February 28, 2021 - Oak Tree Seeds

We are parked under a huge oak tree in the park. It is the time of year when the leaves fall off followed by seed bods with the new growth of leaves. This is about the third or fourth day of seed pods falling continuously. They fall like snow. If I am sitting outside I have to cover my drink or they fall in it as well as all over me. Here is a picture of the patio area. Which was just cleared off yesterday.

When  they all quit falling I will climb on the roof and blow all this seed junk off. 

It is pretty darn warm today - in the mid 80s with high humidity. Feels like Florida. Nothing planned for today, just a lazy Sunday. I took an hour this morning and got many of my tax records together for tax preparation as soon as we get home in April.

February 29th is my daughter Annie's wedding anniversary. I guess we will call them today and wish them well.

February 27th - What's Been Happening

While Covid has caused a shut down of all park-wide activities, those of us on Audrey Street have tried to put some fun things together. It was decided to have a "Fat Tuesday" breakfast of Paczki Donuts and wine. We had never heard of Paczki Donuts but they are a big hit with the folks from Michigan and others here. They are round iced donuts filled with various fillings. We bought some with rasberry and vanila cream fillings. The wine and donuts were put out on a table so people could help themselves and social distance.  They were delicious but so sweet you could only eat one. The event made for a fun time out on the street.

The other day there was a Pileated Woodpecker in the tree above a neighbor's camper. Someone told us that there are three of them in the RV park, which adjoins Sawgrass Nature Park. I had never seen this beautiful bird up so close. He was busy pecking for bugs so he could care less about us. Here is a picture of him and a short video as well. So cool.

On three different days the guys worked on three different RV awnings. Chris and Marj next door needed new fabric on theirs. Don, from across the street, works at an RV facility in Indiana and every year he brings down awning material which has been taken off rigs for various reasons and would otherwise be thrown away. One of these fit Chris and Marj's rig perfectly. Several of the guys here are familiar with the complicated process of replacing the fabric. A learning experience for me.

The next day we replaced the awning material on Jake's motorhome. He had to order new material because his awning has a metal cover so the material setup is different from a standard awning. Also it is much more complicated to replace. It took us 3.5 hours but here is a picture of the result. It came out great.

I took the old awning material and put it down on our lot so that we walk on it rather than the sand which gets tracked into the RV.  Here is a picture of the striped material staked down.

The next day we worked on putting an entire awning on Dave and Jean's trailer. It didn't have one. Annie, our neighbor on the other side, had an awning which had broken arms and rotten material. She didn't want to pay for parts to fix the awning or for new awning material so she gave the hardware to us to put on Dave's trailer. It was a slightly smaller size so it took a little engineering to get it done. We had to reinforce the area where the arms attach to the trailer so it could handle the load.  We also had to fabricate the broken piece that connected the roller to the arms. Putting our heads together and after a trip to the hardware store we had a fix. Again, Don had awning material that happened to be the right length so we were in business. It took about five hours for this project but it was worth it.  Here is a picture. They are thrilled.

Last Tuesday we played golf. My neighbor Chris loves to golf but has been having some back problems so he has been afraid to try and swing a club. He wanted to get out so I talked him into coming along and doing my putting. Here is a picture of Dave (on the left) and Chris putting on the 9th hole.

They are such nice guys we have a great time whether on the course or off.

After all the awning work all week on Thursday we relaxed and went to the beach to watch the sunset. It was awesome. Here is a picture of me and the women and a picture of me looking at the sunset. 

Watching the sunset over the water is very popular. Here is a picture of people lined up to watch.

Here is a great picture I caught of the pelicans flying between us and the sun.

Sunset.

We will have to do this again.

 

February 15, 2021 - Vaccine and Another Repair

Kelly and I spent our Valentine's Day driving to Tallahassee and back to get our first Covid vaccine shot. It was a 4.5 hour drive one way. We arrived early because it was a Sunday and there was no traffic even though we had to drive though multiple towns and dozens of stoplights. We easily found the Publix store which luckily was on the south side of Tallahassee. The system they set up for the shots couldn't have been simpler. You checked in at a table and then were given a seat near the pharmacy.

There weren't many people there upon arrival s0 I asked the young man manning the registration table two questions. Can I get my vaccine before my allotted time and can Kelly get hers right after me rather than us having to wait an hour after that for her appointment? We used his walkie-talkie to confer with the pharmacist and she answered "sure" to both questions. We had about a fifteen minute wait after that. Kelly didn't have her Medicare card with her so it took a little longer to do the paperwork but the pharmacist was really sharp and got it done using her SSN.  (They need the Medicare number to get reimbursed from the Feds.) We both had our shots and were waiting out the 15 minute observation period when the time for my appointment came up.  Here is a picture Kelly took of me waiting.

I'm hoping I can contact someone at Publix and tell them how nice and accommodating the pharmacist was to us. It was really a pleasant experience, which was a relief in itself. Nothing would have been worse than driving 4.5 hours and there being some type of glitch.  I started having a little arm soreness last night when we got home but it is nothing. We both feel fine this morning. Our second shots are scheduled for March 14th at the same time.

In the mail I the other day I received bobbins that I ordered.  I ordered a package of 20 for $4.00.  They even came with a fabric tape measure which is really handy to have at times.

Since I rarely sew on a machine and don't have a sewing machine here in Florida, you may wonder why I ordered bobbins. Well, I use them to replace the tie down strings on the day/night shade on every window.  The ones installed at the factory are plastic and, like all other plastic, disintegrates after several years. I can buy metal bobbins, which are about the same size, for less money than the plastic ones. (Not my idea, I picked this idea up on an RV website several years ago and used it before.)  Here is a picture of a couple bobbins up close ready to be put to work. They are a perfect upgrade because the holes give you something to tie the string to. 

Here is what the plastic ones look like on one shade. Pieces break off then the strings come loose and the shades fall down. The arrows point to the broken off areas and cracks.

Most of these tie downs are located behind the valance on the side of the shades. I may have to take each valance loose from the wall to get to them if my stubby screwdriver doesn't work. Today's project. Always a project.

February 13, 2021 - Vaccine, Laundry, and Rain

The other day I was driving back from getting a few ingredients to make a pot of chili and while stopped in a construction area I took a picture of this guy with the beard. Why would anyone want to have a beard braided ponytail to deal with all day everyday? It seems to me that working construction this could be very dangerous. Maybe he wasn't working. Maybe he was just "visiting" with the construction worker. He didn't have a safety vest on.

For the last two weeks I have been online for many hours trying to get Covid vaccination appointments. The Florida system to sign up is totally jacked up. Limited doses were released through Publix grocery/drug stores. You have to register and then get online at 6:00 or 7:00 a.m. on certain days waiting for a chance to book an appointment. I was using both the laptop and the iPad to try and snag appointments. Here is a picture of my setup. For hours and days on end I would just sit at the table and watch the screens until it came up - "All Appointments Are Booked". GRRRRR!

What is really bizarre about this system is if you do get a chance to "Book Now", you then had to input all your personal and medical information again. Often by then the slots were all filled. This happened about a dozen times over several days. A fifth grader could have designed a better system.

On Wednesday morning, AFTER 3.5 HOURS ONLINE, I finally got appointments for Sunday, February 14th but they are in Tallahassee, a 4.5 hour drive away. HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY! I was lucky to get mine at 12:48 p.m. and Kelly's at 1:48 p.m. so we won't have to spend a lot of time hanging around there. We will drive up and back tomorrow. We will have to go back there for the second dose as well on March 14th. We are barely getting in the second dose before we leave here on the 31st of March.

Today is Saturday - laundry day. I filled the car up with gas for the trip tomorrow and arrived at the laundromat just after 7:00 when it opened. I was the only one there because everyone else looked at the weather forecast.

I go early because I like being there by myself. Floridians and retirees here do not get up early. It was interesting that several dryers were full of clothes. They tell people to not start drying after 8:30 p.m. because they lock the place up at 9:00 p.m. but people do it anyway. As a result their clothes are still there this morning. Ignorant.

Not long after I arrived at the laundromat a major rain storm moved in. It rained so hard I could not hear anything in this metal-roofed building. Here is a picture.

The picture didn't capture the rain so I tried a video for the first time on this blog. I hope it works.

Since it is supposed to rain all day today I will make my famous chili. I found a recipe that Kelly likes. We get two meals out of batch. We do a lot of cooking because we are not going into any restaurants while down here. 

I believe the forecast is rain off and on until Monday. It is 72 degrees so I'm not complaining about some rain. Tomorrow we will be on the road all day so who cares if it rains?

While it is gloomy today, it is not that way many days. Here is a picture of the sunset from our patio the other evening.

February 1, 2021 - Chair Replacement and a Couple of Repairs

About a week ago I noticed that the material was pulling loose on the seat of my camping chair. We bought this chair two years ago at Camping World and if I remembered right I took out a two year warranty. I checked my receipt and I did but the warranty was due to expire on February 19th so off to Camping World went on Friday. It was an easy return since I had a picture of the receipt on my phone. They didn't have the same chair in stock anymore so I traded for one I liked. Here is a picture.

I predict the new one will fail where the old one did, which is right in front of the front legs where the material is sewn together. That being a big possibility I decided to take out a 3 year warranty for $8.00. Another place I predict failure is the plastic arm rests. They often break at the rivets. It is comfortable so it will get a lot of use down here.

Saturday Kelly pulled the day/night shade down in the bedroom and the string broke. I had new string in my tool box so yesterday I took down the valance and the shade for a repair. The wall paper behind the valance needed a little attention. The first thing I did was carefully pull the wallpaper border off. It is ugly. I had taken it off in the kitchen and the bathroom areas several years ago.  Here are a couple of pictures.

You can see the vinyl wallpaper has pulled loose from the wood. This happens sometimes around windows. The vinyl wallpaper is glued to the wood and due to trailer movement and the different in temperatures between the metal frame and the wood the glue will sometimes fail on the edges.  I re-glued it the best I could without damaging it. It is hidden by the valance so it is no big deal that there are still a couple of wrinkles in it.

I took the shade down and and put it on the picnic table for a repair. Here is a picture with it disassembled and ready to be restrung.

I threaded the new string down both sides and then put it all together. I took it inside to put up and realized that I had installed the metal pieces backwards. I hadn't re-strung one in years so I was a little rusty. I had to take it entirely apart and start over. Lesson learned. Here is a picture of it and the valance back in position and good for another 15 years.

Yesterday I also found some 1 x 4s hanging out of the dumpster that we could use to add a horizontal rail to Chris's porch. We took his golf cart up to the dumpster and I climbed up and retrieved them. A small project in the next couple of days.  It is cold and windy today and going to get colder as the day goes on. We will wait for a nicer day.