3 = 2?

7:21 am - Friday - October 18th - Ramona, CA - 46° F, 86% humidity, wind - CALM......clear, blue skies today with a forecast high of 78° F.

It's been a while since I blew the leaves off the mini golf course due to the windy conditions we have had on an off the last week, so with the promise of a windless day Thursday I took care of them for the weekend crowd which begins arriving Thursday afternoon.  I spent a few minutes at the horseshoe pits getting them ready for the weekend, and then headed down to the pool to blow the leaves off the pool deck which had been accumulating since late last week, as well as off the playground area.

Once I cleared both the pool, and playground areas of leaves I began fishing the floating leaves out of the pool, then using the net pulled a bunch off the bottom.  I'll be sweeping and vacuuming the pool Friday so I'll get the rest of the leafy debris then.   Once that was done, and I had deployed some more squirrel bait around the park I headed down to site # 21 to install two sections of fencing that is used to separate each site in the pond area.  You can see the existing two section fence in the picture below at site # 20.......↴

.....and then began the arduous task of digging brand new post holes in the hard packed dirt that is site #21.   Below you can see how deep the hole is after 20 minutes of digging mostly with the pry bar in the background.  I would use the bar to break up the concrete like dirt, then dig it out with the post hole digger.......

.....I began working on the 'two section' fence around 11:30 am, and finished at 3 pm......three hours of labor (half hour off for lunch) spent mostly digging the three holes to build two sections of fence......

.....there were no big rocks to overcome, just concrete hard dirt.  There used to be a two section fence here about a year ago, but it had to be removed to take care of an electrical issue, I think.  Nonetheless, it is now back in place, and I am officially done with the fencing in the pond area.  

TLE and I were off work and heading home by 4 pm......just 'short Friday' standing between us and our weekend.

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Another 5 sections.....

7:26 am - Thursday - October 17th - Ramona, CA - 46° F, 66% humidity, wind - CALM.....clear, blue skies today with a forecast high of 76° F......nice!

I spent about 45 minutes at the pool Wednesday morning, but the rest of my time down by the pond working on fence replacement.  Before we get to that I had to share a few pictures of the large rocks I encountered digging post holes on Tuesday......

......these are some of the largest rocks I have found so far.  Now, I'm just redigging post holes which someone else already dug a number of years ago, right?  I'm digging in the exact same place as the old post hole so why are there still big rocks about 6-8" below the surface?  The post holes need to be 18-20" deep at a minimum.  I'm thinking the original post hole diggers just stopped digging when they hit a rock, and then cut the post short, which would explain why so many posts are less than a foot into the ground.

Now back to the current projects......I first set about setting the posts for the fencing below the pond, which I worked on Tuesday, and then reassembling those six sections.  Just before lunch I began removing 3 sections of fencing on the other side of the pathway down to the bridge which takes you to the dam.......↴

.....I had  to discard 3 of the 4 posts as they were totally rotten, as well as half the split rails.

I decided to extend the fence around the corner another two sections so it would match the fence on the other side of the path to the bridge.  The only post I could save was the corner post in the foreground in the next picture......↴

.....In all I had to cut 5 new posts, and it took me right up to 3:30 pm to finish putting the the original three sections of fencing, plus the two new sections back together.  I gathered up the waste hauled it to the big roll away in the storage yard, then headed back to the tool shed to return my tools before heading home.  TLE worked until 5 on this day, so I had to return a n hour later to pick her up from work.  Even though it got to 90° F Wednesday the clouds rolled in, and it cooled off quickly, and by 4 pm leading to a very pleasant evening.

So, here we are over half way through the month of October, and slowly waiving goodbye to summer temps.  Most days are in the 70's and 80's, with an occasional 90° day like Wednesday. In 10 more days we will have been at RORVR 6 months, and normally we would be hauling our anchor and moving on to another adventure, but we have decided to remain at RORVR until at least the end of March before we begin our trek to Alaska......life is good!

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Pool angioplasty......

7:24 am - Wednesday - October 16th - Ramona, CA - 50° F, 66% humidity, wind 3 mph out of the south by southeast......clear, blue, warm skies today with a forecast high of 90° F.

It warmed up considerably Tuesday all the way to 88° F.  I began my day working with Rich to finish wiring the two new pedestals in sites 16 & 17, including installing the new meters on those sites.  Someone asked recently if all our electrical pedestals were metered, and the answer is no.  I think somewhere between 75 and 80% are metered as we cater to the monthly crowd.  Whenever we replace any pedestals the new ones are metered.  Rich finished the plumbing and sewer portions while I made my way up to the pool pump room to figure out why the chlorine level in the pool had dropped.....

....the diagnosis was easy, but the fix was slow and tedious......

.....it turned out the injector was about 98% clogged, so I had to perform my version of pool angioplasty to clear the obstruction.  This crystalized chlorine is about as hard as concrete, and after trying several things to clear it I resorted to using my Porter Cable impact driver with a torque bit to sort of 'drill' out the obstruction, and it worked.......

.....after about an hour the obstruction was cleared, and I was able to reattach the injector to the system.......

 
.....I finished my tour at the pool by cleaning a lot of leaves out of the skimmers.....yup, we had another mild Santa Ana condition Tuesday, and the skimmers, which had been cleaned around 8:30 am by Rich, were totally clogged again just like last Friday.

In the afternoon I busied myself working on the fence along the lower section of the pond area just below the dam.......

.....there are a lot of ducks in the pond right now.  Over the course of the final 90 minutes of the afternoon I dug 6 post holes, and discarded two of the fence posts, as well as half the split rails.  I'll reassemble these 6 sections of fence on Wednesday, and move on to other sections.....

Six sections disassembled.....

......I hauled the waste material up to the big roll away in the storage yard, then put away my tools just as TLE was exiting the office.....time to relax!

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An easy day.....

7:17 am - Tuesday - October 15th - Ramona, CA - 41° F, 93% humidity, wind - CALM......a few clouds today with a forecast high of 87° F......12° higher than Monday.

After bidding adieu to Chris and TAR* around 8:40 am TLE and I headed down to the office to begin a new work week.  Since we have three RV's along the pond right now, which precludes me from doing any fence work down there this week.  Instead I spent the morning sweeping the leaves and pine needles off the pool deck, blowing the leaves out of the playground area, straightening up the horseshoe pits which had been heavily used over the weekend, and blowing the piles of leaves off the mini golf holes.

After lunch I spent about 90 minutes helping Rich set up the two new pedestals in sites 16 & 17......

......I helped Rich mount the pedestals, and trim the heavy gauge cables to length.  Once that was done I left Rich to attach all the cables (the power was off), and headed out to the vacuum out the pump houses again, as well as set the bait traps for mice.  The bait is lasting longer now meaning some of the mice who have been consuming the bait are no longer among the living.  It's been 3 weeks since I last vacuumed, and the amount of mouse feces seemed greatly reduced.

We are also putting out bait to reduce the ground squirrel population, which is significant, so I spent time replenishing the squirrel bait at specific locations.  The bait we put out disappears within 48 hours so it seems to be working.  I am still seeing a lot of squirrels as I drive around, but we hope that population will begin to diminish over the next couple of weeks.  Many areas around the park are just riven with squirrel tunnels, and sometimes as you are walking across bare ground the tunnels will collapse under your feet causing you to trip......not a good thing.

Right at the end of the day I spent time marking, and counting how many more fence posts I will potentially have to replace when I return to my fence project next week.  I counted 29 (14 in the pond area alone), and as it happens I only have 19 new posts left in the storage yard.  I'm hoping we can persuade the owners to buy a few more bundles of posts.  These posts come in bundles of 8 so I'm thinking we should order 3, or 4 more bundles to be sure we have some spares on hand for future repairs.  We have an abundance of split rails left in our pile....more than enough to replace what needs replacing, and still have enough left to handle future repairs.

We were home a little after 4 pm, and I was soon on my way into town to visit the TruValue Hardware store to buy a few needed things to finish my new satellite dish project.....a sheet of aluminum to fabricate a round plate to cover the hole on top of the roof left by the removal of the old dish, a can of spray foam to fill in the hole on the roof, and a round plastic plate to cover the hole in the roof on the inside left by the removal of the old dish.  After returning I spent about an hour applying silicone caulk to the screw holes left in the roof, applying the spray foam to the 2" hole in the roof, and cutting and installing the round aluminum plate.  I'll install the round plastic plate on the inside after work Tuesday.

Thanks for stopping by!

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*TAR = The Amazing Rochelle

High Definition.......

7:24 am - Monday - October 14th - Ramona, CA - 52° F, 83% humidity, wind 3 mph out of the northeast........scattered clouds today with a forecast high of 75° F.

I began my day Sunday removing our our DirecTV SD receiver from its cubbyhole over the driver's seat where it has resided for 5 years, and then removing the old Winegard Crankup satellite dish from the roof where it was installed back in March of 2008.  All of this in preparation for the installation of our new automatic Winegard HD Slimline satellite dish.  Just as I finished carrying the old dish down the ladder from the roof around 9:30 am Chris and Rochelle arrived in their 2006 Fleetwood Expedition, 4 slide, Class A diesel pusher........↴

.......within minutes they had backed into site #73, setup, and Chris and I were beginning to install the new dish......

 Preparing the surface

Talking it over....

 All the new cables are through the roof.....

 The new dish is installed and operational

 No screws to hold the cables in place this time.....we used Dicor Self Leveling Lap Sealant instead

.....by 1 pm we had finished the task, and it was time to watch some NFL football in HD.....

.....before stowing all of the cables, and control boxes.  I have to say the entire experience from ordering the Winegard dish on eBay back in May, to ordering the new DVR from DirecTV just a few days ago, to the actual installation of all the components far, far exceeded my expectations.  The new DVR arrived already activated, and the new automated dish operated flawlessly the first time we activated it.  Our son, Chris, has the same dish on his roof, so already had experience installing it.  His help was invaluable, and contributed largely to how quickly everything came together.  Without him this would have taken me an entire day, if not more.

After putting everything away we all took some time to relax. We gathered together again around 4 pm on our patio to talk.  Around 5:30 pm Chris and I drove into town to pick up another pizza for dinner.  After dinner we spent another hour sitting by our propane fire talking and enjoying the early evening before heading inside for the evening.  And so ends our third consecutive weekend with family and friends.....time to get ready for another work week!

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No escrow involved......

7:55 am - Sunday - October 13th - Ramona, CA - 41° F, 67% humidity, wind - CALM.....partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 77° F......the view this morning.....

I seem to always imagine our moves will be more complicated than they turn out to be, and moving from site #53 back to #72 Saturday morning seemed, in my mind, to be a half day project.  In reality it took less than two hours beginning to end.  We decided to move without even stowing any of the window awnings, or patio awning, which saved a lot of time.

We began our move around 8:45 am, and by 10:15 am we were mostly set up, and ready to live the next 5 months back in our old site #72.  The site leveling work we did 5 weeks ago has made this site much more spacious, and usable.  I only had to to a minor amount of leveling of the coach.  With TLE's help, and the use of a company golf cart we had all of our other stuff moved quickly.

Around 1 pm our good friends Charles and Bobbie arrived for a one night stay on their way back to Arizona in their Landmark 5th wheel.  This makes the fourth consecutive summer they have joined us at our summer location.  It was Tahoe 4 years ago, then Yellowstone 3 years ago, then Acadia National Park last summer, and now RORVR.  We got together around 4 pm for appetizers (provided by Charles and Bobbie), and then takeout pizza we ordered from Mama Rosa Restaurant in Ramona.  They were recommended to us by Rich and Marnie.  When we called in our order the nice young lady advised it would be ready for pickup in 35-40 minutes.  We arrived exactly 40 minutes later to find our pie just coming out of the oven......now that is great service.  As soon as she said it would be 35-40 minutes I knew she was telling the truth, and she was.  Let's face it.....when you order takeout and they tell you it will be ready in 15-20 minutes it NEVER is, right?    Our total round trip drive took less than 25 minutes.  We sat, as we always do, talking, laughing, drinking good wine, and eating until well after 8 pm when the cool of the evening chased us back inside.

This morning, Sunday, or son Chris and his amazing wife, Rochelle (aka: TAR*), will be arriving for a one night stay in their Fleetwood diesel pusher, also.  He will be delivering, and helping me install my new Winegard HD Slimline satellite dish.  I received our new HD DVR receiver from DirecTV via FedEx on Wednesday so we are ready to enter the world of HD TV.  As you will recall, I purchased the Winegard HD dish on eBay way back in May, because DirecTV will be discontinuing SD (standard definition) service later this year.

And that, my friends, was our Saturday.....once again we changed our view with going through escrow........thanks for stopping by!

*TAR = The Amazing Rochelle

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'Meeting place of the valleys......'

7:24 am - Saturday - October 12th - Ramona, CA - 44° F, 49% humidity, wind - CALM.....clear, blue  skies today with a forecast high of 83° F.......the view this morning.....our Newell, along with us, will be back over there in a couple of hours.......↴

.....apparently, the name 'Poway' originates from a Kumeyaay Indian word that apparently had various meanings ranging from “meeting place of the valleys” to “meeting of the waters, hence the title of today's blogpost.

As I reported, we had wind all night at RORVR, but never lost power, however that did not mean we did not have a lot of leaves blowing around, and many of them ended up in the pool skimmers.  Below you see a picture after I had cleaned just two of the six skimmers........

....each skimmer was packed full of leaves so badly I had to pull handfuls of leaves out to get at the skimmer baskets.  Since the wind, although mild, was still blowing at 9 am I didn't do my usual sweep and vacuum routine Friday, so I left the pool with a lot of leaves visible on the bottom.  The same was true for the mini golf course.....no point in blowing off the leaves....they would be right back where they started minutes after I left.

Since I had no pool, or mini golf to tend to I returned to where I left off Thursday on the fence project.  I disassembled 4 more sections of fencing, and dug 4 more post holes, and then began to reassemble all 8 sections, which included the four upon which I had begun to work Thursday afternoon......

....every post hole had a large rock which had to be pried loose and removed.....

.....all but one of the posts, and half the split rails ended up on the debris pile.....

.......by 12:30 pm I was finished with those 8 sections, and began to haul the debris up to the roll away in the storage area, and then return my tools to the tool shed......I love short Friday's!  Marnie and Rich had ordered pizza for lunch on Friday, so I knocked off a little early and enjoyed a couple of slices of pie and and Orange Crush soda.

On a side note, SDG&E did turn our local power grid off at 12 pm for almost 4 hours.....why I do not know, because it was not very windy at all by that time.  

We were home about 1:15 pm, and after a long, hot shower I took an hour nap before heading down to Poway with TLE to COSTCO and TJ's around 2:30 pm.  We have a busy weekend, and won't have time to drive down on Saturday, or Sunday to get my prescriptions, and do our bi-monthly shopping.  Within a block of TJ's is an In 'N Out Burger, so after finishing up at TJ's we headed there for an early dinner treat.......the #2 Combo (cheeseburger, fries and a drink).......

.....TLE orders her #2 'Protein Style', aka: lettuce wrap.  It has been a very long time since I had an In 'N Out burger....I think it was right after my right eye cataract surgery back in late April......good times!

We were home by 5:15 pm to find that the electricity had be restored around 3:45 pm, just as SDG&E had promised.  The wind had completely abated by that time.  We enjoyed a relaxing evening watching a few recorded TV programs ('Gold Rush', and 'Blacklist').

Thanks for stopping by!

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