We were up at 7:30 AM. I got dressed to work and made coffee. We had our usual breakfast and coffee and then got busy. I worked in the bus while Linda picked up the house. We had company coming in the early afternoon and wanted the house and the bus to be presentable.
I sanded the wall behind the sofa using the Porter-Cable 1/4 sheet palm sander we bought yesterday at Lowe’s in New Hudson. I started with 80 grit paper, switched to 120 grit, and vacuumed up as much dust as I could see. I then gathered up tools and materials and put them in the garage. I wanted the steps to be safe so I removed the three rusted screws from the old step between the copilot floor level and the main floor level and temporarily reinstalled it.
With Linda’s assistance we put the sofa platform back in place and screwed it down. We moved the desk pedestals out of the way and I brought the bases out from the garage. We set the bases in place, put the pedestals on top, spread them apart, and inserted the connecting cover that goes between them. We aligned the parts so they looked OK but did not screw them back together or to the wall and did not put the temporary plywood top back on. We removed the painter’s plastic and towels from the chairs and disposed of them or stored them as appropriate. Linda vacuumed thoroughly and then I took the vacuum into the house.
I showered, shaved, and dressed while Linda vacuumed in the house. I was settling in to work on my iPad when she informed me that the display on the main thermostat was blank. I assumed initially that it needed a new battery but it turned out that this thermostat does not have a battery, at least not one I could find ad replace. This thermostat controls the heat for the living room, dining room, and kitchen and the air-conditioning (cooling) for the entire main floor. It is also Wi-Fi enabled so we can monitor and control it via the web when we are away. We are not running the furnace or the A-C at the moment so the loss of this unit was not a crisis but it was still troubling.
I did not want to get involved in diagnosing and fixing this problem at that exact moment but I checked the other three thermostats to see if their displays were working. They were, and since all of the thermostats get their power from the same transformer it was clearly not a failed transformer or open circuit breaker. Thus it appeared to be a power supply problem to this particular unit. I tightened the wire connections on the solenoid valve for this zone but that did not fix the problem.
At least three possibilities occurred to me at that point: 1) the thermostat had failed, 2) The power is routed to the A-C air handler before going to the thermostat and a wire/connection got disturbed when Rebecca was in the attic, and 3) the solenoid had failed and was no longer passing power. Although the system is simple enough I am not an expert on how it is wired so there might be other possible explanations and I did not have a way to determine the likelihood of each possibility. Cooler weather is coming this week so I will have to get this resolved in the next few days.
I settled in to use my iPad to finish Friday’s blog post, write Saturday’s post, and start today’s post. Bill, Karen, Mike, and Catherine showed up around 2 PM. Bill and Karen are members of a couple of bus groups we belong to and Cathy is Bill’s sister. They are from the greater Toronto area of Ontario, Canada and are staying at the Jellystone RV Park in Frankenmuth from mid-September through mid-October. After greetings all around Bill and I went to the bus so he could see what we have doing while everyone else settled in.
When Bill and I came back in everyone else was sitting on the deck behind the house munching on grapes and pretzels while chatting and swatting hornets. A week or so ago we left one of the hummingbird feeders on the table and the hornets had discovered it. Even though we removed it and fogged the area this morning they kept returning. Linda had me fetch the fly swatter from the bus so we could deal with them more effectively. She brought out some of our ICE brand fruit flavored water. Our guests had not seen this product before but seemed to enjoy it. At least they each finished the bottle they had selected.
Linda started final dinner preparations with Karen’s assistance. Dinner was cheese burgers, vegan potato salad, and collard greens Cole slaw. Linda bought real beef patties and real cheddar cheese for our guests but everything else was vegan, including our burgers and cheese. She cooked the burgers on the grill but we ate inside. Linda made a frozen chocolate torte for dessert and served it with fresh strawberries. We did not realize that Catherine does not eat chocolate or strawberries so we felt bad that she did not get dessert even though she said she was not hungry at that point.
We retired to the living room to sit more comfortably and continue chatting. Jasper appeared from wherever he had been hiding (sleeping) and made friends with everyone. Tonight was the rare conjunction of a Supermoon, Harvest Moon, and a full lunar eclipse that was also a blood moon. It was cloudy at sunset/moonrise but gradually cleared off. When Bill, Karen, Mike, and Catherine were leaving at 10 PM the eclipse was near full and fully visible we watched it for 15 minutes during which time the last wisps of clouds moved off to the north leaving a clear, star filled sky with a large, dark, reddish moon. The next full eclipse of a Supermoon occurs in 2033. I will be 81 then and fully intend to see it.
We relaxed for a while, reading and writing and checking on the moon, before going to bed. By 11 PM the earth’s shadow was passing and the sun was once again illuminating the left edge of the moon. I checked again at midnight and the eclipse was mostly passed. It had been cloudy most of the day and we were fortunate that it cleared off in time for us to see this relative rare event right from our yard. Relatively dark night skies is one of the advantages of living a little ways out in country.
