April 19th - May 5th, 2023 - Homer Out of Storage; Work at the Lake Lot; House Batteries Installed in Homer; Chest Project

April 19th:

Upon getting home from the Outer Banks we both contracted killer head colds. We did nothing but sit around and take over-the-counter medicine for a week. I checked and I did not have Covid. I still have a little residual cough and Kelly still has a stuffed head and cannot hear or smell.

May 1st:

Monday morning I started back walking at 5:00 a.m. with friends at the Perry Park Center. My Silver Sneakers card (which gets me in free) worked fine on Monday. Tuesday I was told the card was expired. I came home and got in touch with United HealthCare and learned that the first of the year they changed over to the "Renew Active" program. The lady gave me a Renew Active ID number. I took the number in the next day to the Park Center personnel and they made me a card to use to check in. I'm good until the next program change. 

After an afternoon trip to the recycling center, John and I got Homer out of storage. I keep Homer's three batteries on trickle chargers all winter in the garage. I loaded up the chassis battery and a few tools for the battery installation. With the battery installed he fired right up. We are hosting a campout out for our RV club here in Perryville the week of May 15th, so I need to get him in shape. The old boy looks pretty good, even without a bath. One of the great advantages of having an enclosed storage shed is keeping him clean.

May 2nd:

Tuesday we went out to the lake to cut the grass and mulch the leaves. In addition to the riding mower, I took out the push mower, which had been in the shop almost a year waiting for a back-ordered needle valve and for us to return from Florida to pick it up. There were a lot of large and small branches down on the lot from high winds over the winter. They all had to be picked up before I could mow. After mowing the golf cart fired right up so we took it for a ride before heading home.

May 3rd:

Kelly tested positive for Covid. It explains why she wasn't feeling well and couldn't smell anything. She called her doctor who called in the prescription for the medicine for it. The doctor said it may have been too late for the medicine to do its job. Anyway, Kelly is quarantined for five days. She is busy inside painting her current "paint by number" project.

May 4th:

We have several patches of dead grass in the lawn. It has been that way for two years and I was promised by a guy three times that he would reseed, etc. but he never did it. I decided to work on it myself. I scraped up the areas removing the dead grass, seeded with newly purchased seed, covered the areas with peat moss, and watered. I put down fescue seed so it will be three weeks before we see any grass. Seeding at this time of year means I will have to regularly water all spring and summer.

My "good" sprinkler worked fine Thursday night for an hour of watering. There was a lot of pressure in the hose so I had steady it with a rock to keep it in place.

May 5th:

Friday I turned the water on to the sprinkler and NOTHING. Water just barely drizzled out. I took the hose connection lose and found a little dark decayed matter at the fitting but not much. I looked inside, didn't see anything, so I thought I had the problem fixed. Upon turning the water back on - nothing. I checked the hose and it wasn't blocked. The problem had to be inside the sprinkler. I took it apart and found that it was totally blocked with decayed matter in the tube leading from the hose connection to the sprinkler head. After about twenty minutes fishing around with a piece of wire, I got it all cleaned out. I reinstalled the sprinkler and it worked like new. How could it work for an hour one day and not the next? 

After fixing the sprinkler I got Homer's house batteries are out of the garage to install. For much more battery capacity for our trip to Alaska years ago I purchased two six-volt golf cart batteries. Unfortunately, golf cart batteries are taller than a normal deep cycle 12-volt battery. Homer wasn't made for these large batteries. These batteries are a real pain to install because there is only a quarter inch of clearance at the top of the battery box and about a half inch of clearance on the side to slide them in. They each weigh about 75 lbs. I keep them cabled together to install because I cannot get to the back terminals to make connections once I start to slide them into the battery box. 

I have to use the two-wheeler to move them to the battery box. I put them on a milk crate with two layers of 2 x 4s under them to get them close to the correct height to slide them into the box. It is a very tight fit in width and height. Here is a picture of the width issue. There is a piece of angle iron welded on the bottom to keep the batteries from moving toward the electrical components. There is less than a half inch of clearance as you can see by the arrow.

The top is an even tighter fit. There is no way to tie them down so that they don't bounce going down the road. This was a concern since the terminals are so close to the metal top of the battery box. A couple of years ago I fabricated insulators out of plastic cut from a milk jug to go over each terminal to keep them from touching the metal top of the battery box. These "insulators" did not do the job. I noticed when taking the batteries out last fall that at some point one insulator burned through and the terminal did in fact touch the metal battery cabinet and spark, leaving a burnt mark. I fabricated heavier insulators out of clear rubber hose and installed them on all four terminals. They all worked fine but the front positive post is extremely tight. You can see in the picture the lack of space and the thicker rubber insulators I made. Hopefully they will do the job.

I still need to de-winterize Homer's plumbing before we start loading him up for the season. We have lots of stuff to put in Homer which we took out of the fifth wheel upon selling it. Most of the items are an upgrade of what is already in Homer. We will send lots of stuff to the thrift store I'm sure. This is all the stuff out of the fifth wheel laid out in the garage. The brown table and tubs will not go in for sure. Toolboxes, hoses, etc. will all find a home.

One known issue with Homer is that at the end of last season the generator would not start from the outside switch. I'm assuming the switch went bad because it did start from inside. The exact replacement switch from Onan is $39.95. Another Onan switch for newer models is available for $12.00. I ordered it to give it a try first. I don't see why it won't work because it has the same number of terminals. I'll get John to help me with that in a week or so. He's my "go to" guy for everything electronic.

Much of my time since coming home has been taken up remodeling a chest project for two-year-old grandson, Free, in California. I built a toy (possession) box for his older brother, Kellen, when he was about two. This box is a remodel of a cedar chest Kelly bought from a friend last year. It has been more time consuming to remodel this box than to make a new one. Once it is completed, I will post a picture. We will then need to make a road trip to California to deliver it. It will give us a chance to see the kids and grandkids out there. LOL