Tag Archives: house problems

2014/03/10 (M) And All Of That

Overnight from Saturday into Sunday we switched to Daylight Savings Time, so my personal biological clock is off by an hour but slowly resetting.  One of the nice things about retirement, however, is that it really doesn’t matter what time is on the clock when the sun rises and sets.  The sun rose this morning through clear skies and flooded our passenger side bedroom window with lovely warm light.  That’s how I knew it was time to get up.

There is comfort in my morning routine: feed the cats, refresh their water, and clean their litter tray.  (They insist that these things be taken care of before I do anything else.)  Grind the coffee beans and start the brewing process.  Some orange/grapefruit juice to wash down an allergy pill and a multi-vitamin, and then a decision about what to have for breakfast.  It is usually granola, but not always.  Turn on the Verizon MiFi, start the computer, get connected and check my e-mail accounts.  No one from the African sub-continent wants to give me millions of dollars for helping them launder billions in stolen U.S. Foreign aid, and we have not won a free cruise, so it looks like I will have a fairly normal day and get to do whatever it was I planned to do, if I feel like it.

I had not yet written blog posts for Saturday and Sunday, so I did that first.  I find the Notepad app on my iPad2 particularly convenient for this purpose.  I can sit anywhere and work, including outside or away from the bus.  This morning our female cat, Juniper, was feeling a bit needy (she is more bonded to Linda than me and really misses her) so I sat on the couch writing blog posts with her on my lap.  A pair of cardinals was busy in the trees around our rig gathering pieces of Spanish moss for what I could only presume was the building of a nest somewhere nearby.  Juniper has a very strong hunting instinct, so this really got her attention, and provided here with kitty entertainment for quite some time.

A group had planned to go to Satchel’s in Gainesville for pizza around 3 PM.  It turned out that they were not open on Mondays, so we went to the Micanopy Blue Highway instead.  We went early because some of the group had to be back before 6 PM to work or play bingo.  I knew it would be an early dinner and just had a piece of fruit for lunch.  The first time Linda and I went to the Blue Highway we had them veganize one of their standard roasted vegetable pizzas.  It was OK.  I have been back twice while Linda has been away and had salad both times.  Most pizzas are not very good without the cheese.

Linda called while we were driving to the restaurant to update me on the leak.  Our son (Brendan) had come over to lend a hand.  When he inspected the area under the dishwasher he found the fresh water supply line dripping at the connector and shut off the water to the dishwasher.  Assuming that was the only source of the leak it was actually relatively good news. An ice dam on roof would have meant water running down the inside of the wall.  Linda is flying back to Florida late Thursday, so she will have a few days to make sure this was the only problem.  The fact that I will have to repair this leak when we get home just added insult to injury.  I installed the new dishwasher last year and had trouble getting that very connection to not leak.  Instead of Teflon thread tape I will be using PTFE pipe thread compound next time.

John and Ali decided to have another campfire at their site this evening.  I made some popcorn to take over, the first time I’ve made any since Linda flew back to Michigan.  Meg joined us for a while.  It was another quiet evening at the RV resort.  As the sun set the air temperature dropped back into the low 60’s, just cool enough to make the fire an enjoyable necessity without feeling chilled.

 

2014/03/09 (N) Delayed

Even though the weather forecast for today was for near perfect conditions with sun, no rain, and a high temperature in the upper 70’s—and as much as I would have liked to have John and Marian return and help me with bus projects—I decided not to work on the bus.  Linda was scheduled to fly back to Florida Monday afternoon and I needed to devote some time and energy to housekeeping chores.  I have been keeping up with doing the dishes, laundry, and the litter tray, but the bus needed to be vacuumed, and the floors, counters, shower, mirrors, and windows cleaned.  I would probably not make a good bachelor, or at least not a really tidy one.

Mid-morning I got a call from Linda letting me know that we had water damaged suspended ceiling tiles in the northwest corner of the basement near the electrical panel.  She sent pictures with her smartphone and then we talked and tried to problem solve as best we could.  She had not yet checked in for her afternoon flight the next day and we decided she should re-book for later in the week to give her time to figure out what was happening and try to deal with it.

She called our good friend, John Rauch, because that’s what we do when we have house issues.  John thought it was most likely an ice dam on the roof causing water to run down the inside of the wall, or at least behind the siding.  Linda was able to find a roof rake and calcium chloride pellets at a small, local hardware store.  (The big box stores were out and probably busy stocking their shelves with garden supplies even though we are still experiencing single-digit temperatures and have feet of snow on the ground with more likely to fall before winter finally yields to spring in Michigan.)  The rake allowed her to safely remove snow from the first few feet of the bottom edge of the roof.  The pellets are like hockey pucks and are designed to be tossed onto the roof ice and cause it to melt.

Later in the day Linda joined the rest of our immediate family at our daughter’s house for a slightly belated birthday celebration for our son-in-law, Chris.  I finished some, but not all, of my housekeeping chores as I want to do some them just before Linda returns so the bus is as clean as possible.  I worked on the Cool Cruiser article until early evening when John and Ali invited me next door for a small campfire.  Jim and Janet came down for a while and we all had a nice chat.