Mowing and Washing

I was up and outside at 7:30 this morning to mow the yard.  It was already showing in the high 80s and the sun on the spring thermometer had it pegged over 100.  Loyce had done some of the trimming last night as it was becoming dark, so I had the John Deere work.

It didn't take quite an hour and the entire job was done including the weed eater trimming.  I purchased a new Black and Decker weed eater that runs on a battery and looks just like the one Al of the Bayfield Bunch has purchased.  It was just happen stat that we bought matching models, or we both shop at the same store......

Any way I was back down in that pesky basement putting in temporary light switches and piecing scraps of wall board into the storage areas.  This lasted until afternoon, but I am really tired of that project and just turned out the lights and came upstairs.

I went over and got the motorhome in the middle of the afternoon, and came back to the house.  It was filthy, as we drove in rain on the way back from Red Bay.  So in the afternoon heat of the day, I was out washing the rig. It was 96, and I almost had heat stroke in the sun.

Plus the dark paint heats and drys the surface before you can chamois it off, so though it is now clean, it is  also very spotty.

We hope to use the rig this weekend if all goes well.  Just to get out of the house and on the road for a short trip.  Perhaps we will have a run without mechanical failures........or maybe not.

If we actually get somewhere, I will blog about it tomorrow or the next day.

Retired Rod

Dry Wall!

It was a long day in the basement, and the contractor and his helper were here about 8:30 AM.   They started right in and drywall flew!  I went to the Home Depot to get some plastic to put up in the doorway that goes into the furnace room.  It is packed with Loyce's storage bins, and we are trying to limit all that drywall dust.

Also I picked up some plastic that has sticky on its back, kind of like a two foot wide roll of scotch tape. I used this to make a runner down the center of the carpeted stairs to the basement.   It will somewhat protect the nasty drywall dust from tracking up the stairs so much.

But I know that nothing will contain the powder when we get to the wall sanding phase........  We all seemed to be busy all of the time.  As the guys got to another area, I would pull out the electrical outlets that are installed there.  Mostly the boxes are blank with only the rough in wiring, but some of the boxes are from the original house, and they needed to be removed as well.

We  switched on the lights by wire nutting the wires together after the switches were removed.  They are in the on position semi permanently.   But tonight I went down and fished the nuts out and separated them to get the lights to go off.

The day was very productive, as by about 4:30 or so, all of the wall board had been installed.  At least the part that they intend to install.  I will piece in some of the non finish pieces over the next few days.  Rather than throw away odd sized chunks, I will cut it down and use it in some of the storage areas.  That part will probably never be finished with joint compound, unless I get after it.  Time will tell how that will go.

Tonight, Loyce and I were cleaning up the piles of white dust.  It seems endless, and it has only begun.

Retired Rod

New tires and Wall board!

Today was another busy day, as we planned to go get my son's travel trailer and get some new tires put on it.  The catch is that my son is working in Dallas, Texas!  But we were in luck because his wife Melissa, is also a driver of the truck and trailer combo.

I was just along for moral support, and perhaps if things were broken and needed some repair.  We didn't find anything broken, but it was much easier to hook up the trailer with two of us.  She was doing the backing up and I was trying to guide her into that exact spot to drop it on the ball.

The entire trip was uneventful, just the way we had hoped.  The only event, was that the people at the tire place slapped the tires on the rim and began to mount them without balancing them.  I griped and bit.ched a lot.  Well, until the manager began to mount them and balance them himself.  We had them take the wheels back off that were not balanced and do it over.

Later in the afternoon, we went over to a trailer place in Missouri, and purchased some small parts for the hitch on their truck.  Several years ago, we had purchased the hitch at this store, and we were surprised and pleased to find that they had parts.  The fellow installed them right on the counter, and didn't even charge any labor.  He was interested that his hitch lasted for longer than three years and only charged us for the little parts.

Back at our house, the dry wall delivery truck had arrived, and fellows were carrying 60 sheets of dry wall into the basement.  They had a truck with an extending boom.  It picked up about half of the sheets at one time and extended them on the boom across the yard towards the door.

The fellows were picking up the two sheet bundles from the truck arm and carrying them into the house and down to the basement. It cost $75 to have them do that, but oh my heavens is that worth every penny!!!

We are to have the contractor come back here in the morning, and the dry wall is to be installed.  They claim it will only take a couple of days.........  As we get closer to having a room rather than bare walls!!

Retired Rod

Forgetful!! ??

Another busy HOT day here in KC, but in the heat I pulled a beauty!  The morning was taken up by waiting for the plumber to come over and install the shower stall.

He had to take back out the part that I installed a couple of years ago because it wasn't right.  He added thin set concrete under it to cement it to the floor and then sealed and fastened it to the walls with drywall screws.

My drill was useless, because I had bad batteries.  I have been using the plug in hammer drill for the electric wire holes, but I have been promising myself that I would go get some new batteries for the portable drill.

So I thought I would go on over to Home Depot where they sell Ryobi and get a couple.  I took the scooter and stopped at Wendy's on the way.  It was well into the 90s like 99 or so on the way over.  After Wendy's it was 100 on the ride to Depot.

I went in and learned that my drill took the old Nicad batteries and that they have been replaced by lithium.  But.........my charger wouldn't charge lithium.

After much soul searching and pricing everything, I determined that new lithium batteries and a charger was going to be $130.  But, just buying an entire new drill and two batteries and the charger was $149 in the kit.

So essentially I am just tossing out the old drill kit even though the drill technically still works.  That's how things go now days.  Throw out the old.......

But that's when I turned around and looked for my shopping cart that had my motorcycle jacket in it!  It wasn't there.....  I walked the entire store.........  I could have sworn it was over by the drill display.

I went up to customer service and asked if anyone had pushed a cart up there with a protective jacket in it.  Nope...  I walked some more......  Finally I got tired of carrying the new drill around and went outside to store it under the seat in the scooter.  And right there over the handle bars,  yep,  my bike jacket!

I had to go back in and appologize to the people who were looking all over the store for that shopping cart.  What the He!! was I thinking?  But then it dawned on me, that it was over at Wal Mart where I put the jacket in the shopping cart and pushed it around, while I got a new phone charger for Loyce.

Boy it is bad to get old and foregetful like this.............

Retired Rod

PS: it was 104 on the electronic guage this afternoon!