We received a report from Virgil in Tucson today. He's there with wife, Becky and his sons, Aaron and Alex. He's been busy, but has found time to fill us in on activities since his arrival.Virgil writes: Found water softener empty of salt pellets. Put three bags in. Could use more. I think I set it on a lower setting for softening, but not certain.
Found the filter on the spa broken. Plastic doohicky that aids in removing filter cover was broken and pieces were set aside. Water was at half level, apparently because the filter cap was not replaced snugly and the water slops over the side of the spa when turned on. When filter cover was put on snugly the water flowed just fine again, but a message of "fl c" comes up which requests a service technician to fix whatever is wrong. The manual says there is a pressure switch that goes off and causes the error message to come on. There is no heating going on with this condition. Aaron will seek to find the switch, but it doesn't look like it is functional without a pro.
There is another filter on the "water feature" that I did not realize was there until I went to clean out the other one. You open the plastic cover, grab a metal loop, turn the little container a quarter turn to the left and pull the little bucket out. It was really, really full of leaves. After cleaning it out, the water appeared to flow twice as much as before. I have run it more and emptied out the result again. Regular clearing of that bucket should keep the pond cleaner. Right now we are getting vigorous growth and flower droppings from the plant right above the pond.Aaron programmed the keypad on the garage. The code is his birthday, 1184. If you lazy bums had done it, you could have had YOUR birthday. But no, now you have to remember your nephew's birthday. It will come in handy when arriving on a dark, dark night.
Barb Rempel has been contacted and will once again check the house out every two weeks until October.Doing some weed and other cleanup around the yard. Gardener has not been around this winter, so that saves us some money. I think calling him to clean up in May will be good enough.
Well, time for the obligatory steak grilling.
Virgil
Virgil sent some photos along. Top two pictures show the green beginning to show up on the fairway. Next photo shows Alex, Becky (obscured by newspaper) and Aaron helping Dad on the back deck. In the photo below, the boys have discovered a swimming hole in Sabino Canyon. Apparently there is water in Arizona after all.
