A second ... and more successful ... day of repairing the damage of Friday's day of bickering. Not helped much by my depression ! I continued ... and finished, I hope ... refinishing the top of Joanne's cutlery box and half the top of our dining room table.
Monday ; Sunny and hot, and forecast to get hotter over the next week, temperatures well over 100 degrees F. I made banana chips in the Sun Oven today.
I reassembled and reinstalled the refinished cutlery box and dining room table top. Well done, Daniel ! < sigh > The completion of those jobs left me no choice but to start the repair that I have been dreading on the camper. I began to disassemble the passenger's side rear lower skirt panel, including removing the electric jack from that rear corner. Behind a reflector lens I found a carriage bolt that is going to have to be cut off < sigh >. Hopefully tomorrow I will finish the disassembly and then I can assess the magnitude of the dry rot problem behind there and what I need to do to repair / replace / rebuild the rotten sections of wood.
Before supper we went to the pool to cool down. Good idea, we should do that daily in this hot weather. I moved our new ( to us ) swamp ( evaporative ) cooler from the gazebo to the bedroom, to give it a try overnight. I poured a gallon of water into it and turned it on about 10 PM. It was an instant hit with Sully.
EXCELLENT barbecued salmon for supper tonight ! I LOOOOOVE summer !
Tuesday ; Sunny and hot, temperature of 102 degrees at 5 PM, possibly hotter a bit earlier. This morning and early afternoon I made sun dried Roma tomatoes in the Sun Oven. Later in the afternoon Joanne cooked a sausage, tomato, and rice stew in the Sun Oven.
I continued working on tearing apart the camper's passenger side rear lower skirt.
I have now disassembled as much as I need to. The dry rot damage is slightly less than I had expected. So ... hopefully ... the repairing / rebuilding will be easier than I had expected, as well.
Joanne went into town for a routine doctor's appointment. For the last couple of years
I have become increasingly intolerant of our family doctor's chronic inability to stay anywhere near on schedule, and his disrespect for the value of his patients' time. Today ... I made a decision. I will not tolerate his behaviour any longer. He is no longer my family doctor. Joanne's appointment was for 3 PM. His final appointment for each day is at 3 PM, with the hope that he will actually see his final patient before the clinic closes at 5 PM. Today ... he saw Joanne a bit after 6 PM ... more than three hours behind schedule ! ! ! ! ! Goodbye, Dr. Biggs ! As my "family doctor" ... you're fired !
Wednesday ; Sunny and hot.
Got up at 7 AM to drive neighbour / friend into town at 7:20 AM to catch Greyhound bus. ZZZZZZZZZZ ! ! ! Went back to sleep for a couple of hours.
Spent the day in Penticton running errands. Hot ! Joanne still ill ... stamina low !
Thursday ; Sunny and hot !
Picked raspberries and strawberries in neighbour's garden again. Dried tomatoes in Sun Oven again. Loaded camper ( in storage area ) onto truck, unloaded camper into our yard. Hard work in this heat ! Think I have rot repair project questions answered.
Received phone calls from a couple of Similkameen Trailer Towing clients. One wants minor service on two trailers in Penticton tomorrow morning. One wants large truck camper picked up tomorrow afternoon in Chilliwack ( about 300 km. / 200 miles away ) and brought to Cawston. Shaping up to be a long, hard day tomorrow !
We went to Princeton for supper. A relatively new, upscale bakery has decided to branch out, offering dinner two nights per week. On Thursdays they offer all you can eat spaghetti, made with freshly made pasta, and a meat sauce made with veal. Very delicious ! I don't think I've ever had freshly made pasta before. If I did, I was unaware. And we ate on their new, small, outdoor patio. Lovely warm evening, beautiful sunset ... very romantic dinner and drive home down Old Hedley Road.
As I approached the bridge in Princeton over the Tulameen River ... there was a deer in the middle of the bridge. I slowed down, straddled the center line to block traffic in both directions, turned on my flashers, and slowly drove across the bridge, herding the deer off the bridge. It was a bit tricky. If I drove a bit too fast, the deer would veer to the edge of the bridge and contemplate jumping off ! Fortunately, oncoming traffic realized what was going on, and stopped before the bridge, allowing the deer an exit route. Had to slam on the brakes and dodge deer twice more on the way home ! Hazard of driving around here at dusk, I guess.
Friday ; Sunny and hot !
I had severe insomnia, tossing and turning until 6 AM. So ... I got two hours of sleep before I had to get up. Fortunately, the Chilliwack to Cawston truck camper delivery job was cancelled. Client couldn't decide whether to wind her watch, take a shit, or steal third base ! At 10 AM we headed to Penticton.
I was hired by a previous trailer delivery client to do a "service call" today on her and her daughter's trailers, both in an RV park in Penticton. Easy work, easy money. Happy client, I hope. Ran some errands in Penticton and Keremeos. Played "Good Samaritan" to a couple of tourists from Holland in a rented RV, with vehicle problems in Keremeos. Took them to Sean at K Mountain Auto Repair. Left them in his capable hands. Good luck ! Enjoy your visit to Canada !
Spent the rest of the very hot afternoon working on the truck camper rot repair project. Thought I had all the questions answered. I was wrong !
Saturday ; Sunny and hot, temperature over 100 degrees F. / 40 degrees C. again ! Actually ... < whispering > ... I kind of like it !
We spent much of today working on the truck camper rot repair project. Joanne is helping out by undertaking a slow, laborious clean up of the aluminum skin panel. Seventeen year old, baked on, old caulking is pretty hard to remove ! Thank you, my dear.
Proving that the squeaky wheel gets greased, this park's "powers that be" have for years operated on the premise that any and all marmots are harmful and should be eliminated, in response to "some" residents' concerns. There has been nothing that we can do about that, other than be displeased while respecting the process of "democracy". Until today !
Our park keeps a couple of small animal traps set up along our riverfront walkway. Today while we were cooling off at the pool a neighbour made us aware that one of the traps contained a marmot. Rather than wait for the ... < ahem > ... "gentleman" ... from town that our park employs to "deal" with our trapped marmots, I took matters into my own hands. I drove our truck down to the waterfront, walked down the pathway to where the traps were, and found ... BOTH traps had BABY marmots inside.
How brilliant. Let's trap BABY marmots and then let them die a slow death inside traps in temperatures above 100 degrees ! How utterly brilliant ! ! ! I loaded both traps into the bed of our truck, drove halfway to Hedley, and released the marmots, hopeful that they’re old enough to survive away from their mother. Better to be away from their mother than shot, I hope.
I also hope that some of my neighbours read this ... and feel the shame that they should !
DSK
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