Archives for 2020

Hiya Darlin’,
Didn’t get a very good night sleep, unfortunately Lola was restless most of the night, waking me up at 2:00 am to let her out, and back in again half an hour later. I had a hard time getting back to sleep, so I woke up tired this morning. After breakfast I packed up some things I needed for cleaning and repairs over at the house, and headed over there after I took care of the horses. I worked for a solid 5 hours with no breaks, just cleaning and repairing the furniture. The other side of the green loveseat had given up the ghost, but since I had the spare parts, I fixed that. I was glad I had done it before (and knew it COULD be done) or I would have been very frustrated with it. It went well, though, so I’m hoping the buyer can come get it tomorrow, or at least someday soon. I cleaned the burgundy recliners too, and measured one out to see if there’s ANY possibility I can fit one in the trailer, but there isn’t, at least if I want to have a second chair in the same space. I rinsed down the lawnmower, but didn’t have the energy to fully wash it so I put it off until tomorrow. It was after 5:00 when I got back, so I put Apollo on the anchors and let them loose to mow down a part of the yard. At 7:00 I went back out and they had wandered a bit farther than I thought, but Apollo predictably got caught on a bushhog sitting in the yard so I had to undo him, and Flash was nearby, too, so all was well, and they got some fresh grass. I finished off the season of The Crown, with the final episode being the Silver Jupilee in 1977, the one where you played Henry VIII at Windsor Castle for a week, ending with the Royal Family. I’ll always remember you telling me about how Prince Philip, the Queen’s husband (who, of course, could never be king, as it was passed down to the next generation not to the spouse), came up to you afterward and asked you, “So, what’s it like to be King?” A great moment! It was that week where you met the people that brought you to America, and eventually, to me, so it was obviously a big turning point in our lives, even though I didn’t know you yet! Anyway, I have to say I found this season not nearly as good as the first season, quite slow, actually. Now I have to find something else to start watching. My eyes are hurting from all the reading I’ve been doing, and also the lack of sleep. I can’t wait until this house closes and I can do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for a couple of days! Or try to, at least. Anyway, off for my shower and bad. Love you, sweetie! Good night!

Hi Babe,
A pretty good night sleep, then this morning after doing my usual chores I arranged to pick up a big round bale of hay from one of the Mennonites that our usual hay guy recommended. I decided on getting a round bale rather than a bunch of small bales, partly to save me from having to carry hay over twice a day, but also because I figured it would save money in the long run. So first I ran down to the post office to pick up a great stack of mail, stopped at the dollar store for dog food cans, which is about all I need right now, then went over to get the bale, which I brought back a managed to roll into the little makeshift paddock between the chicken houses. Then I headed back to the house, stopping to chat with neighbor Sheri for a while, sitting on her front porch longer than I probably should, till I finally headed over to the house. Our renters had rearranged all the furniture, breaking one of the green love seats in the process, so now I have that to fix, which fortunately I still have the parts for, though I’ll have to find the instructions again, can’t remember how I did it. They moved the waterbed all the way out to the second garage for some reason, so not surprisingly the mattress had a huge hole chewed into it by the vermin. I have no idea why they felt it necessary to move it all the way out there, but they left some of the parts in the hallway for some reason as well, so now it’s scattered everywhere. Grrrr! I should’ve known better. Anyway, now I have more to deal with than before. I can’t wait to get this over with! I took some pictures to post up on Marketplace again, and I’m trying to get in touch with the buyers to see if they want any of this stuff, like the trash trailer and the Cub Cadet lawnmower before I try to sell it. I’m running out of time, though, don’t know what I’m going to do it I can’t get this sold before the house closes. Not sure Jeff will have time to come up, not even sure it’s worth his while to do, so I’m in a quandary. I’m in another quandary about where to go after this, all the parks in the neighboring states all seem to be closing down, so I’m not sure what I’m going to do. I may have to stay here, but I really can’t afford to do that for long either, even though Wayne’s giving me a decent deal, but I’m still paying for a full hookup. Plus there’s no trails to go riding, Lola’s supposed to be on a leash, and I have neighbors practically right next to me, all things I don’t particularly like. So it looks like my newfound freedom is going to be on a very short leash until this pandemic mess settles down. I was so depressed by the time I got back from the house. Well, enough whining, I’m still tired and I have a busy day tomorrow trying to get some of this stuff straightened out. Hopefully things will go better then. Off to my shower and bed. Good night, babe! Love you!

Hi Sweetie,
Well, Lola was a bit restless last night after all. She’s been in one place for so long she forgot about having new back yards every few weeks, plus I kept the door closed since she needs to start getting used to not being able to go out any time she wants. Still, I got a decent night sleep, though the horses woke me up when they started eating hay out of the back of the truck, with the sound of their chewing right outside my window and them bumping the truck occasionally, though they eventually wandered off. Pistol had to get to work very early. She drives a dump truck, but is working a job right next door where they’re building a lake. After I got up I started to pull the hub off the one wheel that seemed a bit hot on the road yesterday, finally managing to get it off, but I had trouble getting the mashed up cotter pin out. Fortunately, it turns out Pistol’s boyfriend is a certified mechanic, and he was nice enough to give me a hand. He even picked me up some new cotter pins and some more hay while he was out running errands, since the horses are munching more than I had planned on, and I need enough to get to Tennessee. I also did a few more quick repairs around the trailer in the morning, and by afternoon, the efforts of the past months finally caught up with me. I stopped and read for awhile, then climbed into bed and took a nap, which helped a lot. Then we had a very nice supper that Pistol made, and I sent her copies of my Google Earth files, which took a while to do. We were all so tired at that point we called it a night. I fed the horses and watched a couple of SHIELDS, but now I’m ready for my shower and bed! Good night, my love!

Hello Darlin’,
Sorry to say that my potential RV buyers STILL couldn’t make up their mind this morning, so I told them I had to leave if they didn’t want to have it delivered today. I told them they could make arrangements with Jeff to pick it up if they decided they wanted it, but I couldn’t stay, I just have too much to do. So I packed everything up and managed to get out just before noon, and just after that I heard on the radio that they were instituting a travel ban in South Florida because of the coronavirus! Not that that would have stopped me, of course, but things are getting crazy here! There’s a lot less of the virus in TN than FL so I’m kind of glad to be getting out. Jeff told me he might have tightened the bearings a bit too much, maybe, but that I should stop at the first rest area and check to see if any of them were too hot, and told me what I should do if they were, which consisted of removing the cap, pulling the cotter pin, backing of the hub nut one notch, then putting it all back together again. At the first stop, I did find one that did seem a bit warmer than the others, but then I couldn’t get the cap off, so that ended that. I stopped at just about every rest stop on the way just to check it, but it didn’t seem to get any worse, so I’ll just check it in the morning when they’re cooler and they might come off easier. Anyway, the rest of the trip was uneventful and I arrived at my new friend Pistol, whom I met on the OTL ride in February. She lives in a great spot, at the end of a dead end road with quite a bit of acreage and a full RV hookup that I could get into with no problem. I quickly got set up, let the horses out into the yard, then joined her and her friends in the kitchen for the evening. Evidently it was beauty salon night, because everyone there but me got their hair cut, colored and/or ironed out by one of Pistol’s friends. They ordered pizza, which I’ve been in the mood for for days, and it was really one of the best pizzas I’ve ever had, with a thick but airy crust and lots of the good stuff. I really enjoyed that!. By then it was almost 10:00, so we said our good-nights and I came to bed. Lola had lots of fun running around in the yard with a pack of other dogs, and Pistol’s son spent some time chucking the ball for her, so hopefully she’ll sleep through the night. I took my show, watched a SHIELD, and now it’s off to bed. Love you, babe! Good night!

Hey Babe,
Well, the couple that looked at the trailer still hasn’t made a decision, said they’d know by tomorrow. Meanwhile, Jeff and I continued to go through the process of checking out the brakes. On Friday he thought some of the brake shoes were really worn, but after looking at them all, he decided they weren’t. He still isn’t sure about the concept of a proportional brake controller, but I think I finally convinced him it’s working the way it’s suppose to. After all, if I’m standing still, why would I need a lot of power on the brakes? The brake controller senses inertia, so it made sense that it was working correctly. When I hit the manual override, though, it’s going all the way up to 13 volts, which was inconsistent before, so I always have that as a last resort. We did find a couple of really rusted ground wires that we cleaned up, and that seemed to at least make everything work a little more consistently. I had trouble with the front jacks on Friday when I was hooking up, and had to wiggle that wire behind the battery again, even though it was something brother Karl supposedly fixed in January. We checked that again and most of it seemed good except the ground wire there was pretty rusty, too, so we cleaned that up, and the jack now seems to be working more consistently, too, but we’ll have to wait and see. So now I’m just waiting on this couple to make a decision. If they take it, I’ll move it over there tomorrow, if they don’t, and I find out early enough, I’ll leave to head north tomorrow. Pins and needles, hoping they pick me! Heading off to bed now, reading a good series that I want to get back to. Love you, babe! Good night!

Hi Honey,
Busy day again. First getting the Open Range opened up again and doing some last minute cleaning and opening up before the couple who wanted to look at it arrived. They ended up being a little late, but they came in and rather breezed through it, so I wasn’t sure what they thought. Then I moved the Trailrider down to the front of the house so that we can work on the brakes. Spent a lot of time on it, but still aren’t sure what exactly the problem is. We took off the tires and drums from the passenger side, and everything seemed to be just fine. It sounds like the magnets are trying to close the brakes, but they just aren’t getting enough power to do for some reason. The brake controller seemed all over the place, and I did every test I could find online, and it still seemed inconclusive to me. Good voltage both before and after the controller, except the boost had to be put on in order to achieve that goal. Back at the trailer plug-in, the brake controller wire was showing a constant voltage, but it was say too low. I don’t know, we spent a long time checking all the connections, doing all the cleaning, and thinking we had it right, then it would suddenly veer off the cliff for no apparent reason. So, still not sure of the cause. Then the couple came back to look at the other trailer again, this time much more thoroughly as they try to decided between ours and one other. I’ve really knocked the price down just to try to get it out of Jeff’s yard, so I won’t come out as ahead as I’d hoped, but just to have it off my hands would give me great peace of mind. Anyway, Jeff didn’t get the hubs back on before the end of the day, so now I’m seriously tilted to one side, which is going to be fun tonight! Speaking of, I’ve been yawning for half an hour, time for my shower and bed! Good night, my love! Fingers crossed I hear good news tomorrow!

Hey Babe,
Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans! I got up and finished packing, had some breakfast, hooked up the trailer, and moved it onto the driveway so I would have a straight shot out before loading the horses. Jeff was standing nearby, and he thought he heard a bad noise coming off my trailer brakes, so he felt it necessary to inspect it. So I got out the Jiffy Jack and ramped it up, and when I hit the brake pedal, the wheel didn’t stop turning. Bad sign. We checked two tires and they were both the same, no or very little brake. You know that one of my few fears with the rig is that the brakes don’t work, so we decided to take a closer look, darn it. Somehow that worked it’s way around to the truck, and we discovered there was a leak of brake fluid by the master cylinder, so now we’re worried about the TRUCK brakes going as well! We decided to take the truck over to the new mechanic Jeff found and let him diagnose it before changing any parts, and sure enough, the consensus was the master cylinder. The mechanic ordered one from Pep Boys (though I didn’t know that at the time, you know how I feel about Pep Boys!), and when he got it a few hours later, guess what? It was a remanufactured one instead of a new one that had been ordered. Figures. Anyway, I found a new one at AutoZone and went to pick it up, along with brake fluid and brake cleaner, the last of which was for the trailer, as the mechanic thought maybe too much grease had been put in and it might affect the magnet. When I got back from the parts store, Jeff went to work changing out the master cylinder while I took off a tire and brake drum to clean it, only to discover it wasn’t really that bad. Of course, I went to the internet immediately (something I should have done first anyway) and found that the symptoms actually indicated a probable electrical problem, a loose ground maybe. So from there I got out the contact cleaner and started to clean all the connections, checked for any fraying and the like. Meanwhile, Jeff finished installing the master cylinder in the truck and I went to help him bleed the brakes. I didn’t really feel that much difference, but at least now I know it’s new and it won’t go bad at an inopportune moment, like when I’m headlong in traffic! Then the mechanic called to tell us Jeff’s van was ready, so we finished bleeding the brakes and headed over there to pick it up, and this time the problem (which was evidently a combination of vacuum and timing) appeared to be fixed. Got back to the house and finished cleaning and putting on the one wheel on the trailer that I had taken off, but I’m not doing the rest because I agree the problem is likely to be electrical. When I plugged in the trailer the first time, the lights didn’t come on, so I had to push it a bit more to make them work, so I’m thinking electrical. I hope so, anyway, something simple would be nice! By now it was feeding time, and dusk soon followed, and though I got the tire back on and the brakes adjusted, it was too late to start the next (and hopefully final) problem, so I hooked up to electricity and called it a night. Glad I put some extra water in the tank yesterday so I had enough to shower without dragging the hose out. Then, the silver lining is that I received an email from someone who’s interested in the trailer, they’re coming to see it tomorrow morning. They want to move it to Loxahatchee to live at their mother’s, which would be a perfect application for them. That would be such a load off my mind if I could sell it, so I’m thinking maybe the universe kept me here an extra day (possibly two) to see that it happens. Fingers crossed! Anyway, had my dinner (I’m down to mostly two meals a day these days, and am losing a little weight with all the work/exercise I’m getting), had my shower, had my two episodes of SHIELD, so I’m off to bed. Love you, babe! Good night! Help me out tomorrow with the sale of this RV if you can! Thanks!