Warming Up - Feeling Stronger - Staying Home For Now

We are finally out of the Sub-Zero Deep Freeze thing here in Wisconsin! We have some nice sunshine, but literally no snow. That stuff back there is frozen ice over some of the accumulated water from the snow melt. But no snow to be seen.  We will get up into the high 40s or even hit 50 today. Wow! 

As for me, just went through another round of tests and going to rule out some other things with a few more tests next week. Things are looking okay and we are adjusting meds up and down. Mostly, I notice slightly diminished sensations and nerve response on the left side, mainly in my fingertips and hand. Also the hearing on my left side seems to be affected. But mostly I think I'm ahead of the game here, and doing all right!

So on we go to planning our summer trip to Alaska. I've started marking lots and lots of interesting spots as favorite places on the maps.  We have been watching YouTubes of other people traveling around in Canada and Alaska, and marking down all of their "hidden spots".

We are thinking about remaining home for the rest of the winter. That's a sad thought, because we had wanted to sneak out to maybe central Texas or New Mexico for Feb-April. But instead --- we will stay home. 

A nice little delightful thing about being home was to watch my amaryllis bloom! I managed to have this pot of amaryllis plants foisted upon me. It happened when I went to pick up a weaving loom for my sister a couple years ago. The woman was emptying her brother's house and insisted I had to take it. So much so, she actually opened the back door of our vehicle and put it right on the floor mat by the back seat!

I am glad she did. It's bloomed 2 times a year, every year, since I got it. 

Steve has been trying to keep himself busy, besides taking care of me. He decided to replace all of the incandescent spotlights and circular lights in his garage with LED strip lights. They went on sale for $4.99 at our local Menards so he bought six new fixtures to replace the ones in the garage. These are the plug-in type so it was just so easy to buy the little adapter to screw right into the ceramic outlet base and plug them in.

He will neatly tack up the cords later with little electrical clips, he didn't have enough on hand right now.

It really brightened up the garage, and made him a happy man. Can't ask for more than that can you? 

We have also been doing some preventative "old timer" safety measures around the house. On the advice of the physical and occupational therapists that I saw... Things like fastening carpet treads on slippery stairs, double checking handrails for sturdiness, and considering good locations on studded walls for grab bars in showers and near toilets. All good things to think about.  Steve fastened these down with 3 steps of double sided carpet tape. Much better than the slippery painted surface of wood.

My sweet neighbor lady brought over a spaghetti casserole with garlic bread the other day. Before we returned her pan, I made up some cute little hot pads as a thank you. She has a rustic themed decor, so I hope the hot pads made a good match. They matched her dish too!

I am trying to do little projects, one thing at a time. That way I don't feel like I'm just doing nothing. I noticed my African violets were absolutely overflowing in this little planter. They needed to be split up and given more room to spread their roots.

This is so much better now. My grandmother used to grow beautiful African violets. She always put them in a north window to blossom. She told me to never water them where the water lands on the leaves. It should only get water on the soil itself. I guess it's working. 

I've been trying to be good, and try to lay around and take it easy. Sometimes I feel like a slug. But I'm getting used to different medications, and some changes of dosages on others. Yesterday the doctor ran some more tests and went over medications. Next week we are going to rule out any heart damage by scheduling me for a stress test. So it's best to just lay around and call it a "jammie day".

I did get a YouTube done about our little ride we took in the RV during the week before. It was up the road a few miles to our small county campground. It has been devastated by the emerald ash borer beetle. 

Our city campground (called Holtwood) has also been devastated with the same horrible fate. It's a shame to see all these trees have to get cut down, but it's better than having them crash down on people's RVs during a wind storm.

This is what it used to look like:

Sadly, this is now all gone.

Well, I think it's time to finish up this blog. I can't think of really too much else I want to write about. I think we're just going to have to look forward to the next few months of staying home and staying warm in Wisconsin. 

Nick has the right idea....

We will see 

 what tomorrow 

will bring.

MOTORHOME MODIFICATION - STARLINK DC TO DC POWER SOURCE IN 2016 WINNEBAGO VIEW

Well, I started putting this post together on Sunday and was going to finish it up by Monday. But instead, something changed. 

Things can change in an instant.

I guess we have to live our lives in the moment because you never know when things change. 

What happened Sunday, is that I suffered a small stroke, Steve got me to the ER and from there I've gone through a myriad of tests and medications, got transferred by an ambulance to a larger hospital. From there they discovered two small aneurysms that will be monitored. A compression of space around the base of the neck will be further explored.

Things can change in a moment. As for now, I've been cleared for needing any additional physical, occupational or speech therapy. Follow up appointments tomorrow and next week with specialists. 

I didn't post this to garner sympathy, why I posted it is to remind us that we need to live each day to our fullest and enjoy what we have.

Now on to my original post....

~~~~~~~~

As you know from reading my blog, we have the Starlink system that we transfer back and forth between our home and the RV when we travel. We do not want a permanent dish mounted in the motorhome or up on the roof. We need it portable. Not only that, we don't like to park out in the bright sun if we have the opportunity to be parked in the shade. So if our Starlink dish were mounted permanently to the roof, that kind of counteracts that, doesn't it? 

Sometimes, we like to be able to set the Starlink out somewhere in the open, and run a cord back to the motorhome to power it up.

Other times we would want the Starlink securely enclosed within our rig, like if we are overnighting in a Walmart or Cracker Barrel lot. If it's up in the skylight, then nobody can run over it or walk away with it.

The newest exciting development with Starlink is that if you have a Generation 3 dish, it is recently announced that it will work IN MOTION if you are on the "roam" plan (which we are).

What does that mean for us? Well mainly, it means if the Starlink were up on our roof, we would have a connection while we run down the road! 

Also, it means that if we are out in the boonies traveling in areas where we lose cell phone signal, we would also lose our phone's GPS ability unless we had pre-downloaded the maps. Of course, we never do that, who really does? Unless you're going to a specific known location you might download a map to a particular address. But---- we use our GPS to see things enroute as we go, or look things up as we're moving along or find alternate routes etc. 

With our upcoming planned trip to Alaska, it means going through some very remote sections of Canada and Alaska (where of course there are absolutely NO cell phone signals). By having the ability to travel with our Starlink aiming up to the sky while in motion, we can continue our internet signal as we move down the road for all of our internet needs. Also, our cell phones can produce and receive calls using Wi-Fi calling, VoIP.

Well, that's all well and good. Hook up your Starlink and it works as you drive down the road. Starlink also has a small mini dish that works really well by just setting it on the dash and it works through your front windshield. But that's limited to only 50 GB. We use a lot more of that with our "roam" plan and that has unlimited GB internet use.

When we travel or camp we usually like to be boondocking, and that means living off our two 6 volt batteries.

Also, with this new added feature of being able to use it in motion, it means we would have to plug it in to the household 120v AC outlet and run our inverter all the while just to run the Starlink. For all the hours during traveling, we would be running our inverter. And incidentally, our inverter is the original installed 1000 watt unit from Winnebago and it is not pure sine wave. We do like pure sine power for any of our sensitive electronics.  The Starlink draws between 60 and 80 watts of power.

Starlink has answered the call of RV and Overlander folks asking for a 12 volt DC to DC power source. That solves all of our power needs by having the already 12 volt DC system of Starlink being powered by a separate 12 volt DC unit. When you buy Starlink Gen 3, it only comes with a big white converting brick as a power source that changes it from DC to 120v AC, you know, regular household current. 

But now Starlink has come out with a separate DC to DC brick power source that you can swap your dish over to when you want to run it just off a 12 volt DC system. 

So we ordered it directly from Starlink. There are some aftermarket scabbed together devices that can be bought on Amazon or other places on the internet. But we decided that for such an expensive piece of equipment, we would go with original equipment DC to DC power source from Starlink. It runs $110 and came quickly within a few days, even being a brand new item in high demand. 

So here it is this power source for DC to DC. The only problem is, it draws a very high amount of amps that are more than what the average car cigarette lighter type outlet of 10 amps can handle. The Gen 3 unit draws sometimes 10-12 amps. Especially if searching for satellites or first starting up.  So instead, the end of the cord is a XT60 power connector, commonly used in remote control airplanes and hobbyist equipment. It's up to you to figure out how to get a decent source of power into that cord!  

We had already tried putting our Starlink temporarily up in our skylight. Plugging it into household 120v AC current. It works wonderfully! Now we want to just find a way to reroute the new DC power cord down into the side and attach to our 12 volt battery power was our next step. 

This is only a temporary hookup
 to see if it worked thru the skylight

We did some research, watched a lot of YouTubes, and started scouring the internet for the right amount of connections that would fit our needs. We decided that if we were going to run some wires, we wanted to hide them within the wall cavity.  We needed an XT60 outlet to plug and unplug from that had this same XT60 fitting. We also wanted an on and off switch so we can operate the Starlink only when we want, and cut power to it if we don't want it drawing from our 12 v batteries when not needed. 

So we ordered a myriad of things that came in the mail. We don't have any local stores that sell stuff like this!

Of course, I did a YouTube of the entire process. If you'd like to just click on there you can see 

what we did and 

how we did it and 

why we did it

https://youtu.be/l-J5EQoXthM?si=gXbGufzVzEMQDmsA

It is not a "how-to", 

it's a "how we did it".

We started with figuring out where we could run these wires down to our compartment where our coach batteries are located underneath the entry step. These batteries also charge from our alternator while we drive down the road, so it really won't be a drain at all on our system. 

We discovered that by pulling off a large vertical trim piece we could expose the hollow opening in the wall between the passenger side of the cockpit and the bottom edge of the bunk.

This hollow wall easily had enough room to conceal the wiring between the top bunk and down to the floor. The next step was to find a passageway from the floor through to the underside compartment where the batteries are stored. 

Fortunately, Steve found a foamed in area in the corner of that wall chamber that had already been accessed and refilled with spray foam insulation. Perfect! We didn't have to drill any holes in our floor. We could run the wires by adding a piece of wire loom right through there!

The other end of the wire has a 20 amp fuse, and then it is fed through to our battery compartment located underneath the steps. Here it is hooked up to the large main fuse and a ground post.

Our motorhome house battery set up contains two 6 volt Trojans hooked in series, supplying us with 12 volt power. We can charge them four different ways: 

1. With our solar

2. Plugging into our Bluetti power station,

3. While driving from the engine's alternator

4. Or if we happen to be camped somewhere and plugged into shore power.

To help securely support the dish up in the skylight, we came up with the idea of these tension rods. They are used for RV refrigerators or cabinetry to secure items from falling out. We bought some of these long skinny felted pads that are used for furniture legs that are sticky on one side. We put them along the bars of the tension rods to help prevent any rattling noise as we go down the road.

Of course all the while we were working on it, Nick was supervising patiently from his spot on the love seat.

Once the wires were pulled through and hooked up and double checked and triple checked with the voltmeter, Steve was able to foam in the open area to prevent any other intrusions or leaks from below.

Here you can see the back side of an additional electrical outlet he added while he had the wall open for the 12v DC outlet. 

We are severely lacking in any household 120v AC outlets in the front portion of our motorhome. Winnebago just never put any up near the front at all.

We will find this extra outlet very handy for things like the vacuum cleaner, my sewing machine, or just recharging my camera batteries. So while the wall was open he added this 120v AC outlet and then he supported it from each side with a wooden 2x4 block. 

Now let's go up the wall where the wires are fed behind it. Here's the on/off switch. This will enable us to flick the Starlink system off to save battery power rather than just unplugging it.

Inside of the wall is the wire harness with each connection of XT60 joins wrapped in electrical tape to prevent them from ever coming apart over the years due to vibration.

Steve cut a hole in the top corner of the bunk and recessed this XT60 outlet. It also has a little cover to keep dust or dirt from accumulating in the hole. We situated it far over in the corner, that even if we did put the bunk mattress in, we could still reach the plug. We only put the bunk mattress in if a grandkid might be coming along with us. Otherwise it's stored in the garage.

Now the DC to DC power brick and the modem/router and the coiled up cords will ride securely up on the bunk in a concealed plastic tote. I forgot to take a picture of that.

The last step was to situate the Starlink dish up in the skylight. The stretcher bars look they like they will hold really well. The dish is very lightweight. We do have another set of stretcher bars to go side to side if we think we need to. But we can also pull the little slider bars for the skylight that are attached to the screen or the shade portions for added support.

In this photo you can see how the little felted strips from furniture protector pads are between the tension bars and the dish itself. We hope this will be sufficient for rattling noises, but we won't know until we are actually on the road. 

Now it was time to put the plastic trim strip back on that closes up the opening in the hollow wall. It really is amazing how we could take that off and fish the wires through and put it all back in the same spot again. 3 screws. Pop the decorative plastic covers on. Done.

We also plugged my little motorhome night light from my Mom into the outlet to test the extra 120v AC outlet. This will be handy for running 120v AC household current things up in this area of the motorhome. 

Since everything was tested, we also brought out the Starlink to fire it up and try it out. Remember, this is usually kept on a post by our house as our home internet source. When we are gone, we have a smaller MiFi unit that operates our cameras and security system.

Once everything was up and running correctly, we let Starlink do it's thing and connect to the satellites. We ran an advanced speed test and everything was absolutely wonderful!!!

Granted, we were parked in an area of absolutely no trees overhead. So we got a perfect view of the sky by the Starlink dish laying flat in our skylight. 

The next test will be as we are actually driving down the road and see how well it works. Other RVers with the same setup have reported absolutely wonderful service with no interruptions or problems with connectivity.

So, until we take off and go anywhere, we will be home here posting what we can, when we can. 

Got Some New Toys - Video Tape Transferring and Digital Camera

Since we're not camping this month, we've been kind of doing a fun project that we have been meaning to get to for a long long time... 

Transferring over old VHS analog tapes into digital format to save on hard drives and flash drives!!! 

We purchased a device from Amazon: 

Video to Digital Converter 3.0, VHS to Digital Converter

It is made to hook up to any video source such as VCR, DVD, camcorders, gaming systems etc. It will take the images (video and audio) and convert them into a digital format that can be saved. I can save it to USB flash drives, SD cards, or USB storage hard drives. It can be transferred into the computer or up into the cloud from there. I am making multiple copies each time I run through a tape so I don't lose anything.

We are uploading onto large multi-terabyte drives for each of our kids... and smaller flash drives to give to all the nephews' families and my siblings to enjoy. 

We did have a bit of struggle to locate a working VHS player to play our 100+ VHS tapes. Yes you've got that right, 100+ tapes of precious family memories!!! From 1984 up to about 2004. Then I had switched to digital cameras with later years already digitalized.

I thought I had had a spare VCR packed away somewhere, but we could not locate it. So we finally found a good working one at a pawn shop in a neighboring town for $29.

Afterwards, we found the working VCR player that I had packed away underneath the layers of VHS tapes in one of these totes! LOL LOL LOL

While we are dubbing over the videos from analog to digital, we are able to also run an HDMI cable to our TV. So we could either watch it on the little screen of the transfer device, or watch it on the TV as we edit through and delete or keep various sections of tape. 

Amidst the tears, the laughter, the exclamations of delight, and the fond memories vaguely coming back into view....  This has been quite a journey! 

While the scenes are playing across our TV, I snapped a few with my phone of our TV screen. The actual video images are much sharper that are saved to the hard drives.

I won't bore you with many, but here's a few shots from our video of our wedding that we never really got still photos of. Now we can! 

OUR VOWS
WITH OUR CHILDREN AS BEST MEN AND HONORLY MAIDENS

MR AND MRS PFUNDTNER

FAMILY TOSSING BIRDSEED AT CHURCH

CUTTING OUR CAKE AT THE RECEPTION

Incidentally, for those who don't know, Steve and I got married at a state park! Yes we did. It was actually Heritage Hill State Park in Green Bay where we rented the Moravian church and hired a carriage with horses to carry us away for our reception and honeymoon! 

Our honeymoon entailed hopping into our travel trailer and looping around Lake Superior for 2 weeks for a private getaway. 

~~~~~~~~~~~

Family photos have always been very important to us. As well as family videos. I have been taking a lot of photos over the years and started my photography journey way back with a Polaroid One Step Land Cameras in the 1970s with the ejected photo that changed before your eyes! 

From there it was little 126 or 110 instamatic drop in cartridge cameras. Point and shoot. Then mail the cartridge off to Rex Photo Service in an orange envelope and wait two weeks for your prints to come back.

(You never knew if they turned out or not, but you had to pay for them in advance anyhow!)

Then in the 1980s I graduated to a Pentax k1000 SLR camera! I learned all about f-stops and apertures, using the match needle in the screen and adjusting everything on my own. Photo developing was still pretty expensive with 35 mm rolls. I learned how to develop my own films and even buy film in bulk and load my own cartridges! I then got some used blackroom equipment and did my own developing too.

About 1984, a good friend of mine, Gary, had a huge JVC video camera with a two-deck recording unit that you had to haul one portion along on a strap over your shoulder plus operate the big wieldy camera on the other shoulder. It was like a news crew camera. He started filming our first child at only 1-year-old. So we have precious video from that time forward. He was there the day we took our second child home from the hospital. 

We would borrow his video camera on and off for the first year or two. After that my good friend Connie bought one of the big RCA VHS cameras that sits up on your shoulder. We would borrow that every now and then to record precious family events over the next few years. 

Finally in 1990 I got my own big RCA VHS camera that sat on my shoulder! I was the "mom with the camera" and I filmed everything for our kids. Every school play, every sporting event, and all of our camping and holidays. I would make copies for all the other members of the family to play in their VHS players. That's why I have so many tapes!!

After I met Steve, the big VHS camera was not working as well anymore. He surprised me at Christmas with the smaller handheld video camera with the little C cartridge tapes. Oh my, that was so easy to take around and film things. But I still had to go home and dub them from the little C cartridges up to the big VHS tapes. 

About the same time, the real estate company that I worked with wanted to invest in a digital camera. These were huge devices about the size of binoculars that would save two or three photos to a 3.5 floppy disk. I kid you not. The little floppy disk inserted into the camera and you could click click click and take a couple photos. Then you had to switch discs. 

Our company was the first to own a digital camera that they ordered through the fancy camera store in Green Bay. Even the camera store guys had never seen one, much less used one. It was cutting edge technology for them. They sent me off to Photoshop School for 2 weeks to learn how to use it and how to adapt and manipulate the images once they were on our computer screens. These were the days before the internet even, so we had to courier the discs over to the newspaper to be printed in the ads for the open houses on the weekends. It was quite an involved process. But I was glad to be in on the ground floor of learning about digital photography. 

From there it was an easy step to a smaller Nikon digital camera. Even though they were very expensive back in the mid '90s, it was so nice to be able to come home and just pop a little SD card out of the camera and into the computer. Or plug it in directly with a cord! No more dubbing to VHS tapes. Now I started saving all of our video onto the laptop and various hard drives as backups.

Gone are my days of the film camera. But I really did miss a good quality camera like my old Pentax SLR. 

So for my birthday this year, Steve surprised me with a Panasonic Lumix FZ80 digital camera. The zoom on this thing is amazing at 1200 mm. It will also record video as well as capturing digital images. It's what's called a "bridge camera" where it's not quite an SLR with interchangeable lenses. But it's very handy to have it all in one and take some quality photos again. Just in time for going to Alaska this summer!

As soon as I got it, I knew I wanted to protect it with a really nice leather cover. Rather than just tossing it on the dash in a vehicle in between shots, this camera will be protected. I can take it on hikes or e-bike rides and it will be protected hanging around my neck with this beautiful leather case on it. I like it cuz it's kind of funky and old fashioned looking. Real "photography-ish".

For Christmas, I got this really nice camera bag for all the additional gear. It can also carry both of my GoPro cameras and some small handheld tripods and selfie stick. It's a place to carry along the extra batteries and chargers and cords. The back half of it also can carry my laptop for digital editing. The case comes apart into three pieces or zips all together into one. There are straps on the bottom to carry a tripod.

Now I can keep everything neat and organized and in one place. Especially during our travels, I don't want things rattling around loose in the motorhome. It has straps to carry it as a backpack, or I can strap it right to the back of the e-bike.

I found a really nice tripod, which is very necessary for good shots. One leg unscrews to become a monopod to carry along on hikes.

I am just totally tickled with this camera. I am learning bit by bit and watching some YouTubes by Graham Houghton who seems to be an expert on this particular model. I also ordered his book that I will have to study. Imagine that, with all my experience of photography, I need to study and do homework?

Here's one of my first shots of the Moon the other night.

I am flabbergasted at how this cute little digital camera can take such good photos! 

~~~~~~~~~~

Now on to something else. Nicholas was really excited to have a friend come over this week. Steve's brother Pete has a very well behaved dog named Finn. He came over to hang out with Nicholas while the guys were busy playing cards together for the afternoon. 

Nicholas shared all of his toys, and we took out a few of the Himalayan yak cheese dog chews so each dog could have their own. 

Every now and then Nicholas would collect all the dogs chews and bring them down to the she-shed where I was sewing. Then Finn would have to come back down and collect his and bring it back up to where the guys were playing cards in the dining room.

Both dogs were very well behaved together. Nick was hoping that Finn would chase the ball and run around the yard with him. Finn was more interested in sniffing and chewing on the Himalayan stick. 

Here is a link to the ones that we order. They are so much better for the dogs than rawhides (which are dangerous and don't digest) And these slowly wear down from chewing. They are made from dried yak cheese.

EcoKind Premium Gold Yak Cheese Himalayan Dog Chews

Once the bone gets a little too small, it can be tossed in the microwave to puff up and get soft. It can be cut into little tiny pieces then and used as treats.

As Finn left, poor Nick stood at the door watching him go. Awwwww

We will have to arrange another play date soon....

The bitter cold has arrived in Wisconsin, just like many other parts of the country. We will only have the next two days of warmer weather. But then we plunge back down into the depths of bitter cold and below zero temps by the weekend. 

It will be a good time to sit inside, and dub over more of these videos.

Down With Decorations - Dog Park - Making Plans

 It's that time... Sadly the Christmas decorations need to get stowed away for next year.

We started with the tree. Bit by bit, each ornament was carefully packed away. Fond memories of each one. Who gave it, what were the circumstances, and especially the homemade ones by the grandchildren. Wrapped in tissue paper, put in little boxes and organized for next year. On one side there was a box of oddball things that needed to just go to Goodwill.

Chelsea was our decorator with arranging the lights on the tree. She did such a good job nesting the lights in deeply and tucking them around branches. It took quite a process to get them off again! She did a great job.

The tree is artificial but looks very real. It comes apart in 5 pieces and stows into two big huge boxes that we have left over from when we purchased our e-bikes. A lot easier to store it in boxes than stuffing it into those tree storage bags.

Bit by bit, all of the little knickknacks around the house were gathered up and stowed away in the Christmas totes. A couple of years ago I bought all of these green totes with red lids. No missing the fact that they are Christmas decorations! Steve started carrying them out while I had one last mug of Tom and Jerry eggnog drink. It's the end of the bucket. The local stores don't carry it after the holidays. I rationed it out to stretch it for the whole season.

Here is most everything stacked up and ready to go out into the garage. I feel a little sad, but I'm glad everything is organized and ready for next year.

We waited until it warmed up to 30° today about noon. We put on our jackets and boots and headed on out with snips and pliers to remove all the staples and wire ties on the front porch decorations. Brrrrrr!

Are we the only ones who store our Christmas decorations in toilet boxes?

Steve used the needle-nose pliers to pull out the staples in the columns. I carefully rolled up each red velvet ribbon so I know which ones I need for next year. Since they are all the same length and they make the right amount of wraps on the columns. 

I think they look like peppermint sticks. 

We gathered up the garlands and the lights to stow away in the boxes as well as the big snowflakes made from plastic dollar store hangers. We have little tiny white rubber coated screw in hooks inserted all along the porch ceiling that we can hang the lights from. We leave those up year round. Makes it a lot easier to put up the garland every year along the underneath edge of the roof line.

Last but not least is our little pergola between the She Shed and the garage. I ran a little short on ribbon last year so I have to cut a new piece this year of the length of the one on the right so they are both symmetrical for next year!!

OCD much? 

Stowed away safe and sound in the garage until next year.

~~~~~~~~~

Earlier this week, even though it was cold out, we had a chance to stop at the dog park in Oconto Falls.

Nick has only been here once before. We were glad there weren't any other dogs around so he could run and play with the ball that we brought along. We got him some good exercise cuz it's been so cold we haven't really been taking as many walks as we should. With him being nearly two years old, he has a LOT of energy to burn off every day.

I just love this sign that they put up there on the fence. It is located next to a receptacle that dispenses doggy bags and a little trash container too. No excuse for not cleaning up after your dog.

Nick had a blast playing with his red ball. Back and forth and back and forth he went between Steve and I. We also worked on some training with him on recalls. You know "COME" and "SIT" and "STAY". Basic obedience stuff.  Being in the fenced in and secured area, we can do some practice off-leash. Hopefully if he ever accidentally happened to be off-leash, he would listen to our training and decide to come back to us. Sometimes, he gets so focused on other things that I don't think he would even hear us, much less pay attention to any commands. Good reason to keep him on leash every single time he is out the door. 

Of course, I had to make a little video of Nicholas having such a fun time: 

~~~~~~~~~~

Speaking of pets, our granddaughter Chelsea got a new pet for her birthday. I guess this makes it our "Grandsnake"? His name is Skittles and he is a het bald pied python. 

Chelsea loves animals. She also has a hedgehog named Kiwi. Plus two family dogs and two family cats. 

I don't think we have to babysit... But I did have a pet garter snake when I was a kid, so I'm not too squeamish about them. His name was "Snakely Whiplash".  

~~~~~~~~~~

Now that it's been so cold out, I had a little bit of time to work on my current quilt. Vermont Maple Leaves. I mentioned it before that I was inspired by a quilt we saw at a Vermont Visitor Center the previous fall.  I am up to about 30 blocks. I think I will need closer to 80.

While I am sewing, Steve and Nick hang out in my She Shed with me. It is such a cozy place to be together even if he's watching football and Nick is chewing on his toys. 

I am tucked away at my sewing desk in the corner working on my quilts.  

I really enjoy sewing on this cute little antique Singer Featherweight sewing machine. I do have other fancier bigger and newer machines, but this one is just so adorable. I love creatively putting together these leaves and little patterns of contrasting and coordinating prints and fabrics.

Oh, I forgot to mention one more thing that Nicholas got for Christmas. It is a "goat ball" seriously. It is made for goats to play with. It is a little smaller than a yoga ball. It has a polyester fabric cover that helps prevent punctures. 

It's exactly what Nick needed to keep him from biting the ball.

We ordered them from Amazon. We got a set of two. We can take the other one in it's deflated form with us in the motorhome. That way if we ever camp someplace with a fenced in dog area, he can play with a ball. 

The deflated ball is folded up small and tucked inside of the polyester fabric cover. There's a small opening with a zipper. Once the ball is inside, the attached inflation tool can pump it up to full size. They can be ordered in 18-in or 22 in size. Then they are plugged and the zipper is drawn over the opening. 

Here Steve has it almost totally inflated on Christmas morning. What is nice, is they can be deflated for storage or for traveling. Perfect!

Here is the second one still in the box, that we will take with us in the motorhome during future travels. 

He really seems to enjoy the ball. He can bite the cover occasionally with his teeth and drag it around if he wants to. Mostly he drives it around like a soccer ball, and pretends it's a great big sheep that he is herding. He makes it go exactly where he wants it to go and brings it right back around to us so we can kick it up in the air again. 

Here is a link to the balls: 

VercanMonth 4 Pcs 2 Set Goat Ball

That's about it for today. It's time to sit back and relax a little bit by the fireplace, and enjoy my last Tom and Jerry.  Starting to make traveling plans for the upcoming year.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!