The Swamp Cooler

Good evening, dear readers.

Today, we were blessed with a cloudy and cool day. My husband decided that today would be the day he would tune up the swamp cooler and get it ready for the summer because it is going to get very hot next week. Though we'd been running it periodically over the course of the last few weeks, the cooler was in need of some servicing, especially today when it wouldn't turn on this morning!

My cooler looks like this since it's mounted at the front of the trailer, but with more rust and scale from wear (pic found here)

For those of you who may not be familiar with it, a swamp cooler is a home cooling unit that works by blowing air over water to cool it. It is also known as an evaporative cooler since, well, that's basically how it works. The cooler also adds humidity to the air from the water, which makes it quite an effective cooler here in dry Arizona as opposed to someplace humid like Louisiana or Georgia. Also, swamp coolers use less electricity than air conditioners and are easier to maintain. You also have the benefit of leaving windows open when the swamp cooler is running since it helps enhance the airflow, unlike air conditioning which performs best in a sealed environment.

Basic diagram of how a swamp cooler works. Pic found here

When he opened up the cooler to investigate, my husband saw there were a few things that needed servicing in there. A spider bearing had disintegrated and the belt was shredded. The motor still works, but it's not in good shape. We need to get a new motor as soon as we can afford to so that it will be in reserve when the old one finally dies. The pads were pretty weathered and needed to be changed too.

A quick trip to Home Depot to get the necessary replacement cooler parts, and an auto parts store to get brake shoes (one of the front brakes was discovered to be in dire need of repair. We have the drum, but the shoes we had were the wrong size-too small to fit the drum properly), and my husband spent the rest of the afternoon working on the cooler. It wasn't too hard of a job and was fixed by sundown.

Basic diagram of a swamp cooler. Mine looks a little different internally than this one, but I suspect that has more to do with age than anything (ours is kinda old). Pic found here

As he did that, I worked on cleaning up the yard. It wasn't any messier than that of our neighbors, but it was getting to be too cluttered for my liking. A spring cleaning was needed so that the baby has plenty of space to play in the yard when we go outside. Also, on a recent trip to the recyclers, we learned that no outfit in town was buying plastic. With the price of oil being so cheap right now, the price of plastic was too low to justify paying out. I was disappointed because my husband and I try to be ecologically responsible and recycle our plastics and metals. But, since management is too cheap to incorporate recycling into the weekly garbage service, we have to go elsewhere to recycle our pop cans and bottles. Out to trash went several garbage bags of empty plastic 2L pop bottles which would ordinarily have gone to recycling. As disappointing as it is to have to throw away recyclables, I'm tired of our yard looking like something out of "Hoarders". By the end of the day, the yard was still cluttered in a few places, but much more orderly than before. My hubby will finally have the room he needs to build a carport to shade our cholomobile from that beastly ball of gas in the sky.

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Will Someone PLEASE Turn off the Oven?!

Like the title of this post suggests, it's been hot as hell outside.

Being a desert dweller, having lived in this state since 2008, you would think I'd have gotten used to this hot climate by now. For each year that I've lived here, I've gotten better at adapting to the hot, dry climate, but even then, I don't think I will ever 100% get used to it. Everytime I try, something happens that exceeds my tolerance (like humidity!).

So like any sensible person, I adapt my habits. Any excursions for groceries or other stuff must be done either at sundown or in the very early morning. Since I'm not an early riser (despite my baby waking up at 6:30 AM on the dot every morning wanting to eat and then PLAY!), our outings are restricted to after sundown. While it sometimes sucks from the grocery shopping standpoint cuz the day's sales have typically cleared out anything worthwhile, gas and comfort-wise, I find it more tolerable. For the times we do have to go out during the day (mostly to church), we try to make use of whatever shaded parking spots we can find and limit our time out of a cooled environment as much as possible. Just common-sense stuff.

Hopefully soon, we here in the desert will get one final monsoon storm or two in these last few weeks of summer. The humidity from these storms makes things uncomfortably sticky, but it cools things off for a little while. Plus, you get cool pictures, like this one taken just north of Tucson

Taken in Marana, a cotton suburb north of Tucson, AZ. Picture found here

Come on, Autumn! I'm tired of this heat!

scoping the desert, part II

dear readers,

yesterday, i went to check out 2 more sites for biology. of course, none of the sites are close to school (well, one is) cuz if there were any sites w/in walking distance of campus, everyone would go there. since i couldn't get a ride, i took the bus. my roommate, who is also taking biology, asked to come along, and it was a good thing cuz i could use a traveling companion, especially on a seedy venue like a bus.

once we got to our 1st site, a large hilly desert basin right beside pima west, we walked around and took observations. i was sore and my feet were already horribly blistered from the expedition the day before at reid park, but as we walked into the basin, we saw loose-gravel trails crisscrossing it. we were sure to stay on the trail cuz in isolated places like basins, you dont know whats living in there. because its kinda isolated, the basin was quiet, and beautiful. the desert can be real pretty if you know where to go or where to look. we saw a lotta dead plants though. i cant imagine what that place looks like during a rainstorm-it must turn into a swimming pool when it rains.

after waiting for almost an hour, the bus came and took us to santa cruz river park. that wasnt nearly as nice as pima, but it had pine trees and a large river alongside it. the river was empty (of course), but it was filled with junk!! aside from wet patches, there were shoes, backpacks, pillows, plastic bottles, and even large dropcloths under the speedway bridge. i also saw footprints in the soft soil. they weren't recent or anything, but it reminded me of pictures of those tunnels and border passages that smugglers use to smuggle illegals into the us from places like mexico. i told my roommate that i wouldnt be surprised if illegals were using the dry riverbed as a passage to get here to tucson. i mean, if you saw the amount of junk in the riverbed, you would say the same thing. you could make the arguement that people throwing stuff from speedway or gangs dumping things or random things from I-10 that make it far enough to land in the river could explain the garbage in the riverbed, and for all i know that could be the case, but we were there to observe, not to judge the pollution.

unfortunately, the bus stops are kinda far apart, so we had to walk alot. we dodged vicious dogs, hobos, and cars that dont stop for anything. it kinda made me miss chicago a little cuz i did that alot back home. naturally, we were exhausted when we came back to our dingy dormroom.

the crowds on the bus are a whole 'nother subject. once we figured out which direction we were going and what our route numbers would be, the people on the buses were largely minorities or teenagers. on the way back, the driver picked up what appeared to be a gang, including some pothead who filled the bus with the smell of marijuana and carried a half-burned blunt in his hand. luckly, they didnt bother us, but im glad i wasnt alone. i dont think i could have made that trip alone, so im glad that my roommate came with me. plus, the trip was a good bonding experiance for me and my roommate.

would i do this again? yeah. i liked walking around in the desert. naturally i prefer to have the safety of a car to get there, but i must make do with what i have. im glad it wasnt sunny yesterday. saturday was sunny, and started to turn my naturally greenish-brown hair blonde-which i only noticed yesterday as i was combing my hair and saw the color contrast. i imagine i'll look like marilyn monroe once im done with this whole project cuz of all the time i'll be spending outdoors.

that was my day in the desert.
tamtam