'You'll lose a good thing....'

1:01 pm - Friday - August 16th - Ramona, CA - 86° F, 37% humidity, wind 13 mph out of the northwest....clear, blue skies with a forecast high today of 93° F.

Ahhh, Friday!  Only 5 hours of work Friday.....ahhh!  After two days of temps close to 100° F, the temp dropped down to 93° F Friday.  Anytime it is under 95° F it is way more comfortable.....just 5, or 6 degrees cooler makes all the difference.

Friday it is time to vacuum and sweep the pool, and that is what I was about at 7 am once again.  I was finished just before 9 am and headed down to the office for our 9 am morning meeting after which I headed back up the hill to the Red Barn to rake the horseshoe pits.  I noticed that the Red Barn parking lot was covered with pine needles and in great need of being cleaned so I retrieved the backpack blower and spent an hour blowing the pine needles, dirt and dust off the parking lot.  From there I headed down to the mini golf holes and dispatched another few pounds of eucalyptus leaves before heading back down to the office.  

TLE asked me to check the porch light on Cabin #65 as our customer had reported it not working.  As it turned out the bulb was burnt out, so I replaced it, and that brought me right up to quitting time....I love Friday's.

I was home a little after 12 pm taking a shower, and then read a book for a couple of hours until TLE came home from her short shift.  We spent the rest of the afternoon reading, the watching a recording of the series finale of 'Elementary'.  They wrapped up the 7 year series very nicely, and I even shed a couple of tears along the way.

For dinner TLE made up some bleu cheese hamburger paddies for me to grill.  We ate them alfresco whilst listening to the Sam Cooke channel on Pandora.....by 6 pm the air had cooled off nicely......

.....I'll leave you with a great song by Barbara Lynn called "You'll lose a good thing...."

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Thursday

7:19 pm - Thursday - August 15th - Ramona, CA - 88° F, 27% humidity, wind 11 mph out of the west by northwest.....it is now sundown.  This post will be about Thursday.

The forecast high for Thursday was 99° F so I knew I would not work much past 1 pm, and I did not, but I get ahead of myself.  I was at the pool a little after 7 am doing my usual thing.  Since I had swept and vacuumed the pool Wednesday I spent time first sweeping up pine needles around the pool, then washing down the entire pool deck as I do at least twice per week.

The hand blower is still broken (we do have the new carburetor, but it needs to be installed) so I hand swept the mini golf greens once again.  It takes a lot longer, obviously, but in the end they really look great when I am done.

Rich took me up to the tractor barn to give me some lessons operating our 'cherry picker'.  I've never operated anything like that before, but after an hour, or so I got the hang of it.  We use the 'cherry picker' to trim trees in the park, of which there are hundreds (eucalyptus, oak, sycamore, pine......mostly oaks, however).  I really appreciate it that Rich wants us all to be able to operate all of the equipment we have here at RORVR......my supervisor last summer was not quite as generous.


I next replaced a few light bulbs in Cabin 65, and tried to help a 'gentleman' back his new 5th wheel into site #28, but he really didn't know what he was doing, and in spite of my assistance I was unable to get him into the site.  This was a first for me as I have been successful about 99% of the time getting people into sites, and this site is very large.  He was just way too impatient, had a very bad temper, and did a lot of yelling, none of which I deserved.  I finally handed him off to Rich, who owns a large 5th wheel, and agreed to back the 5th wheel in for the guy.  He had it in the site in less than 3 minutes beginning to end.  Needless to say it was rather humbling  for the the guy.  All that being said I was proud of myself for not losing my temper and becoming part of the problem.

This week is the last week for our two high school graduates.  Adrian is heading off to college, and Mike is heading off to Basic Training for the Navy.  To honor them we had a lunch paid for by the owners of the park......

Rich cutting up the BBQ'd ribs

.....we had a nice sit down lunch....Adrian is in the blue shirt on the left, and Mike is in the green shirt on the right....

Foreground: Marnie (left front), Caroline (right front), then Rich, Dave, Joe and Adrian on the right, then moi, Mike and Alika on the left....TLE took the pictures

.....Alika, the yellow shirt you can see in the first picture, leaned out of the picture so we got him in the second picture taken from the other end of the table.....he is the guy in the left rear of the picture sitting next to Mike.

We had a lovely lunch and then it was time for me to head for home early once again.  TLE was home by 4 pm.  I spent the afternoon reading, and then attempting to program a new DirecTV remote I had ordered.  Our current one is about 6 years old, and had begun acting up about a year ago.  I ordered a new one, and actually received it about a month ago, but I could not get it to operate the TV (we have a TCL).  I was determined Thursday to get it working, and finally found a link on Google to a website where it gave very clear directions, and within a few minutes I successfully programmed it!

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Wednesday

6:56 pm - Thursday - August 15th - Ramona, CA - 88° F, 27% humidity, wind 11 mph out of the west by northwest....almost sunset with clear skies.  High today was 98° F.

I was so excited Wednesday!  Rich bought me a new extension pole to use with the sweeper and vacuum.  The old one had a large bend in it, and there was a crack in the aluminum......

.....it's amazing how the little things brighten your day.  There were some old aluminum poles used years ago that were still sitting around, so I cut them up, and hauled them down to the maintenance building......

......I used this small hacksaw to cut them up to movable pieces......

......I've gotten the whole pool area pretty well organized.......

......I spent part of the day cleaning the A/C units in the four cabins, and they were in need of cleaning......

......Wednesday was a hot day, and I only worked until 1 pm before heading for home to escape the heat.  We're going through a little bit of a hot spell right now, which is pretty normal for SoCal this time of year.

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Tuesday

3:48 pm - Tuesday - August 13th - Ramona, CA - 93° F, 27% humidity, wind 11 mph out of the west by northwest.....still clear, blue, hot skies.

Tuesday was slated to be warmer with a forecast high of 94° F, but it never felt that hot to me.  I guess I'm getting used to temps in the lower 90's.  I didn't have to vacuum, or sweep the pool, so I was done with it about 8:20 am.  I opened the Red Barn, and raked the horseshoe pits, before heading down to the mini golf area to sweep all 9 holes.  Why 'sweep', and not 'blow' the leaves off the holes?  Well, the hand held blower broke Monday afternoon when I was using it, and I didn't want to shoulder the heavy backpack blower.  At any rate, the holes need to be hand swept at least once a week to get them completely clean of debris, so Tuesday was the day to do it.

After that Rich asked me to install the new rubber quoted yellow chain at the entrance to the fire road near the Red Barn.  The old chain was just galvanized chain, and not very visible.  In addition he had me install two signs advising this road was off limits to vehicle traffic (upper left of picture, and in the middle of the yellow chain)......

.....I finished that project right at 11:30 and immediately left for my 30 minute lunch.  I really prefer a longer lunch, but I prefer even more getting off ½ hour earlier, so I adapt.  You get used to it, but it's not optimal.

After lunch I took care of a couple of small projects Rich assigned to me, and then retrieved the dreaded backpack blower to blow the oak leaves off the entrance, as well as the lower parking lot.  It hasn't been done for a while, so it was time.  I finished just after 1:30 pm.....30 minutes before the end of my work day.....time to put away my tools, spend a few minutes in the office cooling down in their A/C, and homeward bound.

Life continues to be good here in the mountain community of Ramona, CA.  We love our jobs, and we love the people with whom we work.  The summer is waning, and Fall is around the corner.

Thanks for stopping by!

When you shop Amazon, please use our link (below) to access their website.......we will appreciate every purchase you make using our Amazon Affiliate link, and  remember, using our link will not add one penny to your purchase, plus we will receive a small commission which over the course of a year adds up to enough to by a tank of diesel.

Monday

3:14 pm - Tuesday -  August 13th - Ramona, CA - 93° F, 32% humidity, wind 10 mph out of the west.....clear, blue skies....hot!  High today is 94 F.

We were back to work Monday bright eyed and bushy tailed as 'they' say.  I was at work by 7 am, and done with the pool by 9:30 am.  By the time I finished with the mini golf and horseshoe pits by 11:30 am, and by Noon I was done with lunch.

You may recall that I began the process of replacing the old pole fence by the pool parking lot with a split rail fence.  Since I was off work for a couple of days while my biopsy sites healed, so Dave and Mike finished the work getting the entire new fence installed by Friday when I went back to work.....it looks great....

It only got into the high 80's Monday, and by the time 2 pm rolled around it was still very pleasant outside.  I spent the rest of the afternoon finishing Season 5 of 'Breaking Bad' finishing with the final episode around 11:30 pm Monday night.  I enjoyed it just as much as I did the first time around a few years ago.

For dinner TLE got out the other salmon steak I had grilled Sunday evening.  She served it cold with some wasabi sauce in which to dip it.....it tasted just as good as it did fresh off the grill Sunday evening.

Thanks for stopping by!

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Sunday

3:05 pm - Tuesday - August 13th - Ramona, CA - 93° F, 32% humidity, wind 10 mph out of the west....clear, blue skies.  I'm playing 'catch up' on my blog posts....first up is Sunday.

I love being off work on Sunday!  We've taken to shopping early in the morning on our off days, but it just seemed appropriate that we make a stop at Starbucks on our way to Stater Brothers to get some coffee, and for me an 'everything' bagel.  This Starbucks does big business, and the drive through lane is never empty.

Next stop was Stater Brothers for our weekly grocery shopping foray.  Shopping early is so much faster than in the afternoon when there are many more people in the store, and the checkout lines are discouragingly long.  Beginning to end we can do a complete weekly shopping before 9 am in about 30 minutes.  Later in the day it takes close to an hour beginning to end, the end being when you walk out of the store with your purchases.

Once we were home we settled in outside watching a couple of English Premier soccer matches, and once they were done, reading.  Around 6 pm I grilled a couple of salmon steaks.  I grilled them skin down for about 9 minutes and they came out perfectly!

....TLE added some sliced tomatoes, and grilled summer squash.....OMG!  TLE added some chilled Savignon Blanc vino to chase the great food, which only led to more oohs and aahs.

By the end of the evening we were rested, and ready to head back to work Monday morning....thanks for stopping by!

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Saturday.....for real......

7:34 am - Sunday - August 11th - Ramona, CA - 51° F, 86% humidity, wind - CALM....clear, blue skies today with a forecast high of 86° F.....the view this morning.....

I felt so weird to be off work on 'real Saturday', which was also the beginning of the new English Premier soccer league.  Our DVR had recorded a match from Friday afternoon, and then over the course of Saturday morning three more matches, so that is how we began 'real Saturday', watching one English Premier game after another.....

....outdoors, no less.  As you can see from the above picture, it was also home maintenance day, which involved vacuuming the interior, cleaning out some cabinets in the salon, washing some clothes, cleaning out the basement 'through' storage bin, and hauling what we do not need on a daily basis up to the trailer where it will remain until we depart RORVR.  We now have room to store the step ladder in our basement through storage bin so I do not have to retrieve it from the trailer each time we need to use it around the Newell.

Additionally, it involved the installation of another piece of sun screen to the southern end of our patio awning.....

.....the morning sun, which is only an issue on our days off work, tends to penetrate our web of awnings and popups making it a little warmer than we would wish.  TLE made that end piece years ago when we first began living in our Newell full time.  It can be installed on either end of our patio awning via large velcro strips she sewed onto it.  It looks like it came from a factory somewhere.

We remained outdoors for most of the day except for a 2 hour period during the heat of the day.  We watched all four English Premier matches with our annual favorite, Tottenham Hot Spurs, coming from  behind (1 to nil) to win 3-1 with all three goals scored in the last 15 minutes of the match.  They trailed from about the 5th minute of the match until the 75th minute.  Elsewhere, the favorites all seemed to win (Manchester City, Liverpool, etc.) their opening day matches.

Later in the day I spent more time continuing to binge watch 'Breaking Bad', and as of Saturday evening I have now finished Season 4.  For dinner I grilled another filet mignon, whilst TLE grilled some onions and mushrooms, as well as steamed some wild rice for our sides.  We ate outside enjoying the quickly cooling evening air.

August is quickly receding into the distance in the 'rear view mirror' as we have now lived through 1/3 of that summer month.  So far we have avoided triple digit temperature days, and the overnight lows continue to hover in the low 50's making for wonderful sleeping conditions.

Thanks for stopping by!

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