The Culprit!

There is the culprit from yesterday, I still hadn't found the manual this morning so I went out and started tearing it apart this morning.  It went great and I had all the tools we needed since I had done the other side a couple of years ago.  I was really happy when the stud came out of the hole in the brake drum on the third swing with the four pound hammer.  I had checked online last night and NAPA in Longview had them in stock so we ran down and picked one up.  I also picked up some 2 x 4's at Home Depot for a project I want to do in the shop.  Since it was almost noon we had lunch at Skippers and headed home.  The adjuster in the brake was loose so we did some more searching for the manual, we finally found it in the cupboard above the motor home's refrigerator.  Putting the stud in and reassembling the brake went great, I even had the gasket we needed for the axle.

Flocked

It was a big surprise this morning when I started for the shop and discovered we had been flocked!  We followed the directions on the card, made a donation and they disappeared some time this afternoon.  I spent most of the day working on the motor home and finished up the left side.  I turned it around and started on the right side.  As I was taking off the old rear tires one of the studs broke off.  That made for a major change of plans, I started looking for the manual to see how to pull the wheel apart but I couldn't find it anywhere in the shop.  I finally gave up and went in to watch Thursday Night Football, boy did Miami have ugly uniforms, that probably contributed to their loss.

I love fall!

I love fall, the sunrises are late enough that I get to enjoy them.  The first thing I noticed this morning was the sky over the shop so I grabbed the camera and took a few pictures before breakfast.  At 8:30 I went down for the Wednesday Coffee with the Pastor.  There were five of us this morning and the conversations covered lots of different subjects so I had a great time.  Afterwards I walked down and got the mail, my new hexacopter drone came today, a new project for when I finally finish the motor home.  On the way back to the van I made my first visit to the Five and Dime Store.  I wandered the aisles for a few minutes and found some interesting things to look at.  I did some work on the motor home, it is getting closer to done.

I was out watering when I noticed this spider web behind the rose.  I went right in and got the camera, this is the best of the five pictures I took.

Vera has been taking flower pictures also and using the macro setting to get this kind of picture.

Here is another of her close ups, she is really getting good with the Nikon COOLPIX P900.

I found out this morning at coffee that there was play practice tonight.  I tried several different angles to see what is going to work best for videoing the play.  The practice went smoother tonight, but there were still some funny missed lines, most of which I videoed for a blooper/outtake segment when I make up the video.

Happy Birthday James!

We met James, Michelle, Mik and Margaret at the Red Lobster for James' birthday dinner.  We had a really good time!  James looked a little embarrassed when the staff came over and sang Happy Birthday to him!  Michelle told James several cute stories about his grandma.

 I only took two pictures tonight, but they both turned out great!

Yard Work

Well, all I have done since the last post was work on the motor home.  Several of the days I have worked ten hours.  Today I couldn't work up any enthusiasm for it.  Laury asked me to let Sam out while she was working, it was sure pleasant sitting on their porch throwing the ball for him and looking at the yard.

I would have smiled, but I didn't know Vera was taking my picture!  Mowing is what I finally decided to do instead of the motor home.  I mowed our yard, the driveway, the folks old place and our trails before I quit.

One foxglove is still blooming, Vera wandered around the yard taking pictures after she took mine.  With the long days I have been putting in I have been sleeping great and I imagine that tonight will be the same.

Flying

I took part of the day off from the motor home and we went to Toledo.  This is Dick taking a picture of me taking a picture of him and Ken.  Steve and Jim showed up also and we had a great time racing trucks.

This is what I took today, I hadn't flown the Lancair (the purple one) for a while and had forgotten how well it flies.  I had so much fun that we stayed a lot longer than I had planned on.   Vera had made some great roast beef sandwiches for lunch.

I worked on the motor home after we got home, just before six I decided that a couple of pieces of angle iron were needed to finish what I was doing.  We made it down to the auto parts store just before they closed at six.  On the way down the hill Vera noticed how nice the sky and clouds looked so we went home via Bond Drive and took this picture from there.

The Moon and Deer

I went down for coffee with the Pastor this morning, when I got home I noticed the moon was out so I got the camera and took a few pictures of it.

I was leaning on the van to steady the camera and I noticed movement to my right, there was this doe watching me.  I got a couple of pictures of it and the fawn with it as they headed down the driveway to the apple tree.

When Vera got home from bible study she noticed the azalea that Mik, Michelle and James got her was blooming for the second time this year.  I worked on the motor home most of the afternoon.  James came up later and we fixed an oil leak in the Maxima and then James stacked the ton of wood pellets in the woodshed for us.

A litle road trip!

Monday was James' first day of college at LCC.  I worked on the motor home and then went to the church play practice in the evening.  After play practice I watched my recorded Monday Night Football.

Tuesday we took a load of supplies up to Marie, she had forgotten one item so I ran back to Walmart and got it while Marie and Vera visited.  When we left there we tried out the New Sonic Drive In in Chehalis.  It was OK, but no better than other places.  We decided to take the scenic route home, the road we chose ended up coming out onto SR603 at Newaukum.

Right across the road from the grange was Newaukum 1895 school house, it looks like someone lives in it now.

This picture is on the road between Napavine and Vader, hardly any traffic so I stopped and took a picture of the nice blue sky and clouds.

We were on the Toledo-Vader road a couple of weeks ago and I wanted a picture of this barn.  It looks like it is slowly getting over taken by the berry vines.

If you want to see a lot of rusty vehicles, Go to I-5 Exit 60 and then go North on the East frontage road until you get to Sundance Home Sales.

There has got to be several acres of cars, trucks, trailers, tractors, boats and machinery.  I took ten pictures as I drove by and I probably didn't get everything there.  It was a really nice trip home on a beautiful day.  I worked on the motor home after we got home, the repair list is getting shorter.

Motor Home, Elk, Decks and a Hard drive

It has been a busy week around here, I have worked on the motor home every day but one.  We noticed a lot of leaves under the apple tree and they had been stripped off the limbs pretty high up along with the apples.  When we checked on it I found some elk tracks so they had visited one night.  I put the trail camera out by the apple tree, better late than never!

I also took some pictures of the roses, we have about a dozen blooming again on this bush.

When the long range weather forecast showed rain I spent a day pressure washing the back decks so they would have a couple of days to dry.  Of course with everything else that is going on the hard drive in my desktop died.  Windows 10 did an update, afterwards parts of Windows quit working.  As the computer was trying to repair its self, the hard drive quit completely.  Luckily I had the original hard drive from when I had put in a bigger one.  After installing it, Windows updated again and everything is OK except I have to reinstall some programs.

The next day I pressure washed the front decks.  When they dried, we spent two days putting on Thompson's WaterSeal with stain.  I got the gray water line repaired in the motor home so things should go a little faster now.  Saturday was so rainy that we took a day off, Vera knitted and I started on my new F-4 Phantom.

The Lewis County club had a Fun Fly and Tailgate Swap meet this weekend.  It was so rainy that I didn't bother to go Saturday.  Sunday we went to church and then ran up afterwards to see what was going on.  The weather kept most people away, there were only four or five flyers there today.  We visited for a few minutes and headed home to watch a little football.

Play Practice

Sunday was spent going to church, working on the motor home, working in the yard and watching football.  James stopped by on the way home from the Seahawks game.  He said the crowd noise was the loudest he has ever heard.

Today I finished up the propane line in the motor home, that turned into a major job and I am glad it is done.  I had play practice tonight, lots of fun!  They were in costume so I could take some pictures for a poster.  This was the first time they have practiced scene three which I have a small part in.  I was happily taking pictures when they said this is your line.  I was totally unprepared and had given my script to Bill.  I soon had several in front of me and people pointing out my lines.

Deer and Plums again

As I was watering this morning I noticed another rose had bloomed and it looked really nice so I took several pictures of it.

Vera spotted the doe and fawn eating plums again this morning.

The fawn wanders off from the doe quite often and it is not too scared of me yet.  Vera and I can talk with out bothering them.

The wild plum was their next stop and they did a pretty good job of pruning it.

The fawn came past me on the way to the apple tree and stopped for a drink out of the pond.

I don't know how they decide which apple to eat, they smell of them and pass some nice looking ones right by.  From there they went to the pear tree, the fawn must like pears because it ran all the way.

It was a nice day and Vera sat outside reading and taking pictures of the leaves that are turning.  I worked on the motor home and almost got the gas lines rerouted before calling it a day.  Of course it was a two trip to the hardware store day, I hunted all over the shop for a 1/4 inch coupling.  Next time I will have one as I bought three so I would have a couple of spares.

Motor home parts and pellets

First thing this morning we made a run to Home Depot for some materials I needed for the repairs to the motor home.  While we were there Vera reminded me I needed some lumber to build a bin for the wood pellets.  I have been wanting to do that for a long time so we added some 2x4s to the cart.  Then we stopped at Safeway for a few things and had lunch in the deli section.

After unloading the supplies from Home Depot we decided to go get the wood pellets while they were still on sale.  I took a break after getting it set up for unloading.  I couldn't get excited about working on the motor home, so later we ended up building the bin for the wood pellets.

Racing

Ken had texted me that several guys were getting together at the Toledo field for some radio control car racing.  I was ready for a break from the motor home so I got my batteries charged and we headed up there this morning.  There was four of us with cars, Dick, Ken, Jim and myself and we had a great time.  I also threw in my Extra 300 and got in a couple of flights.

The green car belongs to Dick, it was his first time racing and I think he won more races than anyone else.  It is amazing how easy it is to hit the cones marking the course.  There was lots of laughter and wrecks but no damage to any of the cars.  After we got home I finished up removing the tire's damage and now I can start putting it back together.

2002

Tuesday I did some more work on the motor home, then in the evening I went to the play practice at church.  I volunteered to video the play so I wanted some videos that I could use as outtakes while the credits run.  I got some good videos and I really enjoyed watching them running through their lines and making changes.

Today I worked on the motor home, Vera had bible study and a birthday lunch afterwards.  She brought home some leftovers for my lunch and snack tonight that were really good.  She had made a Jello salad that I especially liked.

Once when I was headed to the motor home, Vera stopped me and called me over to look.  There was a doe and this fawn eating plums under the tree.  We didn't know they ate plums and it was interesting seeing them spit out the pits.

On my last trip to the motor home I brought the camera in, on the way to the house I noticed the moon so I started taking pictures.  I usually take several pictures with different settings to get the desired results.  While making adjustments I discovered the new camera has a Moon mode and it works great!  Also as I started this post I discovered I have made 2002 posts since I started doing this.

That did not go as planned!

I got the leak repaired Sunday after church so I could go flying today.  We were up early and left for Toledo about eight.  We took old Ninety Nine to Barnes Drive, just after we crossed I-5 the left outside dual blew and scattered debris all over the road.  I stopped and checked it out, then backed up to a wide spot and pulled off.  Vera and a guy who was out for a walk picked up all the stuff that could puncture a tire.  Then I was trying to figure out how to get the rest of the tread loose so I could try and get home when a guy Vera knew from working at the library stopped.  I explained what the problem was, he got gloves on, pulled a pair of snips out of his truck and cut it off for us.  There are sure some nice people around.  I put the four ways on and we drove ten miles an hour all the way home.  You can sure see the scenery a lot better at that speed.  We were home again by nine, I changed into old clothes and started taking things apart.  The loose tread beating around inside the wheel well did some damage to the liner and a sewer line.

James stopped by this afternoon, he had spent the night with his friend Levi in Chehalis.  Vera had mentioned our adventure so I had to show him all the damage and the blown out tire.  We had a nice visit sitting on the lumber by the motor home.  Vera fixed us a quick lunch and he headed home to get some rest, I guess Levi keeps his room pretty warm and James didn't sleep good.  I did a little more work tearing damaged parts off before calling it a day.

Deer and Water

This is the only rose we have in bloom right now.  I hope the weather stays nice because there is about a dozen buds on the bush.

Jackie sent a cute picture of Cora holding her bottle.

Vera saw a buck walk by so she grabbed the camera, walked out on the deck very slowly and started taking pictures.  She ended up with about two hundred so I had lots to choose from for the blog.

There was a forked horn and two spikes enjoying the apples.

As they were leaving, two of them did some head butting and then they all walked off together.

While all that was going on, I was under the deck repairing a leak in the line to the shop.  It is not a handy place to work.  Vera saved me many trips out from under there by going for parts and tools.  Just before dark we checked on it and it was still leaking, I got my inspection mirror and found it had been leaking on the backside and running down to the fittings I changed.  Well now I have something to do after church tomorrow.