Motorhome Oil Change, Getting a Silver Lining, Loom Getting a New Home

This blog has three parts:

1. Motorhome Stuff
2. Our Old House Restoration Stuff
3. Weaving Loom Stuff

Oh yes, I am playing catch-up again and here is a whole week in one blog post. I HAVE to get my butt in gear and start posting more often again this winter.  Until we go away on a motorhome trip, it can be kinda boring for my RVing blog readers.  (the fiber and family folks always get good blog fodder)

Steve found a GREAT deal on the diesel oil for a motorhome oil change.  It was on sale at Fleet Farm for $64.99 a FIVE gallon bucket and then a rebate of $35 from Mobil and a 10% rebate from Fleet Farm in the form of a gift card.... plus on top of that if we use our American Express, we get 6% cash back at the end of the month.  It was such a good deal, he bought a second bucket to save for next year. It's sealed up and will stay good. 

Of course with 5 gallon buckets, that isn't enough for our rig, we need 32 quarts for our size oil pan.  Steve adds to the volume with one more gallon of oil (also on sale) and a gallon of Lucas Oil Additive Stabilizer. That is enough to bring it all back up to operating level with some of the old left in the oilpan after draining.

He found that removing the flex-hose adaptor from a funnel, he could screw the flex hose right on the bucket fitting!  It fit perfectly! He could reach the oil fill tube opening in the back of the rig's access door, and pour it all in carefully from the big bucket.

Here are from my notes of our Maintenance Log:

oct 2017 
oil change mobil del vac super 1300 heavy duty 5gal bucket 15w40
$64.99 rebate of $35 for the 5 gal bucket
$10.99 for one more gallon of oil
$29.99 for Lucas oil additive stabilizer

fleet farm 10% off rebate gave us an extra $10.60 back
filter was bought elsewhere wix 51791 $17.99

total cost $78.36 plus tax
2099 engine hours
74330 miles


He also changed the oil and filter in our Onan propane generator:

oct 2017
 onan generator oil change
$14.99 filter mobil m1-209
3.5 quarts of non detergent 30W  $2.44 each quart
480 hours
total cost $24.75 plus tax

All of our drain oil is brought out to a guy who burns it in a drip system to heat his repair shop. Recycling at it's finest!

We are up to snuff now and ready for perhaps a winter jaunt to the south or the desert?

~~~~~~~

Can you believe we just hit the five year anniversary of the accepted offer on our Our Old House? It was Nov 3, 2012 when we bought it from the three Baldock sisters after their parents passed away.  We didn't close until the end of December of 2012.  We keep doing little bits here and there to restore the house to original and preserve what we think are the best features of this 104 year old home.  We fondly refer to it as Our Old House.

Around "Our Old House" we decided to work on another project....  Five years ago, we bought this huge beveled mirror to hang in our diningoom. We found it on Craigslist and Steve overestimated the length limit that we could haul in the little Tracker.... this was the ONLY way it would fit for the trip home!

At that point in time, we hadn't bought a chandelier yet, so the heavy gold metallic frame was just ummm *okay*.   In this pic below, we hadn't even put back up the rest of the pieces of the plate rail yet....

I had added family photos all around the room in frames that were gold to match the mirror....  Using the plate rail for setting the photo frames on helps keep them all in order, plus eliminates all those nail holes in the walls!

After that, we added a chandelier that has silver accents for the light holder stems, and some little crystal lamps on the buffet that also have silver accents.

A few times over the last five years, we mentioned that we should paint the mirror frame silverish, as well as the picture frames. Last week we bought a cute little ornate set with a napkin holder and trivet that were silver as well. Sooo I guess it was time to paint that gold mirror!


I bought a can of hammered paint with texture in a pewter grey tone of silver, and a can of bright shiny chrome silver.  Steve set up the sawhorses in the basement for me, as it's cold and damp out in the garage. Steve helped me carry down the mirror and we carefully taped off the beveled edge and then covered the mirrored portion with plastic.

First I painted with the hammered paint to add to the texture and the entire thing looked pewter-ish (autocorrect dictionary says that isn't a word)  then I lightly fanned the silver chrome-ish (also not a word)  over the highlighted sections of the frame.

While that was drying, I went around the whole dining room plate rail and took down all of the photo frames. I carefully numbered each frame on the back side and put all the glass and photos in numerical order on the table.... so I could put them all back together correctly again. I had 18 frames to paint!

I did half of the frames in the hammered pewter-ish paint, and half in the chrome-ish to mix them up.  It was so cool to see each one change from what it was to something new and fresh!

Now these are lined up on more of the sawhorses drying in the basement as well.  It sure was a good thing I garbage-picked these three sets of old sawhorses last spring on bulky item pickup trash day.  I used them for painting all those hundreds of spindles for our fence this past spring. Now they are doing another duty in the basement (Steve didn't want them in the first place, and after the fence was done, he wanted to knock the sawhorses apart and burn them) ....

After lunch, everything was dry, so we carried the mirror back up and hung it on the wall. It is pretty hefty and very awkward. It has very heavy duty brackets that are hung onto heavy screws into studs on the wall. (see? the plate rail is complete in this pic on each side of the mirror)

Ahhhh that looks SO much better! 

I put all of the picture frames together again and each one is back in their spots. I need two new prints of Claire and Whitney, the two youngest grandgirls, who are growing like weeds.   I will print those up this afternoon and replace the baby shots in those frames.

 That is the end of another project around Our Old House.

This week I had the pleasure of meeting Carol Ann Kapheim and her husband Thom. They have an art gallery in Waukegon, Illinois.  https://www.kapheimstudio.com/  Carol is also the editor of the Weavers Friend 2 Newsletter

Carol had purchased my old sturdy Union Custom loom from me a few weeks ago.  They made arrangements this week to come up and take it to it's new home.  She was completely delighted when she saw it in it's glory. I had debated between stripping off the fading historically correct blue paint.. or even painting it all solid blue again.  But either choice would have ruined it's original condition.  She wanted it just the way it was!   (so glad I didn't paint it)

They tore it all apart and loaded it up in their SUV to head on down to it's new place of glory in their studio. From there we enjoyed a nice lunch at Hilde's Deli and Bakery in Chilton before they hit the road back to Illinois.

Later her husband Thom posted these pics from their studio:

After a few swear words, they were able to get it all reassembled.  I am SO glad it is going to have a new loving life in a new home. I just didn't have room for it at my house. It needed a new job to do, and someone to love it--- scars and scrapes and all the dings to it's surface over the years.

I think it looks pretty happy, don't you? 

VACATION - Looping Around Lake Superior - Day 3 Minnesota North Shore Weaver Janet Meany

We awoke on Wednesday in Duluth to another strangely hot humid day. Must be the effects from the hurricane Irma finally reaching the northern states of our country. It was hot and in the 80s which is strange for September around the Great Lakes.

As I write this on Thursday, we are at Two Harbors, MN. Ignore the numbers 7 and 8 on the map, we aren't there yet!  It's just part of the trip planning on the program Microsoft Streets and Trips 2011. It has a great GPS dongle and we use the big laptop for most of our GPS guidance, as well as paper maps.

We sat around a great aunt Nancy's kitchen table enjoying coffee and breakfast kuchen and chatting about family and going through old photos. The temperatures were climbing into the eighties and it was getting quite muggy.  The house was cool, but we went outside it felt like a furnace!

She showed me a gorgeous lap quilt she had made. See why fiber arts and creativity run in my family???

Steve went out and got the rig road-worthy ..we chatted with her neighbor who also had a motorhome. We shared stories and places and things to see.  We were soon hooking up the Tracker to the back of the motorhome and saying our goodbyes. They sent the rest of the kuchen with us!

After consulting our maps we headed out for a huge long jaunt up the North Shore.

We only went about 20 miles and stopped at 

a a true Icon to the Rug Weaving World, artist Janet Meany.  

She and co author Paula Pfaff authored a book which has become the "Bible" to rug weavers around the world. It is called the Rag Rug Handbook and available at this link:

http://greatnorthernweaving.com/product/rag-rug-handbook/

ISBN 978-1-5323-0664-8

Janet welcomed us into her lovely home on the shores of Lake Superior with open arms. We enjoyed the afternoon chatting about weaving and exploring her multiple looms in her studio.

Here are some of the interesting rugs of various designs that she had hanging around her home. I even got to see one of the rugs pictured in her book, which was one of the first rugs I was inspired to weave. I am going to try some of her other techniques and I got some new ideas.

I especially liked this rug --- she added strips of twisted wool yarn in two colors amongst the sections of rag fabric. I really like the effect!  The threading is a traditional Anderson Weave pattern.

 

We talked to lot about restoring old looms, and managing the Loom Manual Library. This is the collection of manuals from any many different loom manufacturers over the years. She would like to get it all digitized so it can be shared easily with people who are looking for loom manuals. Presently when someone requests a manual, Janet goes down to her boxes of multiple files and finds the manual and then copies it page by page for the seeker. (I think I might assist with the digitizing sometime in the future) What a valuable resource she has to the loom restoration and weaving community!

Besides her book, Janet used to author and publish a quarterly newsletter call the Weavers Friend. When it comes in the mail, I drop everything and read it from cover to cover!  I have every issue since it began!  It has now been taken over by Carol Ann Kapheim and you can get more information about it here:

http://www.weaversfriend2.com/

We chatted away the afternoon, and compared our towels from her co-author Paula Pfaff.  Paula wove these over 10 years ago!  We each have one and they sure hold up. Compared to a cheap Walmart towel made overseas, you can not beat good solid handwoven things made by artists.

Mine on the left, and Janet holding hers on the right. 

 

After we left Janet's home, we headed north to a small berg called Two Harbors Minnesota. We found a great spot to boondock in the parking lot of the Super One grocery store. It was off the main drag and pretty quiet. We went inside to purchase groceries and ask permission to overnight in the lot. The manager said "Yes, of course no problem, and thank you for asking". We always ask!

We have these two signs I printed up years ago, that are attached to cardboard so they stand up straight. I slid them into page protectors so they hold up over time and travel. We set one right near the drivers window and the other one is right in the window next to our entry door.  We pull the shades down over them so they can be seen from the outside.

 

This avoids that obnoxious knock during the night of some authority telling you you need to move on or cannot park overnight.

Of course, some municipality enacts ordinances to prevent overnight parking in RVs. But most business places are very generous allowing you to boondock in their lot, especially if you are standing there with a grocery cart full of purchases from there facility.  Most Walmarts, Cracker Barrels, Cabellas, Home Depot, and other major retailers allow it.


The weather was still hot well into the night, and we started out with wide open windows all around the motorhome. By about 1 a.m. it finally cooled off enough to close some of the windows up.

In the morning the skies are gray and clouded over but the temperature is much cooler.

As soon as I am finished with this blog we are going to head north and see what exciting things we can see today.  Dad P just called to check on our progress and wanted to make sure were safe and happy. Awwwww

PS An added note about yesterday's campus shooting in St Paul. It turns out there was NO criminal active shooter! It was only the goofy security guard himself, who brought his own weapon to work. He accidentally shot himself in the shoulder and made up the story about someone in the campus woods shooting at him because he was afraid he would lose his job. Kind of like a Barney Fife situation huh? Thinking of all of the students and parents and families who were worried about their loved ones in an active shooting situation and locked down campus. I really think he should lose his job don't you? Thank goodness it wasn't anything worse!