It’s been a while since my last post.  We haven’t been up to a whole lot, so I’ve been taking a bit of a break from the blog.  We’ve been hanging out at the “Dirt Farm” in Casa Grande since around the 2nd of April enjoying some family time with my Mom, Stepdad, brother Steve and his girlfriend Cheryl.

We’ve been parked in front of Mom’s house moochingdocking off their recently installed 50 Amp power.  Steve and Cheryl’s house is situated a little ways behind this house on the same ~4 acre lot that they have affectionately nicknamed the “dirt farm”, complete with chickens and ponies.

Here’s stepdad Jimmy working on a little dirt and rock garden in our front yard – oops.. I mean their, front yard 🙂  Jimmy is always busy doing something.  Sometimes retirement isn’t easy.

Stilla and my Mom have been pretty good about going on morning walks.  They’ve been going distances of at least two, and sometimes three or more miles.  I even went with them once 🙂

Here’s stepdad Jimmy and brother Steve working on yet another project.  I’ve been helping out as needed to “earn our keep”.

There’s a seemingly endless number of projects to get done here on the “dirt farm”.  Here (below) Jimmy is putting in some pavers.  I kept telling him they’re crooked but that’s how mom wants it 🙂

Here’s Jimmy at the checkout counter on one of our many trips to Home Depot or Lowe’s.  I provided moral support and light lifting as needed.

Mom and Jimmy getting a section of dirt ready for some grass seed.

This is going to be a green lawn some day, I’m told 🙂

The back yard is slowly coming together.  The fence keeps Mom’s cats from escaping when they use the “doggie-door”.  I call this the “maximum security” area.  The “minimum security” area is defined by the fence around Mom’s house where we’re parked, and it separates the two houses on the farm.  The “general population” area is around my brother’s house where the ponies and chickens are kept.

Another backyard “maximum security” area view with some recently laid sod.

It hasn’t been all work around here though… we took some time to get in a little ATV’ing one day.

My cousin Dale and his wife Lisa from Denver came by to visit during the Easter holiday.  It was great seeing them again.

Cousin Dale hasn’t been on an ATV in years… since the days they still made 3-wheelers!  And it was Lisa’s first time.  We took turns riding each of the three ATV’s so they could get the full experience.  Steven’s quad (below) found some tumbleweeds… I wonder who that was?

Relaxing after a hard days ride 🙂

Easter morning started out with my Mom finding some baby “Easter Bunnies” in the horse manure pile she was spreading out for her fruit tree orchard.

Awww… aren’t they cute?

Even our Easter guests weren’t safe from projects while they were visiting.  Here we all are, picking up a pool for the ponies that brother Steve and Cheryl bought.

Somehow we managed to fit the round object into the somewhat square hole on the trailer and safely made it back to the farm.

And here we are; out for another meal… something we did often during our time at the “dirt farm”.

We kept busy evenings playing games around Steven and Cheryl’s nice dining (aka game) table.

And sometimes we had “movie night”.

But alas… all good times have to come to an end 🙁  It’s about time to start heading back towards Colorado (weather permitting).  The house still hasn’t sold, so we are going to go back to see what we can do.  Besides, Stilla wants to check on the daughter(s) and grandson.

But first, we still want to check out some things in the Tucson area that we haven’t seen yet, so we’ll head down to the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base FamCamp.  We’ve heard it’s pretty nice.

Goodbye “dirt farm”!  And goodbye, Mom, Jimmy, Steve & Cheryl… thanks for putting up with us for a while!  It’s getting too hot here anyway 🙂   Hopefully, we’ll be back before the snow hits up north again (wherever we are).

Next stop… Tucson!  Stay tuned…