So many screws.......

7:12 am - Thursday - November 7th - Ramona, CA - 44° F, 76% humidity, wind - CALM.....clear, blue skies today with a forecast high of 82° F.

TLE and I began our Wednesday speed walking one lap around RORVR.....part of our renewed effort to get more fit.  We'll be mixing in weekend hikes on local mountain trails for good measure....I love the Fall!

We were at work before 8 am.  I took care of the pool, horseshoe pits, and mini golf by 10:30 am, and then returned for the rest of the day to the fence project.  It is difficult to believe that I am now within a day, or two of being done.  I ended up taking apart 13 sections of fence before beginning to dig 10 post holes.  Thankfully, there were only two, or three with rock/cement issues.  I finished digging the last post hole around 2:30 pm, then retrieved 8 posts, and 13 split rails from the storage yard to begin piecing together the fence once again.  I had to use the 'panorama' option on my phone to take in 13 sections all at once.......

.....many of the posts in this section were not reusable, and after pulling 8 new posts out of the storage area I am down to 6 posts to finish the final sections.  Fortunately, most of the posts in that section are still usable.  So, I have finished the fence up to just behind the trailer in the background of the second picture.....that is just 5 sites away from our site, and the fence ends just past our site behind site #74.  Larry, one of the owners of RORVR, stopped by to compliment me on my work not only on the fence, but the two paths.  It's always nice to know what you are doing is appreciated, right?

By the time I hauled away two days worth of of fence waste (old posts, and rails) it was just before 4 pm, so I returned my tools to the tool shed, and bid adieu to TLE who was driving into town after work to pick up some milk, half and half, and a few other items we forgot when we shopped last weekend.

This is just 2 days worth of screws I have been removing from the old fencing before I can take it apart

Just after I got out of the shower she was home, and we settled in for the evening.  A few days ago I retrieved our portable fireplace.....it's that time of year again.  I love being able to turn it on with the remote without getting out of bed.  By the time we get up, the coach is warm, and comfortable!

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19!!

7:08 am - Wednesday - November 6th - Ramona, CA - 45° F, 63% humidity, wind - CALM.....clear, blue skies today with a forecast high of 80° F.

Now that the weather has cooled down significantly I decided to begin riding my mountain bike during the week in the morning before I go to work maybe two or three times a week.  The other times TLE and I will do a quick lap around RORVR between 6 and 7 am.  TLE and I were up a little after 6 am, and while she did her Newell based workout, I drove up to the trailer to retrieve my Intense 5.5 and proceeded to do 3 laps around the park.  I was back just before 7 am having raised my heart and respiration rates.

Work Tuesday began slowly, but finished with a flourish.  After taking care of the pool, and horseshoe pits I picked up my fence building tools, and the squirrel bait.  I rebaited a bunch of squirrel holes, many of which are now inactive, meaning the bait I put out last week is still there.  Once the bait was out I headed back to the fencing above site #67 to take apart 8 sections.  I had intended to do about 15 sections of fence on Tuesday, but ended up doing 19 sections by the time 4 pm rolled around.......

 First 8 sections taken apart, and posts placed in holes

 First 8 sections complete

19 sections completed....looking back toward site #67.....it's way, way down there!

......in all I replaced 19 split rails, and 7 posts in this stretch of fencing.  I had to redig about 12 of the post holes, and ran into a lot of large rocks, and cement.  The hardest part of the process, obviously, is digging the post holes.  The fun, rewarding part is putting the fence back together and seeing the finished product.

I haven't dug post holes in about 10 days, and coming back to it again really wore me out, but in a good way.  We were in bed before 10 pm looking forward to another early rise Wednesday morning.

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Fine tuning my projects......

7:06 am - Tuesday - November 5th - Ramona, CA - 39° F, 62% humidity, wind - 3 mph out of the south by southeast......clear, blue skies today with a forecast high of 84° F.

Monday was more of a 'normal' day for me.  I began my day raking the horseshoe pits, then moseyed down to the pool to check the chlorine and PH levels, then using the net pulled all of the large leaves off the bottom of the pool.  Once that was done I swept up all of the leaves scattered across the entire pool deck to keep them from being blown into the pool when the breezes came up later in the day.  From there I proceeded up to the mini golf course to blow a week's worth of leaves off the holes.....it was windy most of last week, and we don't waste our time blowing leaves when the wind is also blowing them.

After that I headed to the office to wash my cart, which hasn't had a bath in about 10 days.....that brought me up to lunch time with TLE.  After lunch I returned to my two 'path' projects to finish working with the pavers I had put down last week.  At the pond path I pulled the bench out of the site, and began reworking the pavers moving the ones I had installed last week forward in the site so they are now flush with the 8"x 8" beam I was using as a small retaining wall.  Then I placed three rectangular pavers behind them against the dirt bank.  I think this looks much better.....

Before↗ and after↴

.....after that I helped Rich for about an hour diagnosing an issue with the cherry picker, and then returned to the 'creek' path to level the bench.  I removed the wooden seat, and back then pulled the 'Y' bracket and proceeded, using a hacksaw, to cut about 3" off of one leg.  Once that was done, I put it all back together again, and it looked much better.....I wish I had taken a picture.

By that time it was quitting time, so I headed back to the office to put away my tools and retrieve TLE for the ride home.  Another day in the books.  It was kind of weird driving home seeing the sun so low in the sky at 4 pm.....it was dusk within 48 minutes.

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Better than I thought......

6:57 am - Monday - November 4th - Ramona, CA - 36° F, 50% humidity, wind - CALM.....clear, blue, chilly skies this morning with a forecast high of 82°.

TLE and I began our Sunday exercising.  I went up to the trailer to retrieve my Intense 5.5 for another ride.  This time I decided to ride, as far as I could, up the fire road to the highest point in the park.  As I related yesterday, my goal is to eventually be able to ride all the way to the top without stopping, but achieving that goal is a few weeks away.  I did manage to ride about 2/3's of the way, while pushing my bike up the other 1/3.  The gradient up this road runs from 8-12%.  Once at the top you have a 360° view, and a long, technical downhill.  In all the total loop is around 1.75 miles.  I did that once, and then rode my normal loop up to the water tower, down to the office, and back up the hill to the trailer one time and I was done.  That's the first time I have ridden my bike two days in succession in a very long time.  I threw in some pushups, situps and back exercises to sweeten the deal.  All of that took me from 9 am until 9:45 am.  I spent another 15 minutes adjusting the air pressure in my front and rear shocks, and throwing a little White Lightning lube on my chain before walking back to the Newell.

 At top next to the microwave 'tower'

We spent the rest of the day relaxing outside on the 'lido deck' in low 80's temps watching Sunday NFL football, and reading.  I walked down to the office around 1:30 pm to retrieve an Amazon package (Gorilla glue gun) which was just ordered some 20 hours before...amazing!

And that was the extent of our Sunday shenanigans......I did find out I was in better riding shape than I had imagined after so many months of not riding, but I've got a long ways to go to achieve my goal of riding to the top of the fire road without stopping, or pushing my bike.

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Back in the saddle again......

7:32 am - Sunday - November 3rd - Ramona, CA - 36° F, 48% humidity, wind 3 mph out of the east.....clear, blue skies today with a forecast high of 81° F.  DST (Daylight Savings Time) ended early this morning so it is now getting lighter by 7 am, and it will be dark before 6 pm.

We were up a little after 7 am Saturday.  TLE made us AeroPress coffee.  I've mentioned this coffee system before, and it is really very good!  After coffee I headed up to the trailer to retrieve my Intense 5.5 mountain bike to do some riding around the park.  It has been a few months since I rode, and that is a shame.  It was just too hot then, but the morning temps have been wonderful for a few weeks now, and it was time to tune her up a little, and just ride.  I managed to make three laps around the park climbing up to the water tower on all three laps.  It felt good to be riding again, and the climb up to the water tower was easier than the last time I tried it. I'm hoping now that the weather is more agreeable that I'll be inclined to do spend more time in the saddle.  My goal is to be able to climb to the highest point in the park on the fire road within a month.

On my last lap I stopped off at the office to trade my bike for one of the unused golf carts to haul my Honda 2000i generator and gas can back to the trailer, and also pick up the hand blower to clear all the leaves off our artificial turf.  Once those tasks were complete I returned to finishing the 3rd lap around the park.

We spent the better part of the rest of our Saturday sitting outside on the 'lido deck' enjoying the Fall temperatures, and balmy breezes.  There were several good NCAA college football games being televised so I set up the outdoor TV.  I think there was a long nap thrown in for good measure.

Saturday was also the day of our annual Chili Cook Off, and unlike our Halloween party a week ago, we had very good participation by our customers, including one family of 9!  I was one of 5 judges, and our task was made difficult by the quality of the entrees.  After much discussion we settled on a winner, then it was on to the judging of the apple pie entries.  Someone, unbeknownst to us, entered a pie from the Julian Apple Pie Company, and that was the pie we chose as the best.....of course.  Since the pies had to be homemade, we awarded first place to the second place pie, which was quite good as well.  In all I think we had about 30-40 people in attendance, including staff.

We were back home before 8 pm, and by 10:30 pm I was ready for bed, but, of course, we had to turn our clocks back in anticipation of the end of DST (Daylight Savings Time), which made it only 9:30 pm.....I went to bed anyway, while TLE read her book for another hour, or so.  We changed the time on a couple of clocks, and will finish resetting the rest on Sunday.

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Put your head down........

8:07 am - Saturday - November 2nd - Ramona, CA - 40° F, 43% humidity, wind - CALM....partly cloudy skies today with a forecast high of 84° F.....perfect weekend weather!

When I arrived at the pool Friday morning shortly after 9 am I knew I had my work cut out for me.  The question was "Can I get this thing clean in 4 hours?"  There were large leaves covering the entire bottom of the pool, plus a bushel of leaves floating on the surface, plus a layer of dirt and grime....especially on the steps on the shallow end.......↴

....I'm sure the pool has been worse than this, but not in the 6.5 months we have been here.....

.....the only way to get it done is to put your head down, and get 'er done.  Cleaning the pool, even when it is at its worst, is very therapeutic for me.  It's a time to listen to good music, to think, to appreciate one's circumstances, and to be thankful.  Just as the big hand was edging toward the 12, and the small hand toward the 1 I finished.......

......the pool, while still needing some more attention, was back to its resplendent self once again, and I was done for the day.......I love short Friday's!

By 1:20 pm TLE and I were in the VW headed west on Highway 67 to Poway to do some shopping, and pick up my monthly Brilinta® prescription from the COSTCO on Carmel Mountain Road.  Our first stop, however, was Arch Medical Group where I needed to set up my 6 month checkup with Dr. Mulvihill, my cardiologist.  After setting the followup appointment with his secretary, I asked if they had anymore free Brilinta samples, and was blessed to receive 32 tablets.....good enough for 16 days.  The receptionist said when I come again in December they'll have another two weeks dosage waiting for me.....how sweet is that?  Next up was the local Walmart, then Trader Joe's, and finally COSTCO.

We were finished with our shopping around 3 pm, so headed outside to the COSTCO food court to order two of their $1.50 hotdogs (comes with a soft drink) for our late lunch.......what a deal......two dogs and a soft drink for $3.23 (including tax)!!  We were back home by 4:30 pm (love Friday afternoon traffic in an urban area) enjoying what remained of our Friday afternoon.

Season 2 of the Amazon Prime Original Series 'Jack Ryan' was released Friday so we began watching it around 6 pm.  We initially intended to just watch the first two episodes, but ended up binge watching all 8 episodes finishing just before midnight!  We loved season 2 even more than season 1.  If you are a Tom Clancy fan, you will love this series.

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Powering on in spite of no power.......

7:14 am - Friday - November 1st - Ramona, CA - 34° F, 42% humidity, wind - CALM......at last!  Clear, blue skies today with a forecast high of 82° F.

We began another day Thursday with no electricity....not because of of downed lines, or a blown transformer......because SDG&E decided to deliberately turn off our power to avoid a 'possible' fire from power lines being blown down by the wind.....why not fix all those power lines which cannot tolerate wind instead....hmmm?  Nonetheless, we have solar panels, and generators so we are never wanting for electricity when we are in a forced blackout.  Our best information indicated that power would be restored around 6 pm, however, we had power again by 2:30 pm.  One byproduct of these forced power outages is our golf carts do not get recharged, and after going 36 hours without electricity two of our carts could no longer be used.  We were down to my cart, and the new cart.  Additionally, we cannot run the two pumps which push water uphill to our 10,000 gallon water tank when the power is out, so our tank was down to a paltry 3,000 gallons by the time the power was restored.....another 12 hours and we would have had a water problem in addition to everything else.

I returned Thursday to my two trail projects for the day.  First I installed two 8"x 8" beams to shore up the corner of the landing area, then began to bring down 12"x 12" pavers from the storage area to place on the pad......  

 That gap on the right is smaller than the 12"x 12" pavers, so I've got to come up with a solution

......once most of them were installed I put the bench back together......↴

......now all we need is some green paint to repaint the bench.....almost done!  Next up was the trail at site #22, so I began hauling more pavers down there.  I can't get the cart very close to the bench platform so I carried the pavers two at a time down to the site.....

.....I had spoken to Alika at the beginning of the day about moving the extra pond bench to this site.....he's a big guy, so carrying this bench is no problem for him.  He brought the bench down while I was getting more pavers from the storage area and surprised me upon my return......

....I've got a little more work to do, but it's almost done!  This has turned out much better than I expected, and I could not be happier with the result......

.....once that was done I returned to the site #32 trail to install some rectangular pavers around the border and their addition really did the job......↴

 The rectangular pavers did the trick....perfect!

The bench is level once again

So, we began the day without electricity, but by the middle of the afternoon it was restored.  We all plugged in our carts so we could make it to the end of the day.

I was home by 4 pm.....TLE left work at 3 pm, leaving Jo to close the office.  Now that the current Santa Ana condition has abated we'll begin the cleanup on Friday.....the pool will take most of my short 4 hour Friday shift to get in order for sure.

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