February 5 - 12 --- Changing The Well House Water Filter In 13 "Easy" Steps, Popped Canopy Screws, More Faranuf Birds And Sky Views

Though I'm jumping ahead of myself, we had a great view of the full moon during a partial lunar eclipse; you can just make out the shadow on the left. I timed it so that it was sitting right above the ridgeline of the Peloncillos. From February 11 --

I love having the house all to myself. I can get up at any time during the night and do whatever I want -- read, listen to my classical German internet radio station REAL loud as there are no neighbors within a quarter of a mile, practice my guitar (alas, I haven't been doing that even during the day -- but soon!), even dance the watusi if I had a mind to. But living alone also means having to do maintenance work inside and outside the house, the well house, and on my 4 acres of land. Sure, I could hire a local handyman to do it, but where's the feeling  of accomplishment in THAT? So I try to do as much as I can by myself, and the only limit is that I don't suffer grievous bodily injury.  Because then I WOULD have to hire someone... So here are 2 projects that have come up since I've been back at Faranuf, and it's only going on the 5th day. 

You remember my RV canopy, right? I've had it for about a year now. It's well worth the money I shelled out to have it installed as it's saved my trailer from the unforgiving Arizona weather, especially the intense sunlight and wind gusts of 40mph and more. (The canopy is built to withstand winds of up to 90mph; it's an Arizona law.)  The screws holding things together with 2 washers were drilled into the holes at points of high stress, and there are quite a few of those points, as you can see in this photo -- 

When I came back from southern California I noticed some screws on the ground. I'd never given it much thought because the installers seemed to litter the ground with screws, and I'm always coming across a few even a year later. But hmmmm....I looked up to the struts. 

Uh-oh. The installers didn't say anything about this!  And other screws were working themselves loose -- 

And most of the screws that were missing or loose were WAY up there, even higher than the roof of my trailer. Serendipitously (once again) I had purchased an 8-foot stepladder at a Lowe's in southern California, and it was high enough to reach these screws. I have a bad right shoulder so it would have been nice to use a power drill, but I don't. So I used a wrench to screw them back while trying to use my left hand. I put all of them back in, but was left with 4 extra. Or were they? I hate it when there are  leftover parts after you've put something together. 


Here's a problem that I've had since I moved to Faranuf. Those 3 blue tanks in the photo below are for a water softening system that was installed by the previous owners. I was thinking of take it out, but decided to keep it as soft water is easier on the pipes and applicances. It's a somewhat complicated system, but I have someone from the company that makes and installs it come out once a year. As the company is in Tucson, about 180 miles one-way from here, you have to schedule a visit at least a week in advance. The problem I mentioned is that the hoses seen in the photo running from the blue soft water tanks drain via a pipe to the outside underground, and if the pipe gets clogged, then the waste water backs up into the well house.  It scared me at first until I realized what was causing it. 

So now I have someone coming out from Tucson on Tuesday to do the one-year checkup on the soft water system, and he's going to suggest more efficient ways to get rid of the waste water like, say, a "French drain" (guess a Frenchman thought up the idea) or some sort of irrigation method which I can use to water the plants. 

Since we're on the subject of water...By now most of you know we have our own well water. We sit on top of the "San Simon sub-basin of the Safford groundwater basin. We here in Portal are in the "alluvial water" section of the sub-basin, alluvial referring to the loose, unlayered nature of the material washed down by creeks and streams. That "nature of the material" is most likely silt, clay, sand and gravel, meaning it's important that we have water filters to keep that stuff from getting into the water lines and making clear water turn brown -- and sometimes smelly. I have two filters, one that traps the sediment after which the cleaner water goes through the water filter. If I'm gone for a long period of time and my water supply doesn't get used, then the sludge builds up in the filters and when I come back and start using it, the water comes out brown. It's (allegedly) still useable and drinkable, but that means it's time to check the filters and probably end up cleaning and changing them.  When I came back from southern Calfornia, I noticed that the toilet water was brown. "They" say to change the water filter every 3 months, and this was a reminder for me to do it.  When it comes to remembering the steps of how to do something, my memory is like a sieve. (Even as I'm typing this I'm cleaning out my coffee maker and have to Google the instructions, though I've done it at least a dozen times since moving here.)  So I write down the procedure and in most cases take photos so I have "before and after" looks; at the end you'll see the photos came in very handy. So without further ado, here are the 13 steps I use to clean and change the filters. 


Here's the water filtration system. The well pump is outside, the water brought up is stored in the large container to the left, then flows through the pipes where it encounters first the sediment filter -- the skinny one -- then the water filter. The new water filter is in the bucket. The first thing you have to do is turn off the water supply that goes through the filters, and just as a precaution (for what, I don't remember -- memory like a sieve again) I turn off the main water supply to the house. 

This has absolutely nothing to do with changing the filter, but it needs to be constantly checked, too. The long box is a "mouse zapper", which electrocutes any mice that get inside it in a "safe and sane" manner, and the odor of the Irish Spring bar inside its box helps  keep the mice outside. Dove, Dial, etc don't work; it has to be Irish Spring. And there's a Zip-loc of mothballs next to it, which also has a odor that mice don't like. Those tiny black "dots" are mice droppings so yes, in spite of all these precautions they still go get inside. 

The first thing you do is press the red button that you see in the photo below, which depressurizes the filter container.  The you unscrew the container. The "Off" with an arrow written with a felt pen was done by the original owner, but if he didn't put it there, I would have, because you have to turn the container CLOCKWISE to unscrew it, not counterclockwise. And I'd bought the large closed spanner wrench specifically for loosening and tightening the filter container because it's next to impossible to do it with just your hands. (Believe me, I tried before I bought the wrench.) And don't forget to put the bucket underneath it, otherwise whatever gunky water is left will get all over the floor. (This time I almost forgot.)

So now the container with the old filter in it is off.

You now take the old filter out, wash out the container, and put the new filter in. 

Don't forget to put the O-ring back in place before you screw the container back in! It usually falls into the bucket when you're washing out the container, and you have to feel through the sludgy water to find it, all the while thinking that you lost it. 

Here's the old water filter. Needless to say, the original color wasn't brown. 

Now that you've cleaned the water filter container and put the new filter inside it, it's time to deal with the sediment filter. Once again, the "Off With the Arrow" reminds you which direction to unscrew the filter. But before you do that, you depressurize it by turning the red valve so that it's pointing downward, meaning it's open and that's the direction of the flow. Depressurizing is usually enough to clean it out so you don't have to unscrew it, but the water filter was pretty dirty, so it's time to actually clean the sediment filter, too. 

So now the container holding the filter is off...

and you soak the actual filter in a bucket of bleach and clean the inside of the filter with a bottle brush. The bottle brush I use is the one I also use to clean out the bird tube feeders. 

OK, so now you screw the container with the sediment filter back in --

Then the water filter using the spanner wrench --

And -- voila! -- you now have clean water again. You turn the valve handles on the pipe so water once again goes through the filtration system, hear the water gushing through, check the water pressure gauge, try to remember the highs and lows of the pressure, realize you don't, and it's about at that time you think the whole thing is going to blow up. And isn't that red valve handle on the sediment filter supposed to be horizontal instead of vertical? I had opened it to depressurize the filter, and forgot to close it.  I checked the first photo in this series on my camera playback, and I did leave it open. Oops. Well, it wasn't as if I re-assembled something and had a screw or two left over. So I closed it. 

So there you have it. And what do you know -- my box of 3 dinners I'd ordered from Blue Apron was sitting on the porch. I'd like to think it was a reward for a job well done. 

OK, on to the obligatory birds and such... This Verdin is in my back yard and loves to nibble on the grape jelly that I put out for any Orioles that might happen to drop by -- 

Here's a portrait of my resident Green-tailed Towhee -- 

You can see here why he's called Green-tailed -- 

A Say's Phoebe is also a longtime Faranuf Resident. And lately I've been noticing TWO Say's . Can love be in the air? 

I missed our spectacular sunsets -- 

and sunrises. 

December 23-February 4 -- A Holiday Visit To LaLaLand

 I was looking forward to spending time with my dad for Christmas and New Years, but not the dash through the maze of notorious freeways in southern California to get there.  Since San Pedro is on the coast of Los Angeles County, I have to drive from one end to the other. I call it "running the gauntlet" because you feel like you're being thrashed psychologically -- hopefully not physically -- by the surrounding traffic as you make your way through. I have a preferred route as I've done this a few times; in SoCal Freewayese, it's the 10-60-91-55-22-405-110. Or instead of 405-110, I could take 405-710-47, but that route, though usually faster, has bridgebuilding that could slow things down. But of course things never go as planned. First, it started to rain as I went west on I-10 through Banning Pass. Then the Highway 60 offramp was blocked off; there was no way I could get on it. (I heard later there was a bad accident.) So I took the 10 to the 15 and headed south to the 91 But at the offramp to the 91 --

It was the dreaded freeway interchange construction. Once I got through that, the rest of the way wasn't so bad. Meanwhile, back home in Portal, it looked like a holly, jolly Christmas; here's our post office on December 25 -- 

And here's the harbor at San Pedro on December 24, looking relatively placid.

The Point Fermin Lighthouse was built in 1874 and was built in the "Stick Style",  an early Victorian architectural design simpler than the high Victorian style of the later period. It's staffed by volunteers from the Point Fermin Lighthouse society and is open to the public. An interesting part of the lighthouse's restoration is that the original Fresnel lens was re-found and the return of it to the lighthouse was an episode of "Visiting...With Huell Howser". The lighthouse in my photo is decorated for the holidays; this was taken on December 24. 

Though it may not be a "holly, jolly Christmas" photo as the one of the Portal post office, this view of the Los Angeles basin, with the snowy San Gabriel Mountains as a backdrop, is still stunning. I think the natural landscape here is one of the most spectacular I've ever seen, even with the sprawling city and its teeming millions. This was taken from the balcony of my dad's condo in San Pedro. Not too shabby of a view, eh?

The town of San Pedro is located along the main channel of the Port of Los Angeles, which is the busiest port in the US if you measure by container volume. The town (if you call it that; the population is 86,000) still has vestiges of its past links to the ocean, when immigrants from Italy and the former Yugoslavia came here to fish. Many of "Pedro's" residents are from those families that came mainly from the islands of Ischia and Dugi Otok. And they brought their home country along with them; two of the best known restaurants were Trani's (Italian) and Ante's (Croatian). 

Here's part of San Pedro's greatly diminished fishing fleet. The Fisherman's Fiesta, with its gaily decorated boats and blessing of the fleet, was for years one of Southern California's biggest events. 

The battleship Iowa, berthed at San Pedro along the main channel. 

Besides the manmade aspects of the harbor, San Pedro, and the Palos Verdes Peninsula that it sits on, has some pretty nifty natural ones, too. Such as these clouds over San Pedro Hill -- 

Or a spectacular sunrise looking to the east and the coast of Orange County; those two "humps" are the tallest points in "The OC". Los Angeles and Long Beach harbors are in the foreground. 

You can get spectacular views both looking above your head and under your feet. The tide pools along this part of the southern California coast are some of the best to be found here, though many of these critters have been ripped off the rocks and taken away by thoughtless individuals. Here's a sea anemone -- 

And a colorful array of anemone, starfish, and purple sea urchins. 

"Gee, what is that? Holy Moly, it's an octopus!" It was probably trapped when the tide went out. 

The best time to go tidepooling is during a minus tide, though it can be pretty slippery. Here's a sunset with the exposed rocks and tide pools. 

One of my favorite local places to check out birdwise is small, suburban Averill Park. It's been a favorite with families and kids for years; I remember fishing for crawdads (freshwater crayfish) with a stick and string when I was a kid. The crawdads are gone today, but the Mallards and feral geese are still there, and every so often you find a bird you don't often see there. I discovered this male Wood Duck in one of the park's ponds, and I've seen Mandarins and Green-winged Teals there, too. 

Southern California was slammed by a series of storms that wreaked havoc further north. That usually means heavy swells, so I went down to the fishing pier at Cabrillo Beach. The San Pedro breakwater, seen on the left, keeps the pounding surf from entering the inner harbor, and there's a rock jetty extending from left to right just below the photo. As the waves are trapped in a corner you can get some pretty spectacular surf, especially when it's high tide as it was on this day. A serious undertow makes the waves crash into one another. 

Getting back to the view from my dad's condo... In the right evening light, the skyscrapers of downtown Los Angeles can look like the distant city of Oz from the movie, lit up from the light reflecting on the windows. And if the HAZE is just right, then the sunset light is reflected down to the ground and smaller buildings around the taller ones. It gives everything a weird, orange-yellowish glow that's doubly impessive when everything else is dark. I waited for about a month into my stay in town for this shot, but it was worth it. 

I'll leave this look back at my time in San Pedro with a video of the phenomenal surf from above. Make sure the volume is turned up!  Now that I don't live there anymore, I think I've gained more of an appreciation  of what "Pedro" has to offer. I'll definitely be back....