It’s all for the birds

Just like most folks these days we are hunkering around at home. Not much going on besides taking some interest in the news, doing housekeeping and the usual stuff. We were, however, blessed with some pretty good weather. For a while I thought the Snow God had forgotten our area this year and Benno and I enjoyed walking our dogs on dry pavement that was void of any snow. Mind you it still was cold outside.

Birds seem to sense when a change in weather is coming. I took notice of that last year several times when they got into a kind of feeding frenzy before it rained or it snowed. Of course once the ground is covered with snow the birds flock to any food supply they spot. I put out a small feeder filled with wild birdseed for the little Sparrows and such but had to take it back inside again after it was invaded by a bunch of bold and aggressive Brown-headed Cowbirds, Starlings, Grackles and Blackbirds that gave the little birdies no chance to snag a morsel. Sorry big fellas, but you have to go elsewhere.

Look at that scene on our front lawn I photographed through the window on Sunday morning and that was only a fraction of the flock or should I say the masses that descended onto the grassy areas around our house. The thriller film “The Birds” by Alfred Hitchcock came to my mind. A couple of hours later it started snowing leaving about a couple of inches of snow, which covered the ground pretty much everywhere.

Fresh fluffy snow on the deck was of course very inviting for Elsa and Reggy to have some fun in and they had it all messed up in no time at all.

 

                                       Look at these rascals

A few days ago Benno received in the mail his order of Ceccorp Instant Wood Glue he had ordered for a special job. The label states it is used for: Wood 20 gr toughened medium viscosity cyanoacrylate adhesive designed to bond surface insensitive material like wood, leather, rubber, plastics and metal. We keep small mementos from our travels in a display cabinet for sentimental reasons. One such item is a small, delicate, hand carved motorboat made from a very light Balsam kind of wood grown in the jungle of South America. The little boat is carved in its entirety from a piece of wood and even the smallest details are carved wood but its rooftop had come undone while we transported it and Benno wanted to fix it.

 

When we were cruising and exploring on our boat the waters of the Orinoco and Macareo rivers in Venezuela, the local Wareo Indians came in their boats to trade their handmade items for whatever we could spare. Sometimes it was shampoo, clothing, sewing items, ropes and just about anything we could spare. Benno had a small pocketknife that would light up a LED light when pressing a button and he showed it to a young lad who had come by to trade. The boy wanted the knife very badly and was willing to depart with his precious possession of his hand carved boat for it. Looking at all these things in the cabinet takes us back to memory lane.

The boy that came with his hand carved boat

The following pictures show some of the dwellings of the Wareo Indians along the Macareo River bank. Most Wareos lived in thatched huts on stilts that are open fronted. Several huts were connected by walkways. For transportation they used either dugout canoes or small boats with outboard motors.

 

Other Wareo Indians trading their baskets

One more week and it will be already February and springtime not so far off. Stay well and healthy and thanks for dropping by.

 

Little things that will improve our trailer life

This post is the continuation of my previous one. This might not be as interesting for those of you who are looking for some travel adventures, but that has to wait until we are back on the road.

 

In the meantime our Amazon orders arrived via Canada Post and Benno was ready for the final installation. So if you were curious what was in the works, here it is.

 

The small hole next to the 120V receptacle outlet is now filled with a double USB outlet that also displays the battery voltage, a feature Benno really likes. This is Benno’s side of the bed and on my side I already have a double USB outlet so now we both can plug in our devices.

 

The arrangement, or lack of it, had irritated Benno, because our previous 24ft 2016 Jayco White Hawk had next to Benno’s bedside a 120V duplex outlet and a double USB outlet that he used for charging the phone and his iPad and sometimes the drone batteries. In addition, the space next to his bedside was wider than mine. On my bedside, which was narrower they skipped the USB outlets. But here is the hammer, on our new 26ft Grand Design everything is the other way around. I got it all and Benno had zero. Don’t these interior designers know that everyone has a need for charging their electronic devices?

 

Now you want to know what is covering the other hole in the wall where the thermostat was located. Well, we always want to know what the outside and inside temperature is when we get up in the morning or, before going to bed. This “ThermoPro TP-65 Digital Hygrometer” is a wireless indoor/outdoor thermometer that also tells you the humidity. It has a backlight & LCD touchscreen that is easy to read in dim light. You can switch between Celsius and Fahrenheit. The range is 200ft/60m for the outdoor sensor. The display unit is tabletop or wall-mountable and has a magnetic back design. The outdoor sensor unit has a magnetic back and hanging hole. Benno mounted it just under the awning as shown on the picture.

 

If you think this is it and Benno has packed up his tools, not so fast. 

I took another couple of photos of the stuff occupying my galley and dinette after he was done with the previous jobs. You might notice the duct pieces. 

 

The thing is, this travel trailer has a big heat duct outlet in the bedroom. We generally like to sleep in a cooler room. In the main area of the travel trailer there is a large and a small outlet for heat which makes it feel much cooler there than in the bedroom when the furnace is on. Why did they do that? 

 

Of course my hubby has to rectify this situation by switching out the smaller duct from the living area into the bedroom outlet and by increasing the small outlet in the living area into a larger, 4” one with the help of a Y splitter duct to get the living area toasty warm. We should now have temps throughout the travel trailer just how we like it. However, it would be great if we didn’t need to turn on either furnace or air in our travels with perfect temperatures, but its good to be prepared.

 

Thanks for dropping in again and maybe I can find something else that might interest you in my next post.

 

I hope your New Year got off to a good start!

I can’t believe that we are already a week into the New Year so it is high time that I start another post. Our Christmas stuff is packed away and the living room is back to its pre Christmas look. Outside almost all the snow has disappeared except for a few tiny piles in some corners but the grass looks soggy and limp. There have been several days now without sunshine here in our area, which I believe, is very unusual and although the days are now getting longer, I haven’t really noticed. As a matter of fact I would like to show you a photo I took this morning at 7:30 a.m. looking west. Yes, west!

 

With the absent view of a rising sun in the east, we have been provided with yellow and pink hues from the lights of the greenhouses in our vicinity. These colors are sometimes enhanced by a spectacular red sunset. I personally don’t mind the lights but there are some complaints about it in the community.

 

I call that dedication working outside in 1+C temps

My hubby is always looking for something to do and to occupy and challenge his brain. The travel trailer provides a good opportunity for that. Benno pointed out that when the slide is in, we are not able to turn the heat/air on or off, as we cannot get to the thermostat. The thermostat is located back in the bedroom at the corner of the sliding door. It’s difficult to see the display there with tinted windows on cloudy days without turning on the overhead lights. Also the temperature in the bedroom is not the same as in the sitting area by the TV.  Relocating the thermostat is just something Benno can and loves to do. 

 

This is the new location of the thermostat
near the entrance door

The task involved finding a suitable spot for the thermostat and we thought right at the entrance would suit us fine. Locating and then rerouting new wires by finding access spots etc. kept him busy for a bit. I went to visit to see how things were going and found the galley and dinette totally overtaken and occupied with tools and electrical things.  Time for me to retreat and to let him do his thing.

 

Wiring is in the works

My galley always turns into a workbench
on our boat I had the same problem!

Salon table or dinette table too!

Now beside the sliding door in the bedroom there is a gaping hole where the thermostat was located. What we are going to put to cover this gap you have to wait for the next update, because Amazon has not delivered our order yet. Also there is another project on the go in the travel trailer and that part is also in transit. The Amazon parcel tracking said, “Delay in delivery due to external factors”.  We hope they don’t mean external aliens! 

 

Old location of the thermostat in bedroom

Hole drilled for future stuff
will update in next post

Access from the storage compartment to the bedroom

Yesterday we entertained ourselves once more with a fun birthday party. This time it was Elsa’s turn as the birthday girl and Reggy participated with the same enthusiasm as the treat was again a slightly warmed up wiener sausage from the deli department.  Dachshunds are so much fun!

 

Oh no, this is not what you think!
This is a real Wiener and not a little willy ;-)

Thanks everyone for stopping by again. Hopefully the next post will be a bit sooner.

Merry Christmas

Regardless of the unusual circumstances we all face this December, Benno and I would like to wish everyone a joyous and most importantly healthy Christmas and throughout the New Year. With the bright sun shining into our windows today, a green lawn surrounding our house and a day temperature of 8C/46F I find it really difficult to feel Christmassy. Perhaps tonight my mood will change into a more romantic state when our little Christmas tree is lit. Although in the past we have spent several Christmases in exotic places where my attire consisted of a skimpy bikini on Christmas day with no longing for a white Christmas and I was fine with that. Looking through the picture archive I found a couple of pictures of Santa all puffed out and lit up standing on our crow’s nest on our yacht “Diesel Duck” waving to the dolphins down below in the ocean while we were cruising in the Bahamas at Christmas time.

Another picture I found that brought back some nice memories is of our small Christmas tree sitting on the dining table in the little 19-foot travel trailer back in 2015.

So this year is different and we are at home alone on Christmas because it is the prudent thing to do. We had somewhat of an early nice Christmas surprise because the property next to our house that we had bought in 2018 has found a buyer. For the past couple of years we put a lot of effort into cleaning up this land and making it presentable to look at. Now it will go to a new owner. The sale might surprise some of you, but recently there were several houses for sale in our area that sold quickly and that gave us the idea to put this property also on the market because we really don’t have a use for it other than to keep it neat. We had only listed it with a local real estate broker at Benno’s birthday on the 27th of October. 

A nice bottle of wine from our real estate broker to celebrate

Some days we like to reminisce and talk about our years on the water and the cruising life and today was one of them. To fix my nostalgia I took a little stroll across the road to the public beach to look over Lake Erie enjoying the view. Here is what I saw. 

Benno has been looking into Google Maps making plans for future southwest destinations should that become possible for us snowbirds sometimes soon. We sure hope that will be the case and our new travel trailer will take us to new destinations. We have to stay positive and hope for the best. 

Wishing all of you a great Christmas and a very happy Birthday to our son who was born Christmas Eve! 

Marlene and Benno

Reggy’s 5th Birthday

If you own a dog, do you celebrate their birthdays? Our dachshunds give us many enjoyments most days and throughout the year and of course we spoil them – to a certain extent. Today is Reggy’s 5^thbirthday as per his documentation papers. Not that he would care even if he knew what it meant. But he certainly was aware that today was special and so did our Elsa, the other dachshund in our family. The fun part was that Benno and I watched them gobble up each a real first class wiener sausage that I had warmed up for extra flavor to celebrate this occasion. I made them beg for it by sitting up before I gave it to them. Also a couple of chewing bones were awarded for the party, but those they have occasionally as a treat.  So the birthday party was really as much fun or us as it was for the dogs and we might do it all over again on the 6^thof January when our Elsa turns 5 years old.

Reggy is working on the ribbon

Never mind the ribbon I just go at it

Please can I have the wiener?

I'm being good

Now don't take it away again!

Meanwhile Elsa is waiting patiently

As a follow up and answer, in case you remember my blog post from October 30^thwhen I was asking about entrance door key locks, especially the upper key of the door handle that has an “M” punched next to the key hole. The “M” stands for master key and the master key is a key that all RV dealers and RV salesmen keep handy to open most RV doors. Of course criminals specialized in robbing RVs could have them too to open the RV doors. I was asking in my post for a solution and Bill, from "On Our Way" mentioned that "RVlocksandmore.com could sell us new lock cylinders for different keys. So we ordered new lock cylinders for the entrance door and the luggage doors with the same key number (your choice which numbers you want.) This means that now only one key will open all doors and eliminates having the clutter of several keys kicking around. Benno was able to change the cylinders of the luggage door locks and the dead bolt of the entrance door. For the “M” cylinder in the door handle he had to remove the whole lock and take it and the new cylinder to “Leisure Trailer Sales” in Tecumseh where we purchased our RV. To remove the door handle cylinder you need a special cylinder removal yellow tool key. This key is only sold to service dealers. The cost of the removal of the “M” cylinder and the installation of our new cylinder was CDN $10 at the dealer. 

 

In other news, I discovered that there were some 4-inch tall shoots of spring daffodils in my flowerbed. That cannot be good. We now have freezing temps at night so the chances are these flowers will not survive. Luckily I remembered that I still have a bag of some leftover turf builder dirt stored in my shed. That came in handy and I used some of it to cover up these sprouts. Hopefully that will stop any frost damage. We’ll see what happens but we sure had some wonderful warm and sunny December days here in our area to screw up Mother Nature. 

 

Thanks for dropping by again. I leave you with some small Christmas decorations at our house.