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!

March 16 - 24, 2024 - Fashion Show/Board Meeting/Fan Reinstall/Dinner for Friends/Solenoids/Electric Panel/Wall/Cabinets/Totes/Chair

Fashion Show:

The Ladies Club here at the park held a "Fashion Show and Luncheon" fundraiser  on the 16th. About sixty women attended so it was a success. Here are a couple of pictures someone took of Kelly at the event.

Board Meeting:

Tuesday morning there was a park board meeting so I attended my first one. The meeting was short and sweet because the Minutes and Treasurer's Report had been sent out to all residents ahead of time. This is what a board meeting for a mobile home park is like. They announced that four more ceiling fans were installed in the clubhouse hall. They then discussed security and advised that the adjoining park, Sunset Palms, will be installing a locked gate on the Walmart path between them, us, and Walmart. This action is being taken due to multiple and continuing thefts throughout their park. Hereafter for us to enter their park from the Walmart path, we will have to call someone we know in the park to buzz us in. Thankfully our park has not experienced the same level of theft issues. Hopefully their security move will not move any perpetrators into our park. Time will tell. The board then informed everyone that they had signed a contract with T-Mobile for the installation of fiber optics throughout the park at no cost. To recoup their investment T-Mobile wants residents to sign up for internet, etc. We use Spectrum cable so it won't affect us. 

Fan Reinstall:

You will recall I installed a new ceiling fan in the master bedroom a few days ago because the old one hummed. The install was a pain because the fan hangs over the king size bed. The mattress is too heavy and too large for us to move out of the way and there is little room to move it in the room anyway. 

The new fan is much heavier than the one I took down. It was only supported by the electrical box, which was screwed to two boards laying on top of the Celotex fiberboard ceiling material. Celotex is a cheap compressed saw dust type product, which is quick to install and provides a little insulating value. It was used in mobile home ceilings for many years between roof rafters. Plastic strips cover the nailed joints.  The stuff has no strength to it at all. This is what it looks like on the ceiling. 

Considering the additional weight of the new fan and its vibration from operation, I was not comfortable at all with my install. In addition to the Celotex not providing support for the weight of the fan, the electric box the fan bracket screwed into is made of Bakelite. Bakelite is a predecessor of plastic from the 1950s and is known for becoming brittle and breaking with age. It was used mostly for radio and clock cases, back in the day. I had never seen an electric box made of Bakelite before and didn't know any were used after the 1950s but here it is after I took it out.

Celotex has been out of business for years so replacement material is not available if any is damaged. It is not a material that can be "patched" and still look right. Without taking out part of the Celotex ceiling to install a board from rafter to rafter to support the fan, my only option to provide support for the new fan was through the four inch electric box hole in the ceiling. In this case a hole was cut in the Celotex in the center between two rafters. At the time the electric box was only intended to support a lightweight ceiling light. For the previous fan installation someone had laid two 3/4 inch boards on top of the Celotex and screwed the electric box to them. This did spread out the weight of the fan a little but not enough for this much heavier fan.

In home construction now a ceiling electric box for a light is nailed to a rafter. If that were the case I could have bought a metal bracket which is made to screw into the rafter, below the electric box, to support a fan. A very quick and easy installation. I wasn't that lucky.  Upon researching the matter I found a "Ceiling Fan Support Box with Brace Kit" for remodel applications. I went to Home Depot and bought one. Here is a picture of it on the box.

Here is how it works. You take out the old electric box. You then feed the square bar with end brackets containing spikes up through the four inch hole. Once you get the mechanism in place you turn it by hand until the spikes on each end pierce the wood rafters. Easy enough, right? WRONG! Getting the bar in place at the right height, while keeping it perpendicular to the rafters, and centered over the four inch opening, proved to be a major challenge. 

You will recall that the install was over our king size bed. To reach the electric box area of the ceiling I had to stand on a step-stool and hang over the bed, and or, stand on the mattress, which provided no support as I moved around on it. For this reinstall, to help make mattress standing easier, I laid a piece of 1/2 inch plywood down on the bed. My theory was that this would spread the load from my foot steps giving me a more stable work surface. It helped but not as much as I had hoped. While my feet didn't sink into the mattress, the entire board moved around, giving me a fluctuating work surface. Not ideal at all.

Each time I would get the mounting bar in place and start turning it, it would move around until the points pierced the wood rafters. Many times the bar didn't grab the rafters where I wanted it to. The problem was I could only get one hand through the four inch hole. If I could have gotten two hands through the hole I could have held the bar in place with one hand and twisted it tight with the other. 

It took me well over an hour to get the bar in a close enough position, left and right, up and down, that I could place the electric box mounting bracket over the bar and work to align it for mounting of the electric box. It took another hour to get the electric box bracket located in the correct position on the bar for the bolts on the mounting bracket to line up with the mounting holes in the electric box. Once this was finally accomplished I had to take the electric box back out and thread three Romex cables through the box before bolting it on. Once the cables were inside the electric box I had to then push the box up, align it with the bolts sticking down, and then thread a nut on each bolt to secure the box to the support bar above. All this had to be done while balancing myself on the mattress with my head cocked at what felt like a 90 degree angle to see up into the box. Not easy and not fun!

Standing on the plywood I was too tall to see directly into the box to align the bolts. To help make this alignment I put the step-stool on the plywood so I could then sit on it, cock my head back, and look straight up to align the bolts. While doing this, at some point, I guess I leaned too much and the step-stool kicked out from under me and sent me flying to the floor. Luckily I landed on my back and didn't hit my head. I did scrape my leg but didn't see any blood. The next day I did have a sizeable bruise to show for it.

Naturally, Kelly was quite upset with me for being on the step-stool in the first place. After falling I took a long break to regroup. Kelly then stood on the ladder while I stood on the plywood on the bed to get the bolts lined up and the nuts installed. Her smaller fingers helped. The actual installation of the fan after that was a breeze. 

The entire reinstall took me all day and I was completely beat by the time it was finished (and a little sore from falling). But I can now sleep at night knowing the fan won't fall on me. LOL. It was a long day so Kelly and I just threw all the tools in the shed until the next day.

 No matter what, this is the last project for this season! LOL

Dinner for Friends:

Four of our long-time Michigan RV friends from Roberts RV Park, Lee and Sherry, and Terry and Julie, have been down for the season in their fifth wheels. They are staying in Avalon RV Park in Clearwater, Florida, about ten miles from us. They love the new park and will never go back to Roberts, nor will anyone else we know.

Thursday evening we invited them, as well as our Missouri friend, Celina, over for supper. We had ribs, homemade potato salad, Pork and Beans, and French bread. Everything was delicious. After a respite to let it all digest, Kelly served chocolate cake to those interested. We had a great visit and look forward to hanging out with them more next season. I was so busy visiting that I neglected to take any pictures!

While riding around on the golf cart showing Lee and Terry the park, we ran into "Tommie". He is a fellow who lives in our park and works on golf carts. I flagged him down and asked him if he would drive my cart to see why the acceleration is so jumpy. He did so and immediately said that two of the five solenoids, which kick in at different power levels like gears in a transmission, were bad. He pointed out the ones I need to replace. He also told me I could get a whole new set of five solenoids for around $65.00 on Amazon. I thanked him profusely because I was thinking the problem was the electronic foot feed control, which costs about $325.00. Here is a picture of the solenoids which sit behind the batteries. 

The four solenoids on the right look to be original. There are nuts and bolts on each of them, top and bottom, all of which are quite rusted. It could be a challenge to get these nuts off to install replacements. I sprayed all the nuts with "Blaster Penetrating Oil" to get them ready to come off in the future. This will be a project for next winter.  

I fibbed about no more projects this year. 

Friday I worked on a few minor projects. The first was to open up the electric service panel and torque all the bolts, particularly the neutral bolts. Over time these bolts can become loose due to the heating cycles of the wire. I brought down my torque screwdriver for this purpose. There were several neutral bolts (white wires) that weren't sufficiently tight.  I'm glad I checked this out. I'm told that lose wires can cause fires due to heat build up. 

Scuffed Wall:

Some time back I had found a partial can of paint marked "bedrooms" in the shed. Upon opening it I found some paint inside that was good but the lid area of the can was so rusted I couldn't close it back up properly. I found an empty jar and put the paint that was left in there for touch ups.

I decided to paint the area of the wall which we scuffed with the bed frame when moving the bed to a different location some months back. Here is the before and after picture. It looks much better.

 

Kitchen Cabinet Doors:

The next project was to repair a couple of the kitchen cabinet doors and drawers. The cabinets are made of MDF (a dense particle board) covered with a molded white plastic giving them a waterproof surface and wood grain effect. The edges of the plastic on a couple of the drawers and cabinet doors have shrunk due to heat and other issues. (I hate plastic, remember?) These edges have pulled loose and some pieces on the edges have even broken off. This is the edge of the door next to the stove.

I first tried to glue the edge with "Crazy Glue" because it dries quickly. It didn't work at all. I then tried E6000. My good Michigan friend, David, had told me about this stuff and it is great. I have found that E6000 sticks to many plastics and other materials that most glues will not. Since it sets up much slower I used wax paper and painters tape to hold the plastic in place until the glue set. I let it sit overnight.

The second cabinet door was a bit more of a problem to repair. The plastic had come loose further up the front of the door. I put it in the vise, and, being careful not to break the plastic, poked E6000 down as far as I could with a screw driver. I then used C-clamps and a strip of wood to hold it in place. Once this dried I used E6000 on the edge. It didn't come out perfect but it is never going to be.

The final door I did was also next to the stove. This time I decided to leave the door mounted and glue it there.

I am seriously thinking of removing all the doors and drawers next year and painting them to eliminate the delaminating plastic covering.

Totes:

For our first full season in the house we had lots of items to bring down. We used trash bags an totes for many items since most were hauled down in the bed of the truck. Two of the totes were filled with tools and items I brought down for projects. These need to be taken back home. I ended up having four two empty totes that Kelly can use to start packing for home. I put all of the clothes and other items that I am taking home in the large suitcase Alexa left here at Christmas. My goal is to leave all the clothes and shoes that I need down here so I can travel "light".

The totes are old and I had to use Duck Tape to repair one for the trip home.

Swivel Rocking Chair:

In the last week we noticed that one of the swivel rocking chairs on the lanai leaned back way too easily, almost overturning. Yesterday I discovered why. One of the fiberglass springs had broken and was pulling loose. Another project for next year. I have laid the chair down so no one sits in it.

Sunday after church we went to see the movie "One Child". It is a story about Nicolas Winton, an Englishman who rescued 669 children from Czechoslovakia just before Hitler invaded. He lived to be 106 and met, as adults, many of the children he saved. It was a good movie.

 

Not even a full week left before we leave on Thursday so no more blogs until I get home. Hope you have enjoyed my Florida blogs.

 

March 12, 2024 - March 17, 2024 - This Week in Florida

Tuesday morning I installed the ceiling fan that I replaced in the guest bedroom in the shed. It is always hot in there, particularly when the washer and dryer are running. It is hooked in with the lights but I think I need to rewire it so it can be on without the lights.

At noon we met Michigan friends, Lee and Sherrie and Terry and Julie, at the American Legion Hall at Medeira Beach. The weather was beautiful and we had a nice visit.

Wednesday morning I drove over and got a hair cut by Gary at Robert's RV Resort. It was good to see him and get the Robert's gossip. My last haircut by Gary until next year.

Kelly had an eye doctor appointment late morning. After that I painted the rattan table black to match the chairs on the lanai. Before and after pictures of the table. After painting it we decided to leave the mirror off.

I also painted the two brown metal, cushioned chairs black to match the other black chairs and table. I'm happy with the results.

I purchased two Hunter ceiling fans for $10.00 each off of Facebook Market and picked them up. We wanted to replace the master bedroom fan because it had a hum. I spent about two hours installing the new fan. It is larger and moves a lot more air. It is a beast.

Unfortunately, the first one I installed hummed louder than the fan I replaced! I took it down and replaced it with the other fan. The other fan did not hum but we decided it was hung too low for the bedroom and was too large. We went to Lowes and purchased this fan, which we like much better.

While at Lowes we also purchased new lamp shades for the bedroom lamps. The old ones were too long and narrow, making it hard to get your hand up to turn the lamps on and off.

The new ones are a better color for the room and a better shape for using them.

I put the two Hunter fans on the park's "Buy-Sell" page and sold them the next day.

One day I did go with Kelly and get my first ever pedicure. It was an interesting experience but not worth the money to me.

The next project was painting two small walls in the kitchen walkway. We decided to paint these walls green to match the other green accent walls (which had been raspberry color). Now the entire East wall of the living area is green. It breaks up all the white in the area. We like the look.

For St. Patrick's Day Kelly made Corned Beef and Cabbage. She added potatoes and carrots with it. It was delicious!

The end of another wonderful week here in Florida. Only two left until we head home. I saw this plaque in the office and want to pass it on.