MOTORHOME MAINTENANCE - 2016 Winnebago View Screen Door Latch - Compass - Spring Cleaning and BEAR!

RSV has stricken it's ugly head in our household. (Respiratory Syncytial Virus) 

Ten days ago I hauled Steve's butt into the ER because he was so sick and he said it's like nothing he's ever felt before. His blood pressure was up and he was feeling absolutely miserable. His head and chest were tight with congestion and he was having a hard time breathing in between gasps of coughing fits. After a myriad of tests, they came back with the results that he has RSV! The doctor said that it will get worse before it gets better. And that I should probably be prepared to come down with it too. It takes about 2 weeks to get past the worst of the symptoms and another two weeks to totally resolve. They really know what they were talking about.

Ugh is all I can say. 

We spent ten days in our jammies, eating soup and juice, dosing on vitamin C and D. Round the clock Mucinex for the mucus and night time/daytime cold meds as appropriate. Luckily, neither of us entered into the pneumonia phase.

So during these 10 days that we have been home and recuperating... This is some of the stuff that's been going on around us. Of course, prevents us from going camping! 

We had an awful ice storm roll on through. It coated all of our windows with sheets of ice. In a way, it was kind of pretty.

All of the tender young buds starting to come out on the trees were glazed and icy. Everything was coated and the smaller branches were snapping off. Huge branches were breaking off when the winds kicked up. Those are in danger of taking down power lines and causing real damage.

There were power outages all over Wisconsin. We were fortunate to not have anything happen here in our town. We did have our Bluetti power station ready as a backup power source. 

Fortunately, the next two days of weather after the storm were warm enough to melt off the ice. We didn't go anywhere, we weren't feeling good anyhow. So that storm came and went...

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~~~NOTE THIS LATCH REPLACEMENT TOOK PLACE BEFORE WE GOT SICK~~~

We mentioned in our last blog about our lever for the latch on the screen door had broken on our motorhome. The exact match of the new lever had arrived and we decided to take care of replacing the temporary one that we had on there.

It's a pretty specific lever that is made to catch the latch so both doors open together simultaneously. If the screen portion is closed, and the main door is now swung shut, this special latch will connect the two together. That way, the next time you go to open the door, the screen door will again open simultaneously. Otherwise you are opening and closing two separate doors... Get my drift? 

So we needed the exact one that would line up and work with what we already had. The temporary one would catch but it would not work in the simultaneous mode.

We had looked all over at every RV parts outlet as well as Amazon and E-trailer and Camping World.  Even the Winnebago factory did not have them in stock. I guess they've been discontinued everywhere? 

But we did manage to find one with an exact match!! It was at this place called "RV Go Parts"

link to: RV GO PARTS

We ordered it and had it shipped to a place we were stopping while on our vacation. Then we didn't end up stopping there, so it got forwarded with our children back to us from their trip through Oklahoma. 

Now that we had it in our hot little hands, it was time to replace it and put everything back to the way it should be.

In this photo you can see that the temporary lever went in an upwards motion, and the original lever went in a downwards motion.

Steve screwed the new lever into place. It's nice that they make slotted adjustable holes so you can adjust it to perfectly catch in the door jamb as needed. Too far and it would not unlock when you open the main door. Not far enough and it wouldn't catch at all.

He also adjusted the height of the latching device on the main door. Now it would catch perfectly each time as the main door swings shut.

TAHHH-DAHHHH!

He also restored our little barrel lock on the far right. With the temporary latch he had to remove our barrel lock to make more room on the door frame. Now he can put the barrel lock back where it was. 

We really like that particular modification and have added one on all of our RVs over the years. That sliding barrel lever allows us to add an extra sense of security when we have the main door open, but the screen door closed for fresh air within the motorhome. It also prevents any sassy little dog from leaping against the screen door and possibly popping it open!

We can just push the slider over to reach in and release it when we want to from the outside, but nobody else really knows it's there. 

From the inside, we can lock it if we are going to lay down and take a nap and we still want fresh air coming in through the screen door.

From the outside, we can just push the slider over and reach up inside and unlatch it. This is really great if we are out in the campsite, or maybe chatting with neighbors. 

The first time we ever installed one was after we had been sitting just a few campsites away with all of our friends and family at their campsite. It turns out some kids from the beach area had gone up into the campground and went from camper to camper, going inside of each one! (They later said they were looking for cigarettes or beer!!!!) One of our relatives saw them and chased them down back to their parents at the beach. The little criminals were like 10 or 12 years old and didn't seem too worried about getting caught.  And their parents didn't seem too concerned either. Geesh! We threatened to call the police, but they said their kids didn't take anything so "what of it"??? Then they packed up and left the beach.

Now--- back to the door:

Speaking of a sassy puppy possibly pushing open the door, we also added this fancy grill on the bottom portion of our screen door. Some of the RV grills available are just standard looking with a punched out metal grid. Not too pretty. But I really, really liked this one!

Believe it or not, we found it at Camping World. It was on sale too. I think you can find them in other RV places as well. I just thought they were a lot prettier than the standard extruded metal kind that you normally see. 

Another little thing we added to the motorhome this week was an actual compass. We had been using the digital one on my phone app, and it really isn't all that accurate. There are some times we want to know what direction we are facing when we are driving through and choosing campsites. We try to face our rig to the West if we can, so our passenger side with the refrigerator is facing to the north and out of the sun. Also our Starlink needs to face to the North so that's another reason to know what direction we are parking at --- and where we get a good open view of the sky.

Steve found this pretty one that attaches with a suction cup to the windshield. The only problem is we have accordion pleated shades that expand and retract across the windshield on slider rails. If we just stuck this compass with the suction cup, it would get in the way of the pleated shades.

There's no battery and no light on this compass, but it is made with a reflective quality to the bezel that kind of illuminates it just from daylight.

We looked around various spots to stick it. Finally we came up with the idea of attaching it right to the dash over on the driver's side. Steve can see it easily and we used a hunk of sticky gooey "nano tape" to fasten it right to the surface of the dash.

While we were out there in the motor home parked in the driveway, I decided that the motorhome needed a good cleaning up after our trip. I could smell faint reminiscent scent of campfires long passed. 

I removed all of the bedding and the quilts and even the throw pillows. Nick's little doggie bed went out for a trip through the washer and dryer as well.

The floors were pretty dirty, so I gave them a good sweeping. Then it was time to get out the Swiffer Wet Jet and really give the floors a scrub.  Even with just that small space, I used two pads and half a bottle of cleaner!! 

It smelled a lot better now.

Load by load, I finished up all of the quilts and sheets and blankets. Even all four of the throw pillows. Everything was done and fresh again.

Steve helped me carry it all out and make the bed. I hung up all of the newly washed towels in the bathroom, and reloaded the dish towels for the kitchen.  Now we are ready to roll as soon as the weather cooperates! 

In the meantime, we are content with just watching the wildlife in our own backyard.

These yearling youngsters are wandering around our neighborhood the past few weeks. Their mamas have kicked them away in preparation for having new fawns this spring. They don't quite know what to do, so they gather in our backyard and try lapping up all of the fallen bird seed, as well as nibbling off all the tender buds of our bushes, cedars, ivy and anything else they can find! We have fencing corraling all of our tender young trees and bushes and shrubbery.

Just about every evening, they wander in and hang out underneath our bird feeders. They lick up anything they find on the ground. Then they hop the fence to go next door and see if there's any apples on the ground underneath the neighbor's tree. They paw at the snow until they unearth any left over apples.

Nick enjoys watching them and is quite excited about their arrival each evening. He gives them a very sound scolding from behind the safety of our own glass windows or his fenced in potty yard. Of course, we would never let him chase after them because they would kick him in the head!

After that, this past week we have had torrential rain! It melted almost all of the snow. We did get a significant amount of ponding in our backyard, like we do every spring.

We glance out from time to time and see ducks floating around. Steve puts a pumping device out in the middle of the biggest pond and redirects the water to some of our underground drainage pipes.  From there, it flows out to the curb and gutter in front of the house.

He gets very busy moving the pump from place to place. He puts on his rubber boots and gets himself out there right in the puddles. He's kind of fanatical about it, and eventually he gets all of the water levels down and the yard dries out.

This is an every year occurrence because we are so low to the water table of Lake Michigan a half a mile away.

Because of the excess water in the yard, we get a variety of wildlife wandering on through. Some like the water, others try to avoid it and walk around it. There's generally a flock or two of turkeys that run between the nature preserve behind us, and cut through our yard to get to a field across the road.

Every year, a pair of sandhill cranes show up. They gracefully wade around our backyard, looking for goodies and dipping their heads down into the water from time to time. Not sure exactly what they are finding. But they are enjoying themselves. 

Every now and then they'll flap their wings up and down in their little mating ritual. They make the most god-awful racket of a squawking noise during the process. Then they disappear for a few weeks and then they come back later usually with a baby walking alongside of them. Did you know a baby sandhill crane is called a "colt"?

We really enjoy watching them carefully walking around through the water. They hang out for a while and then they move on either further into town, or back out through the nature preserve behind us. 

We are seeing a lot more bird activity, and a few nests are being reconstructed for the upcoming spring egg laying. This one is up in the crabapple tree, and we will probably see Mr and Mrs Robin tending the nest very soon.

A few of the huge pileated woodpeckers are back. They hang out poking in the holes of our decaying pine tree. So I'm assuming there are bugs in there. They also perch up here in the cottonwood tree and watch what's going on. They can gobble down a suet block in less than an hour. So we only put out one suet block a day. They chase all of the other birds away from it so they can gobble it up. These birds are so huge they are about the size of a chicken!!!

Various neighbors have been giving reports of movement on their security cameras. BEAR!!! So far he's only been in our yard once. He yanked the bird feeder down off the cable but didn't destroy it. Now we are taking the bird feeders in every night, and putting them back out in the morning.

I kind of feel sorry for him. The bears wake up and there's really nothing to eat in the woods. Nothing is growing yet. So they come into town and terrorize the houses looking for garbage or bird feeders to fill their tummies.

The thing is, they are getting too used to people and coming in to forage around when careless folks leave their trash out. We have even been getting warnings to not put out the city collection garbage bags until the morning of pickup. Some folks put them out the night before and that's an open invitation for a "bear buffet" up and down the street!


As the weather has warmed up, we had a nice family Easter gathering at our house. The Easter Bunny even made his appearance! (reluctantly)

So far this spring, in Wisconsin, we have had one nice day to come and sit out on the front porch. We enjoyed a little beverage after dinner and the sunshine streaming across the porch made us squint a bit in this photo.  This photo was taken 2 days before the RSV hit. First Steve, then me.

And thank you for all of you who have asked me about our dear friend Rosie. She is holding her own right now, but has been in and out of ICU several times. She is still hospitalized for the past three and a half weeks. We are hoping she will rally and gain strength and be home soon. All prayers are appreciated.

We sent her yellow tulips for friendship,

and they brightened her day.

Here's the video that goes along with portions of today's blog:

Please stay tuned and hold on tight until we get out camping again. In the meantime, we have a couple household projects we're going to work on. 

Trenching Project and Autumn Walk

We live in a low lying area with a large flat backyard.  We are at just about the same water level as the bay waters of Green Bay and into Lake Michigan. We live less than a mile as the crow flies from the bay.  Each spring, during snow melt and run off, as well as spring showers, we happen to get BIG ponds in our backyard!   

The ducks sure enjoy it! 

The backyard fills up with two large areas of standing water.  There are some underground drain pipes on the side of the yard that lead along the fenceline and out to the gutter on the street.  But this backyard ponding does not reach those existing pipes. I can not tell you much this BUGS Steve.  He has 2 pumps and various long hoses to move the massive amounts of water from the center of the yard over to the fenceline. Then it can run out to the road and away into the swamp down the street. 

All springtime long, he is out there pumping and moving hoses, and drains the ponds out. Then it rains and it fills up the same areas all over again.  Argghhhh.... 

The blue sections are where the water ponds up.  The red line is the existing underground drain piping that leads out to the street.  Steve decided to trench and lay new pipes along the yellow lines to get the water to move more easily. So this is "The Plan":

He made arrangements to rent the trenching machine from the local hardware store at $130 for half a day.  It sure made life easier than digging by hand!  

He marked out the paths and figured out the slope to the yard and where to connect to the other drainage pipe. He only ran into a few rocks, and no tree roots or problems.  Look at that soft sandy soil. 

I filmed him working on the yard for a bit, but it really was a "one man job" for the trenching part.  Here is all of the drain pipe that we were going to lay in the trench. Steve found a large used batch from a guy on Facebook Marketplace for a buck a piece!   We only had to buy the connector collars and glue.  Quite a good deal. 

He dug down about 16 inches to get the proper slope to drain the water in the right direction. Because of the nature of sandy soil, regular slotted drain tile would not work because it would fill with sand and silt over time. Solid PVC pipe would move the water more effectively out of the area, and he could even hook up a pump and use pressure to blow the water and lines free if they ever clog up. 

 It was great weather to work on the trenching 

and he was done in just under an hour! 

He cleaned up the machine and loaded it up on the trailer to bring it right back before the rental time was up. Otherwise it would stretch over into the full day rental rate. 

Now... we would get some of the grandkids over to help do the leaning-over-gluing-and-laying-pipe part of the job!  LOL

Donning plastic gloves, the grandkids pitched in to start gluing the pipes. In this area of the yard, Steve laid two narrower pipes for a number of reasons....

First:  he had more of the narrow pipes than the wider ones.  

Second: he can move more water (so he says) 

Third: it was good to have 2 pipes, in case one broke or clogged up. 

Clayton was happy to learn about using primer, then glue, then pushing the pipes together until the sealing process is complete.

Chelsea took her turn gluing pipes too (we promised some folding money to reward them for helping) so she wanted to earn some cash for a school event coming up. Good incentive to learn and earn as the same time. 

Now littlest Claire had to come and see what is going on. She was helping me in the house, but wanted to get out there to see what the big kids were doing with Grandpa. They were about halfway through the project of gluing the pipes. 

That little stinker threw a monkey wrench in the project! That wheelbarrow was setting there, and she just had to figure out how much fun a wheelbarrow can be.  It was pretty large and unwieldy for her.

So she convinced her big brother that he just HAD to wheel it around for her. Pretty soon they were giving rides and goofing off.  What can be more fun than a big ole wheelbarrow? 

So that was the end of our "help" as all the kids were having fun with the wheelbarrow.  The pipes were no longer any fun, and our project was done for the day.  

We called it quits, and instead baked up a couple pizzas and had a little party.  We paid the kids some folding money before bringing them home to complete homework and take baths, as it was a school night. 

The next day, Steve and I finished up the job.  We lightly shoveled the dirt back onto the pipes, leaving a mound along the entire trenched lengths of yard. The ground will settle back down into the trenches over time, we don't want to pack it down too firmly.  Now our backyard project is over.  Back to normal.

We will see next spring now well this idea works, and perhaps Steve doesn't have to keep on hauling out his hoses and pumps any more.  Then our yard can dry out faster, and grow the greener lawn like it is all summer long. 

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Yesterday, the day started out stormy and dark and rainy. I worked inside on my quilt (I will put that in the next blog) and Steve worked on the bedroom door out in the garage (also in the next blog).  

Early in the afternoon, the sun came out, the temps came up into the 50's and it was gorgeous!  So we took a nice walk before the sun went down.  I love the long shadows at this time of day. 

Binney was up to snuff and doing about a half mile walk with us around our big block on the edge of the city.  The leaves were rustling underfoot, and she had a lot of things to sniff. 

Around the corner from us is a beautiful rustic barn. I love the built in trellis on the side of it, and this vine has turned a gorgeous color of red and green and gold. 

This barn is so quaint and picturesque. Behind it is a cute chicken coop (now unused) with rows of windows that face south to keep them warm in the winter.  I know the name of the people who owned it many years ago, and they also grew hay in the back field and boarded horses in this barn. This was when the lands were still in the township, and not yet annexed into the city. I spoke to a man who used to live down the road in the city, and his family kept a horse here to ride as a kid. He thinks of that each time he drives past this barn.  Now all of our 2 1/2 acre plots are city lots, and no more horses are allowed.

We walked down past the barn on the gravel road, enjoying the sunshine and blue sky.  It sure was a nice Autumn day for a walk.

The next neighbors down the way have a huge clump of  this gorgeous Pampas grass. I have been told it's invasive and clogs the wetlands and hampers drainage.  This is one small patch, and I hope it doesn't spread. I do like the look of it though, as I am sure my neighbors do.  

It looks so pretty and soft 

against the blue sky.

After we got around the corner, now we reached the border of the nature preserve that runs along the back side of our property.  It was purchased years ago and turned into a trust on the lands by the Northeast Wisconsin Land Trust organization.  It will never be built on or developed, thus preserving the land, habitat and wildlife.  We are very lucky to have this in our backyard.  Even if the deer eat our trees and plants. 

THIS IS COPIED FROM THEIR WEBSITE:

Location: Oconto County

Area Protected: 148 Acres

The purchase of this property furthers our goals of preserving Green Bay West Shore wetlands, protecting wildlife habitat and impacting water quality. This property is situated uniquely within the City of Oconto’s limits between the high school and the DNR’s Green Bay West Shore Wildlife Area – Oconto Marsh Unit which connects to the Bay of Green Bay. Oconto’s elected officials and NEWLT are excited about promoting local land conservation and providing opportunities for outdoor recreation and education. The preserve will be open to the public to hunt, fish, hike, bird watch, cross-country ski and research the natural environment. NEWLT intends to promote recreation, education and increased connectivity by creating trails and working with the community and school groups. 

The majority of the property is a DNR designated wetland. The eastern portion of the property has been identified as a high priority wetland by the Great Lakes Coastal Wetland Monitoring Program through the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and by The Nature Conservancy’s Coastal Wetland and Tributary Decision Support Tool. The wetlands present are rated high or exceptional for water quality, flood abatement, carbon storage and wildlife habitat. There is one large pond and a smaller ephemeral pond.

Two DNR “Legacy Places” apply to the property, The West Shore Green Bay Wetlands and The Oconto River Marsh. Also identified as an Important Bird Area (IBA) by the DNR, the Green Bay West Shore Wetlands IBA has long been recognized as an important area for migrating waterfowl, shorebirds, and neo-tropical migrants, foraging shorebirds, and breeding rare birds. The DNR’s 928 acre Green Bay West Shore Wildlife Area – Oconto Marsh Unit borders the east side of the property.

We hope you will visit this property and enjoy walking around to view the different habitat types. Bring your boots if you're feeling adventurous for a wetland hike on the eastern portion of the preserve.

THERE IS A LITTLE PARKING AREA

AND A PATH LEADING BACK INTO THE PRESERVE. 

We turned back towards our yard as the sun was setting lower in the sky.  We took deep breaths to hold in the fresh scents of autumn, and hope to save them to remember deep into the snowy winter about what a great day this was. 

Along the backside of our property, Steve has stacked two huge piles of cut buckthorn shrubs. They are also invasive and we have a long row of it along the south border of our acreage.  If he keeps cutting a little more each fall, and spraying the stumps to prevent regrowth, maybe it will all die off. 

The city workers will take note of the piles back here when we come for garbage pickup. They write down the location and in a day or two later, they will come with the city trucks and woodchipper machine to get rid of them. 

Binney frantically took one last sniff, one last snuffle among the leaves and then turned with us to go back into the house.  Our walk was over. 

Now it can snow.