pipes.

 In this above photo the back wall in this upstairs storage area is lined with full gallon water jugs.  We also keep potatoes and filters to our Zero Water and Britta Water pitchers.

 Above is an old camp solar shower we can fill and have enough water for us to have at least one quick shower each while the power is out.

When the weather turns bad or other issues threaten we also fill our other water pitchers as well.  Here power failures often occur during a thaw as well as the initial storms.

We also have a portable propane heater and several propane bottles as well as our Motor Home which is always ready to go minus the water.  A food tote is always ready to be put in the RV for a weekend getaway as well.