March 15 - 23, 2025 - Camel Races - Solenoid - Grill Wheel Fix - Garage Sales Resulting in Two New Projects

 

My Blog Reflection

For every winner, there doesn't have to be a loser... In fact, most success stories are less about competition and more about collaboration.

Michelle Yeoh

Saturday, March 15, 2025

We attended the "Camel Races" in the clubhouse, which is a fundraiser for the Women's Club. A ticket was $8.00 and that included a pulled pork dinner. It is played like Bingo. For $2.00 you purchase a chip with a number on it. The number is your "Camel". The first Camel to fill-in all numbers below it's number is the winner. Each winner won $15.00. It was well-attended but not sold out.

We didn't win any races but it was a nice evening out.  We think that the "Horse Races" at Roberts RV Park were more entertaining. In the Horse Races human jockeys ride hobby horses, the kind with a horse head on a broom stick. Dice are rolled for horses to move up on a grid until they hit the finish line. There is not be enough room for this in the clubhouse and this park has no outside pavilion as we did at Roberts.

Sunday, March 16, 2025

I decided to replace solenoid #1 on the golf cart. You will recall that several months ago I replaced solenoids #2 and #4 at the suggestion of Tommy, a guy in the park who works on golf carts. Changing these two helped greatly with jumpy acceleration. 

The solenoids control speed by controlling voltage from the batteries to the motor. As each solenoid in a row is energized the speed increases. When taking off from a dead stop the "Go" pedal is still a little jumpy. I thought possibly solenoid #1 may be bad as well. I had purchased five solenoids online so there was no sense in not replacing #1 to see if it helped. Here is a before picture. These solenoids had probably never been replaced and I was again apprehensive about getting the bolts loose. Lots of rust.

All of the bolts came off easily and the new solenoid was quickly installed.

Unfortunately, a test drive showed no improvement. I will next look at replacing the foot feed linkage which is a little loose and worn. In looking at the linkage from below I'm afraid I cannot make any adjustment on the old part. A new part will be necessary. I will wait for that project until next year. 

I moved the grill and Blackstone onto the expanded and painted patio. It appears that the JB Welded wheel mount on the grill will do the trick. Now I just need to cook up some grub. Thunderstorms are coming this afternoon from the remnants of the storm that went through the Midwest and South. Outdoor cooking will have to wait until another day.

Although we had tornado watch and warnings for a short time in the evening, luckily we only received heavy rain downpours.  👏

Monday March 17, 2025

It was St. Patrick's Day and Kelly cooked a killer corned beef dinner with cabbage and potatoes. A big chunk of meat was left for Rueben sandwiches. 

Tuesday March 18, 2025

Kelly headed to her ladies breakfast coffee klatch followed by a shopping trip and lunch with a friend. I messed around the house and played Cornhole in the afternoon. This week I made it to the semi-finals for the first time but then lost. There is a big tournament on Sunday but I didn't sign up for it. 

When I was returning home from a ride around the park, the golf cart literally died at the driveway. I had to push it in to get to the charger. LOL. I knew the batteries were low but they went down on me in a hurry. While it was on the charger I decided to check the individual batteries for voltage to ensure that one battery was not failing. In doing this, after two years, I found that one of the batteries is eight volt rather than six. I can't believe I didn't catch this when I bought the batteries, or when installing them, or when messing around putting in the DC-DC converter, etc. Crazy.  All the batteries checked good individually.

Wednesday March 19, 2025

This morning I was out and about and ran upon neighbor, Mike, who was walking his dog, Emmet. He told me there was going to be a party at Dave and Renee's place that afternoon on 2nd Avenue (the street behind us).  Later in the day I drove by their place and chairs, table umbrellas, etc. were being set up. Renee was outside and said to come anytime after 1:00 p.m. Bring your own drinks. We had planned on going to the movies in the afternoon but this was a much better option.

Weatherwise, it was a perfect day for a party - warm and sunny but not hot. We arrived around 1:30 p.m. as the party was just getting started. Cornhole was played in the street all afternoon and the revelers just kept coming. Golf carts were parked all the way down the street in both directions.

The yellow house sticking out on the left in the next picture below is directly behind our house. While the party was across the street, many of us moved into the shade on the opposite side watch the Cornhole games. We were sitting in the shade in front of Henry and Eva's place, a very nice couple from Boston, who have been here ten years. 

The food was great and plentiful. We had a great time and met a lot of people. We were the first to leave at 4:30 p.m. and the party was still going strong. I later learned that the party lasted until 8:30 p.m.

Earlier in the season Kelly had talked about having a street party to get to know people on our street. We were glad we attended this party to learn that street parties here are huge events that last almost all day. I don't know that we would have been prepared for that. We may host one next season. Tables and chairs would be a problem for us but I was told that the maintenance guys will bring down as many tables and chairs as you want. Solves that problem. A nice service.

Thursday March 20, 2025

I walked the park at 7:00 a.m. just as it was getting light. I noticed that many homes are unoccupied. I've been told about twenty are currently for sale, which historically is a lot. Some people have gone home but clearly there are a large number of homes which went unoccupied this entire season. A number of Canadians do not plan on coming back. A Canadian couple we know in the park said that they are being harangued by friends in Canada for even being in the U.S. after the way Trump has been acting toward Canada. She said it was upsetting but what were they do do? They have owned a place here for some time and plan on continuing to use. What a shame that this 200 year friendship between countries is being decimated for no good reason. 

Friday March 21, 2025

  

In the afternoon we went to see the movie “Last Breath”. It was a good movie but I don't know if I would have liked it as well if it wasn't based on a true story.

Saturday March 22, 2025

Saturday is garage sale day. We hit the road early and it was quite chilly. We purchased a few minor items and one more expensive one. 

A Hoover Wind Tunnel upright vacuum came with the house. Kelly has always hated it because, even though it works great, it is quite hard for her to push. She wanted to look for a replacement. 

We stumbled upon a like-new Oreck vacuum with six new bags for $30.00. We bought it . The six bags cost over $20.00. Once we got it home Kelly tried it out and she is thrilled with it. “Happy wife, happy life.”  The only drawback to it is that it has no hose for attachments to get into corners and crevices. I do have a small shop vacuum that we can use for that when needed.

We bring the Hoover home and see if it is better than the upright we have in the basement. The one we don't want will be donated to St. Vincent's Thrift Store. 

Just when I thought I had all the projects done for this year:

One of the small items we bought at a garage sale was a magnetic door stop. I had been wanting to put one on the hall bathroom door because it does not stay completely open. While only closing a little, by doing this it partially blocks the floor vent for the A/C and heat.

It didn't take long to install the door stop. I was surprised to discovery out that the enclosure above the bathroom cabinet was made of drywall. I thought all the walls in this place were paneling. Maybe it was installed when the bathroom was remodeled sometime back. Screwing into drywall meant I had to install plastic mollies for the screws to hold. Two came with the door stop so I was all set.

The stop works just as I had hoped and keeps door from blocking the air vent.

Another one of the items we bought at a garage sale for $5.00 was a brushed nickel outside door lever and deadbolt lock with a key.
 

Our front door had the original lock on it from 1980. How many remember these locks? You pushed the little tab on the top in to lock it. When you turned the handle from the inside it unlocked. It was brass and brushed aluminum. Very old school but still functional.

Obviously this lock was not very secure so at some point a safety chain was added.

Kelly found this setup to be tacky and has always wanted a new lock. The folks we bought the lock set from had taken it off, along with others, and replaced them with new locks all keyed the same. For our purposes this lock having a different key makes no difference. We never enter through this door.

When we got home I thought it would be a simple matter of switching out the old knob lock for the lever handle lock. It would have been except in the bag the gentleman had mistakenly inserted two deadbolt spindle latches. What we should have received with the locks was one deadbolt spindle latch and one passage spindle latch. They are different. Unfortunately the new lock would not work with the old spindle latch.  

The spindle latches use a square tube to turn the lock when the handle is turned. The square tube on the new lock was larger around than the old one. This is a picture of the part I am talking about. The arrow points to the square opening to accommodate the square tube that turns the locking mechanism.

The round fitting with the square hole in it in the old spindle latch was made of brass, which is fairly easy to file. I decided to try to file the square opening larger in the old spindle until the new lock fit. What did I have to loose if it didn't work? 

No matter what I'm throwing the original lock set away.

I was able to file the square opening large enough for the new one to fit. I then had to modify the bolt on one side of the spindle because the new lock bolts were further apart than the old ones. After about an hour's work I had the new lock installed.

I was done for the day.  Tomorrow I will install the deadbolt. Unlike when I modified the opening for the new deadbolt for the back door, this time there was no deadbolt. Thus no holes in the door or door frame for the catch. I will have to drill two holes in the door and one in the door frame with a hole saw. For the garbage disposal project earlier in the season, I had purchased a hole saw set that cuts wood and plastic, not metal. That was all I needed at the time. I hope the hole saw will cut the aluminum on each face of the door. 

Sunday March 23, 2025

The threshold for the outside door leading to the back yard is made of treated wood. You can't paint treated wood until the chemicals used to treat it have dried out completely. This threshold had never been painted for who knows how many years. A couple of coats of paint are in order.

A number of partial cans of paint came with the house. I found one can of gray paint marked "Exterior". I used it on the threshold. After three coats of paint it looks much better.

Mid-morning I started on the deadbolt install. Fortunately, the hole saw worked well at cutting the aluminum door facing. I had to use my Dremel tool to cut the aluminum on the edge of the door to recess the spindle face. If I did not recess the spindle the spindle edge would rub on the door frame when opening and closing the door. We can't have that.

Here is a picture of the deadbolt installed and ready to do its duty for years to come.

The bracket on the door for the safety chain left four ugly holes. I filled the holes in the aluminum with JB Weld before painting.

The hole that I had to drill into the door frame for the deadbolt to lock was right on the edge of the wooden frame. In fact it made a hole in the side facing the living room. Since there was not much material left in the wood to make the dead bolt secure, I cut a piece of metal to cover the hole and to make the deadbolt more secure. It's not the prettiest fix but it looks better than the safety chain. Next season I may look into installing a new piece of wood from top to bottom.

I put wood filler around the cut outs on the door frame. After it dried and was sanded I painted the area. 

While I was doing all this, Kelly was making soup from leftovers and cleaning out the fridge in anticipation of leaving Saturday. 

It's hard to believe that Saturday we will be on the road back to Perryville. The winter has gone by quickly but there is no place like home.

We have nothing scheduled for the week other than deciding what clothes and other items go back home, what food can be stored in the fridge, and what needs to be thrown away. All of that is way to boring for a blog.

 

 

March 7 - 14, 2025 - Visitors - Patio Expanded - American Legion - Skirting Back in Place - Gravel Replaces Mulch - Grill Wheel Repair

 My Blog Reflection

Where there is love and inspiration, I don't think you can go wrong.

Ella Fitzgerald

Friday March 7, 2025

My sister, Renee, and her husband, Jim, flew down to visit for a few days. Jim wanted to help with some projects so I quickly honored his wishes.

Saturday March 8, 2025

Jim helped me with a project to expand the patio area behind the house to better accommodate the grill and Blackstone griddle. Next to the sidewalk we found a double row of 12" x 12" pavers completely covered by weeds. We scraped off all the weeds. The weeds had covered the blocks so long that they had established many tiny roots in the stones.

We added seventeen 12" x 12" pavers to enlarge the area. This gives me more room to attend to my cooking. You can see the new gray pavers that were added under the cooking equipment.

As we finished up the project we discovered another double row of 12" pavers perpendicular to the first. This double row was also totally covered with the creeping vine weeds which takes over grass lawns down here. The weeds had attached themselves to these pavers as well.

We ended up with an additional 2' x 6' walk area. This gives me extra room to access the back shed. This row of pavers stopped two feet from the electric meter box. Four more pavers need to be added to finish off this area. This is how it looked once all the weeds were removed.

After installing four more pavers, giving the old ones a good cleaning, and filling in the cracks with mortar to keep down the weeds, I am going to paint all of them gray with the extra paint from the shed painting earlier this year.

Sunday March 9, 2025

It was a beautiful day so we took a ride to the American Legion Hall in Madeira Beach. It just recently re-opened after major damage from the hurricane. By luck we were able to get a table by the water. We enjoyed a couple of drinks and appetizers while soaking up the sun. Renee and Jim had never been there before and enjoyed it immensely. Usually we would see dolphins swimming but none today. The hurricane may have altered their habitat.

What we did see of interest out on the water was either a boat that looked like a car or an amphibious car. I couldn't tell. It was pretty far away so this was the best picture I could get.

After a few hours we headed home to attend the Theater Club spring show.

I am a member of the Theater Club and am in charge of cuing up the music for the various performers. At the dress rehearsal the day before we had trouble with the equalizer. My cohort, Jim, retrieved his personal mixer and set it up for the show. It worked much better and the show went on with only a couple of music glitches, which were my fault. In my defense I had to juggle the music, some of which was on YouTube, some on Spotify, and some were MP3s. Additionally I ended up being responsible for the volume settings for the various microphones used by the performers and the announcer. Here is a picture of me and Jim as the show is getting ready to start. Jim was in the show so he couldn't stay there to help me. The announcer, Regis, sat behind me. He has a great announcer's voice. He told me has been doing this for twenty years. (He is 89 years old.)

The show lasted two hours and everyone seemed to enjoy it. It is only $5.00 a ticket so you can't complain too much. It was video taped but no one posted any pictures on the park’s Facebook page for me to pass on to you.

Monday March 10, 2025

Renee and Kelly went to the ladies Red Hats luncheon. While they were gone Jim and I worked on pulling the skirting on the back of the house back into place. It had been blown in by the hurricane. Here is a "before" picture.

We rolled all the stones away then attached screws, with wires around them, to the wood blocks on which the skirting sits. We then slowly pulled on the wires to coax the skirting back into position. I drilled holes through the wood blocks and inserted four long plastic spikes which were left over from the driveway project. My hope is that the spikes will hold the skirting in place in the future. Here is a picture when we were finished. Good as new.

After that project was completed we started removing the mulch from the front planter boxes and replacing it with gravel. 

This picture was taken before we purchased the place. Since then the mulch had turned a darker brown and decayed. The landscaping fabric under it had decayed as well.

Over the summer we received a letter from an HOA committee chastising us for having weeks in these planter boxes and giving us thirty days to correct the situation or face a fine. Here is the picture they sent me.

Don't you love HOAs? It is difficult to deal with weeds when you are a thousand miles away. Luckily neighbors were around and upon contacting them they pulled the weeds for us. I want to minimize "weeds in the planter boxes" in the future the best I could. Getting rid of the mulch would help. I don’t like mulch anyway.

We dug out all of the old mulch and rotted landscape cloth and laid down new, heavy-duty landscape cloth. We then spread thirty-eight bags of white marble gravel. It really brightens the front of the house and should eliminate any weed problem for the foreseeable future. I did not put the tiki lights nor sea birds back out since we are leaving in two weeks. The dirt we dug out and threw in the front yard will dissipate with a few rains.

Tuesday March 11, 2025

Renee and Jim treated us to a wonderful steak supper at "Beau and Mo's Italian Steakhouse" in St. Petersburg. It is listed as the best steakhouse in the area and we all agreed with that. 

We really enjoyed our steak dinners but couldn't finish them. We brought steak and our desserts home for later.

Once home we played a game of cards and ate our desserts to finish off a great evening.

Wednesday March 12, 2025

We had breakfast, visited, and then had a nice lunch of leftover steak. It was then time to take Renee and Jim to the airport. We had a great visit and we look forward to them coming down again next year. I really appreciated Jim's help on some projects and will have to line up a few for him next year. LOL

After dropping them off at the airport we stopped by Home Depot. We picked up four more bags of marble chips for the planter boxes, four 12" x 12" pavers to finish the sidewalk project, and a piece of foam that will hopefully solve the problem of the downspouts getting stopped up with palm tree debris.

In the afternoon I became chilled and stayed chilled the rest of the evening. I had a fever of 99 degrees. I went to bed early with two blankets on to sweat it out.

Thursday March 13, 2025

I woke up in the morning feeling fine and with no fever. I went out and and installed the last four 12" x 12" pavers. I scraped off the weed "roots" from the old pavers the best I could. I then used mortar mix to fill in all the cracks between the blocks and to control weeds. Here is a picture as the mortar mix was drying.

When it is totally dry I will brush it off and paint it gray using the paint left over from the painting of the shed earlier in the year.

I installed some foam gutter guards over the six downspout openings in the gutters hoping they will solve the problem of stopped up downspouts. Time will tell.

The grill I picked out of the trash last year had one bad wheel. I assumed that is why they threw it away because otherwise it was in great shape. Something broke loose inside the  mount for this wheel but I can't really tell what happened because there is no access to it. You can see in this picture that there is no way to "remount" the wheel. 

I decided to JB Weld the wheel to the mounting bracket above. The grill doesn't get moved much so I am hoping this fix will work. If it doesn't I will have to perform major surgery and purchase another wheel for a permanent fix. That would be a project for next year.

Friday March 14, 2025

I washed down the patio blocks and painted them gray. The color looks a lot lighter on the ground than on the shed. I will not move the grill and griddle back onto the pavers for a couple of days to let the paint harden. I'm happy with the result. It will serve the purpose and will be better than having the grill and griddle sitting on the grass, which is where they were before. It will be interesting to see if there is any weed growth between the blocks and on top of the blocks by next fall. 

Next trip I am going to bring down a string trimmer that I have out at the lake lot and don't use. The guys who are contracted to cut the grass and weed eat aren't very particular. Hence the weed growth over the old pavers.

It's a beautiful day so I'm giving myself the rest of the day off. I'm getting lazy in my old age.

March 3 - 6, 2025 - Biscotti - Windshield Washer Pump - Suitcases - Concert - Downspout - MH Gone - Practice

 My Blog Reflection

“You have not seen all there is to see, and that, my friend, is a beautiful thing.”

​

– MORGAN HARPER NICHOLS

Monday March 3, 2025

The rest of the week we will be busy and on Friday Renee and Jim arrive for a visit. Today not much is on the agenda so I decided to make two batches of Biscotti - one with dates and one with cranberries. The first was the cranberry batch and they came out fine.

I made a rookie mistake on the baking time of the batch with dates. This batch got a little overcooked but still edible. (Mikey will eat anything.)

Our neighbors, Mark and Susan, arrived from Pennslyvannia last night. I saw Mark this morning and gave him the bottle of “Shipwreck Mango Rum” we purchased to thank him for his help with the stump grinder on the driveway project. He told me they are having a lot of company for the next couple of weeks so we may not get to hang out with them before we leave at the end of the month.

Last week the windshield washer pump quit working on the HHR. I pulled the pump out and got online to find a replacement. On most sites this little plastic pump costs up to $90.00! Crazy for a four-inch plastic pump.

I kept looking until I found one on Amazon for $9.00. I ordered it and it arrived today. The new pump looked identical to the old one but it would just not plug in. Upon closer inspection I noticed that the prongs on the replacement were flat whereas the prongs on the original were round. Here is the new one.

 Here is the old one.

I have to find another pump and pay a much greater price I guess.

Tuesday March 4, 2025

Early this morning I went for a bike ride around the park. It is trash day so I always keep my eye open for items being thrown away that I may want. LOL. 

Yesterday on the way home we saw two very nice large suitcases sitting out by the curb on our street. It is customary in the park to set things out by the curb that you no longer want but think may be of value to someone else. Kelly and I briefly discussed stopping to look at the suitcases but we did not. On my bike ride I stopped to examine them. They were in perfect condition on the outside. They each had four rollers on the bottom, which is a great convenience in airports, etc. Our larger suitcases at home only have two wheels. These would be an upgrade. I got the golf cart and hauled them home. Upon closer examination I found that all the zippers work well, there are no tears nor damage on the outside, the insides were like new, and neither suitcase had any kind of smell.  

We will take them home for future trips and donate our two-wheeled ones to St. Vincent's Thrift Store.

Back on the bike, as I was riding around the park, I came upon an old mobile home that was being demolished and hauled off. They use two dumpsters - one for metal to be recycled and one for the rest of the debris. Even a small trackhoe makes short work of such a project.

I would imagine that this mobile home was one of the originals in the park dating back fifty years. It was probably damaged by the hurricane and not worth repairing. People buy the old mobile homes for the price of the co-op share, tear them down, and bring in a brand new double-wide. I've been told this project costs about $250,000.00 by the time the new home is purchased and installed, utilities connected, steps put in, driveways poured, and carport and/or Florida Room added on. When this happens it is a good sign that people are interested in investing their money in the park.

At 9:00 a.m. I went up to the clubhouse to buy tickets for the "Camel Races", which are taking place in a couple of weeks as a fundraiser for the Women’s Club. We have never been to them before and thought we would try our luck. The lady selling the tickets told me it is a lot of fun and the $8.00 ticket price includes a pulled pork dinner. Not bad if you don’t loose a lot. LOL

My morning project was to look online for a replacement windshield washer pump that would fit but not cost $90.00. After some searching I found one at NAPA for $32.99. I drove to the nearest store taking the old along to make sure this one had the right electrical prongs. It did. From there I went to the UPS Store to return the pump from Amazon. Upon arriving home, within ten minutes, I had the new one installed and working. Yippee! Now we can see out the windshield.! It is amazing how much we rely on these accessories.

In the evening we attended a "Temptations - Four Tops Concert" at Ruth Eckerd Hall, which is an acoustically perfect 2,180-seat auditorium in Clearwater. There wasn't an empty seat. Packed with boomers.

Here is our picture to prove we were there. We paid for good seats - Row L, Center Stage. Worth the money.

The “Four Tops” performed first. None of them are the original members but the man on the left is the son of one member. They did a great job with the songs although we thought the orchestra was too loud for their vocals.

After the intermission “The Temptations” took the stage. The gentleman in the middle is the only one left of the original group. He is 83 years old and held his own with all the singing and choreography. 

They just released a new album entitled "Temptations Sixty" to celebrate the 60th year the group has been around.

It was an enjoyable evening hearing all the old songs.

Wednesday March 5, 2025

Early this morning I was looking at the pathetic stand of grass that came up along the driveway, or should I say the pathetic lack of grass along the driveway, when Marvin came by walking his dog. He said he tried three times to grow grass with no results. He said he bought some grass plugs from Home Depot and they worked. Now I have to decide if I want to spend another $50.00 on this project. 

Mid-morning Kelly had to get blood work. After leaving there we picked up a few items at the grocery store and headed home before the predicted heavy rain. Did it come down! At 11:30 a.m. it poured as hard as I’ve ever seen it. Water was three inches deep in the street for some time. In looking out I noticed the front carport downspout wasn’t discharging water while the downspout by the golf cart couldn’t get the water out fast enough. It is supposed to continue to rain until about 3:00 p.m. so I wanted to investigate because we had gotten a little interior damage last year from a clogged downspout on the other side of the house. When the rain let up I got out the ladder and found this piece of a dead palm leaf completely covering the front downspout hole. It was about four inches long and two inches wide. Just enough to totally block the downspout hole.

I’ll need to check the downspouts on the other side. I checked all downspouts on both sides about a month ago and they were clear. I need to install some type of leaf protector even though the closest tree is a palm tree about twenty feet behind the house. The way the roof is tied into the gutter limits my options. There is only about an inch-wide opening between the roof and the gutter for debris to get in. I'll need to get creative.

At 3:30 p.m. There was a technical rehearsal for the show on Sunday which lasted two hours. Of course there were some more changes in the music to be cued up.

Thursday March 6,2025

On my morning bike ride I took a picture of the empty lot where an old mobile home sat. All is gone but the concrete driveway. I'm sure by next winter a new home will be in place. You can see the blue tarp covering the damage to the roof of the home next door. People want to fix these homes but materials are not available due to major demand.

Around 9:00 a.m. I got a call from T asking if I could come to the clubhouse and cue up music for a group practicing at 10:00 a.m. I went and it ended up that four groups practiced for an hour. I need the practice on cuing up the music anyway so it wasn’t all bad. There has been a lot more time involved with this theater job than I anticipated when I volunteered. Seems like that happens a lot.

My sister, Renee, and her husband, Jim, fly in from St. Louis tomorrow for a visit of about five days. Renee has volunteered Jim to help with any projects. I have two projects lined up. While we work around the house the women plan on laying around the pool. There’s a method to their madness. 

I’ll blog about the visit afterwards.