March 25 - April 5, 2024 - Guide Dog Tour; Packing; Another Florida Project; Dead Patches; Visitors for Easter; Backup Camera Install

Monday the 25th was a packing day. We had a lot to load into the truck. It seemed like we were taking almost as much stuff home as we brought down.

Tuesday morning six of us went to the "Southeastern Guide Dogs" training complex in Palmetto, Florida. There they train seeing eye dogs, which are available for anyone, and service dogs, which are only available for veterans. It was quite an impressive campus. The presentation and demonstration lasted an hour. Here are a couple pictures.

After the demonstration ended we took the tram to the puppy building. This building has a neonatal unit and dozens of pens for puppies, play areas, etc. They breed all of their own dogs and use Labrador and Golden retrievers exclusively. They call them “Goldadors”. The place was as clean as any hospital I have ever been in. Here are some pictures.

Dogs that do not work out as seeing eye or service dogs are donated to another entity which trains them to sniff out bombs or drugs, etc. There was a dog roaming around while we were there that was trained to sniff out Covid. 

It takes five years to be trained as a trainer and two years to train a dog. The entire complex is supported by donations. They accept no federal funds. All dogs are given out to those in need free of charge. The health of the dog is paramount so the dogs are constantly monitored to make sure the owner is taking proper care of them. If they are not the dog is taken away. We were really impressed. 

From there we headed to Woodys River Roo in Ellington for lunch.

I had to order the shrimp basket because I won’t get any more shrimp until next year. It did not disappoint. Kelly got a cup of clam chowder and crab cakes and said both were great. We will be back.

A project for next season:

As we arrived back at Golden Gate and drove down our street, I noticed a grill that looked identical to ours sitting out in the trash. The old grill I bought last year is functional but the base is quite rusted making the whole grill wobbly. I got the golf cart and went back to check that grill out. All I could see wrong with it was that one swivel wheel mounts was broken. Otherwise it was in great shape. I loaded it on the cart and put in our shed for a swap out project next season. It is the one on the right.

Later in the day I was outside when the mail carrier came by and put a pink dot on our mailbox to signify no mail should be left here until next season. Cancelling our temporary change of address the other day worked. But then she told me that she had a cancellation for me but not for Kelly. I told her that we both cancelled at the same time. She said she has seen people have to do it three times! We have had nothing but problems getting our mail forwarded this season. We are going to have to think about what we want to do next year for mail service. Mail forwarding by the Post Office is not dependable.

The trip home:

The trip home was fine. We left at 5:00 a.m. and it rained as we drove through Northern Florida. It then cleared off nicely for the rest of the trip. To avoid all the traffic in Atlanta, Chattanooga, and Nashville, we headed home via Birmingham, Alabama. While there were no traffic jams on this route, there were a number of traffic signals in the small towns.  We arrived home at 3:00 p.m. Erin and grandsons, Kellen and Free, from California had been at the house since Monday. They greeted us upon our arrival and helped us unload everything. We appreciated the help. 

Having a teenager and a two year old (almost three) in your home is an experience. Our house is not child-proof by any stretch of the imagination. Free, the two year old, saw to it that every drawer and cabinet was opened and anything of interest was taken out and left laying around the house when he got bored with it. There were at least four flashlights laying around, all of them left “ON”. He is now tall enough to reach light switches and he liked turning lights on. If I turned them off, he turned them back on. Every devise that had a button had it pushed. Twice I found my CPAP “ON” for who knows how long. His older brother, Kellen, is a typical teenager leaving stuff laying around everywhere he goes. Although seventeen years old he has yet to find the “OFF” position on light switches. LOL

The grass was so quite tall when we got home. I decided Saturday morning to cut it because rain was predicted for Monday and I didn't want to cut it on Easter Sunday. After cutting it the lawn looked like a mowed hayfield. Later in the day I recut the front yard to further mulch the clippings so they wouldn't kill the grass underneath.

When we arrived home on Friday we found that Spectrum internet was down. They didn't get it back up until early Saturday morning. Upon rebooting our modem we could reach some websites but not others. After a phone call to Spectrum tech support I was advised that my modem was too old to "jive" with their new equipment. They would supply a new modem for free if I drove thirty-five miles to their store in Cape Girardeau, or they could ship me one. I decided to drive to Cape to get one rather than wait three or four days for one to be shipped. 

When I got back home from picking the modem up and hooked it up we still had internet issues. Some sites would just not connect. I made another call to Spectrum tech support and was advised that the issue was now my router. They gave me the tech support number for Linksys, who makes the router, and I called them. The tech got the router working properly but advised that it was older one (2020) and she couldn't guarantee that I wouldn't have similar issues if I didn't upgrade to a new router. I agreed to buy a new router from them for $250.00 (on sale). LOL. It is supposed to be four times faster.

Friday evening I let Kellen take the HHR to visit his old friends in Webster Groves, where he lived before moving to California. He spent the night with friends and enjoyed seeing everyone. He stays in contact with them on the internet but there is nothing like an in person visit. 

Saturday at noon Bob and Ronnie brought over a big pot of homemade chicken and dumplings for our dinner and visited for awhile. Later daughter Alexa and friend Aaron arrived from St. Louis and for dinner we all enjoyed the chicken and dumplings and some home-baked bread from "Olive Branch Bakery" here in town.

Saturday evening Kellen went back up to St. Louis to visit his friends. I don't know what time he got back because I was sound asleep.

Easter Sunday, before church, I was up early so I got most of our income tax papers together. I found that I was missing the 1099s from our local bank. We didn’t get them in the mail in Florida (that issue could be an entire blog by itself).

It was a beautiful day so we had a nice Easter Egg Hunt for Free with big brother helping hide eggs and helping Free find eggs. We each got a small basket of candy as well.

After the egg hunt was a great opportunity for family pictures.

Kelly cooked ribs for supper after that were delicious!

The lawn:

We hired a new lawn service last fall. They spray or spread lawn products four times per year. While we were gone they put down crabgrass killer and it really worked well. The crab grass is dead but it left large patches of dead areas in the front and side yard. The prediction was for rain late Monday so I wanted to deal with the dead areas to take advantage of the coming rain. Early Monday morning (6:00 a.m.) I got out and scraped off the dead grass, spread grass seed, covered it with peat moss, and damped it. I know spring is not the optimal time to sow grass but I had to do something. I seeded some patches like this last year in the spring and grass came up well. Here are some pictures of the repaired grass areas. It only rained a half of an inch Monday night so I watered.

After finishing the lawn project I cleaned up, drove to the bank to get the 1099s, took the tax documents to our accountant, and then drove to our mechanic to schedule Kelly’s car for an oil change and the truck for six minor issues. I got all that off my plate.

Kellen wanted to learn to drive a manual transmission so Monday afternoon we went out to Bob’s for him to learn on Bob’s old pickup truck. This old truck is the only manual transmission I could think of that anybody I knew owned. Kellen picked up driving a manual quickly. Good grandpa time as well.

Getting Homer home:

I keep Homer’s batteries in the garage on a charger all winter. After the driving lesson we came home and loaded Homer’s starting battery and tools into the car. We got to the storage unit and put in the battery. The dome light and dash lights came on but the starter wouldn’t even click. I thought maybe the battery went South over the winter so we took it out and drove to Auto Zone to get it tested. It tested perfect. My mechanic was still open so we rushed there to get his advice. He said it was a simple matter and probably the most likely issue was the “Park” switch was out. He said to go back, put the battery in, move the shifter to “Neutral”, and try it. We did that and Homer fired right up. I guess I’ll need to schedule Homer in for a new “Park” switch soon. Anyway, Homer is home and de-winterized. He is ready for the Solar Eclipse Party next Monday on the Rauh’s farm where he serves as a water source and restroom.

New backup camera:

Before leaving for Florida the backup camera on Homer quit working. Three times I packed it up and mailed it to the place where I bought it for testing and/or replacement. It would get there and work fine. I would get it home and it would not work. After spending $100 on shipping I decided to just go online and buy a whole new setup - camera, monitor, and cable. The new Chinese units are much cheaper than when I bought the last one almost ten years ago. I bought a wired camera, monitor, and cable for $69.00. It arrived Monday afternoon.

Monday evening the internet went down AGAIN and didn’t come back up until 5:00 a.m. Tuesday morning. When it came back up, the router didn’t work right once again. I called Linksys once again to get technical help to get it reset until the new one arrives.

While Kellen and I were getting Homer to the house, Kelly, Erin, and Free went to Cape Girardeau for Kelly to get new lenses after her cataract surgery. Since the surgery she has been disappointed with her vision but the new lenses corrected everything. Happy Wife - Happy Life!

I forgot to mention that over the weekend I did not think the “continuous fan mode” on the new furnace was working. I called the company and they sent a technician out Monday afternoon. He couldn't hear the fan running but upon opening the unit found that the fan was running but at such an extremely low speed we couldn't hear it. He hooked up his equipment and set the fan speed from a “two” to a “seven”. It is much better now at moving air when you don’t need heat or cooling. It cost me a $90.00 service call but I couldn't fix it myself.

It turned cold on Wednesday so we did little outside. Kelly, Alexa, Kellen, and Free went to a large thrift store in Jackson, Missouri, where Kellen found several pairs of jeans and shirts he liked. He had never been to a thrift store and was thrilled with the prices. In the evening Erin and the boys went to Erin's long-time friend Angie's house for a visit. I don’t know when they got back because I was in bed.

Thursday afternoon the California crew and their suitcases were loaded in the car and I drove them to the airport in St. Louis. American Airlines had curbside check in of luggage, which was a great help because they had two suitcases, a car seat, and two backpacks. I was able to help them get all that checked before I left. Their flight went well and we look forward to seeing them next time.

Friday morning John came over to help put in the new backup camera. The most challenging part is getting the wires run under the dash. Before doing that we hooked it all up to make sure it worked properly. The next time-consuming part of the install was running the cable from the front, through the cabinets, and out the back to the camera. John helped me until 1:00 p.m. We had all the wires run but everything had to be tidied up. I took him home and came back and finished up the install. All the dash parts were put back together and the cable secured inside the cabinets. Here are pictures after the installation in the cab.

 

The new monitor is color and much larger so it will certainly do the trick. The new camera is smaller and has a much smaller bracket. Here is a picture of its installation. I was able to modify the new bracket a bit to use two of the four prior mounting holes.

By the time I finished it was 4:00 p.m., a six hour project. 

All that is left to do on Homer is repairing a new holding tank leak. I believe the gate valve has cracked badly in the cold weather causing it to leak. I had noticed a crack in it last fall when I winterized but water wasn't dripping out from that area then. I have a new valve. There is no hurry on this item, just so it is fixed before our first campout in May.

As part of the de-winterizing routine I got the generator up and running, which is always a challenge after ethanol sits in it all winter. What I did last fall was put stabilizer in the main gas tank, run the generator for a while to get the treated gas in the carburetor, then unplug the generator fuel pump and let it run until it ran out of fuel. I then tried to start it several times to pump out the fuel in the carburetor. This method seemed to work well.

The next blog will be about the Solar Eclipse Party on Monday!