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?

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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? 

Orange Trees - Doc Report - I WON I WON - Restoring Union Loom

For Christmas last winter, my parents sent us a box full of fresh oranges picked out of their backyard on Lyle's land. The oranges were absolutely wonderful in flavor and taste. Nothing like you can buy in the stores around here.

Lyle said to save the seeds and plant them and they might grow real trees. Because they were not some hybrid or GMO created type orange strain, the seeds may very well sprout into trees.

I did just that! I saved 12 seeds and planted them. They were very slow to sprout, took about 2 months.  I tended them all the way through the spring and summer. I got these wonderful little sprouts but they are very slow growing. I was told it takes a long time to grow an orange tree.

Mom and Lyle visited this summer

and I took these pics of him 

with the orange seedlings:

Now that these sprouts are about 4 or 5 in tall, what am I going to do with them?

I really have no interest in growing a full size orange tree in my house. Of course, an orange tree outdoors would never last in Wisconsin winter. What to do?

I called our local high school and asked for the name of their science teacher that handles any type of horticulture class. They passed me on to Amy Theilman who said she would very gladly accept the orange tree seedlings. We arranged a time to meet over at the high school and drop off the plants so she could transplant them into larger containers and grow them in the school's greenhouse

She let us tour around the science lab and see some of the other projects they were working on. They are training white rats to do some tricks by conditioning with positive reinforcement. They had a great big bunny rabbit there. She explained some of the other programs that the students are taking part of, including a plant sale every year for Mother's Day. They grow the plants and the Art Department decorates the pots. How cool is that?

She will now try to grow the seedlings into full grown orange trees and hopefully the students will learn something along the way. It would be wonderful to get a call years from now and say that the trees are bearing fruit and come eat an orange???

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Yesterday, I did a little trek up to Green Bay to my wonderful gastrologist doctor at Aurora BayCare Hospital,  Dr. Peter Stanko. I've been seeing him for fifteen years now. Ever since my accident at work that resulted in three major surgeries to my stomach (from chemical burns to my esophagus and lungs).  We went over a bunch of records and tests and he is delighted with progress of my slowly weaning off a lot of the gastric medications. I am down to now only taking pain medications if I have a severe attack .... Things are going quite well. He is pleased with the healing progress of the Barrett's Disease in the esophagus and said things are healing up nicely. Now, as long as my gallbladder behaves and does not flare up, perhaps no more surgeries, scopings or gastric biopsies are necessary. He said it would be a real mess to get in there and cut if a surgery were needed. Of course, in an emergency we would do it. If you're curious, Google "Nissan Fundoplication Complications" and you will see what a mess I am inside.  Ewwwww

Nuff said on that.

~~~~~~

I WON I WON!!!  A Facebook drawing was held for a quilt store, It's called Twin Turtle Quilts located near my friend Juanita, in Clinton, WI.  I won a gift certificate for $25.  Happy Birthday to me, I have to use it by Oct. 31st (my birthday)

http://www.twinturtlequilts.com/

Twin Turtle Quilts

Teresa Popanz, owner

Post Office Box 335

244 Allen Street

Clinton, WI 53525

(608) 676-6196

I looked around her website and ordered a couple panels of some of her coffee themed prints, and some coordinating fabrics to blend with them....

It was sooo much fun to pick out the fabrics by messenger and have Teresa coordinate them for me and cut them and now she will ship them out to me.

 I already have a pattern in mind.  I think it would be a cute cuddly quilt on a rainy day, sipping coffee and feeling warm inside and out.

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Earlier this spring, I picked up a Union Custom 42 inch wide two harness rug loom. I'm finally getting around to it's restoration. It originally came in the blue color, and it's between 80 and 100 years ago.

http://www.weaversfriend.com/page1/page8/page8.html

The 2 grandsons helped Steve assemble it last month. 

 Then they helped me scrub it all down good!

I was debating if I should repaint it all with the original blue. It would look fresh and crisp, but then I decided to keep it as original as possible. If someone wants to buy it and repaint it themselves, they are welcome to do it.

I still have to hang the harnesses back on and attach the treadles.  Then put the beater back on with the reed. It will be ready to weave!  (there is some old warp on there that is pretty, but I would rewarp with new warp if I was going to keep it.  It is just too wide for my loom room and would take the space of both of my Newcomb looms that only weave 32 inches wide.

My friend Hilary from New York sent me a crank handle, and my friend Tina from Indiana sent me some new heddles for the harnesses. Steve has helped grind the rust off of the handle and the reed and I will soon put it all back together.

 I will post it for sale once it is in operating condition. 

Stay tuned if you are looking for a good solid rug loom.

I will deliver it for the cost of gas, a reasonable distance around Wisconsin. I will probably be selling it for $300 and post it on Craigslist and the Facebook Buy Sell Trade pages. I have found some of the same model online for $500-700.  If you come to my house to get it, I will include a free weaving lesson on my own looms that are set up inside. Also included will be two DVDs, one which is a beginning weaving DVD. The other, is my own DVD that I self-produce and market called "How To Warp a Sectional Loom". I also sell those on Etsy and Ebay and on my own website, in case you are interested:

https://www.etsy.com/shop/KarenInTheWoods

http://www.ebay.com/itm/300817626591

https://kareninthewoods.com/

Here it is already Friday, and the weekend promises to be some pretty nice warm weather here in Wisconsin ... above-normal temperatures in the 70s.  I want to get this loom finished up.

Steve is going to do some work at the Calumet County Historical Museum and we picked up some lumber this week so he can jump on it right away tomorrow morning. Got to get it done before the temperatures turn cold in the snow starts to fly he said.

In a way, I'm kind of looking forward to Winter.

We don't know if we're going south this winter 

or out to the desert this winter 

or staying home???