Author: Rae

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First Official Mail Received At My New Address

I went to the post office this morning and my box was full. I got a replacement part for my water filter, printer ink, and then two official-looking envelopes, one from the RM of Willow Bunch and the other from the Southland Co-Op.

The first letter wasn’t my water bill, as I expected, but instead my property tax notice. I am going to go so broke paying my $25 property tax bill every year! 😀

The second letter was confirmation that the Southland Co-Op has accepted my application. I am officially a resident of the area! It costs $10 to join the Co-Op, so I was very pleased to find a $5 gift card in the envelope! The benefit of joining the Co-Op is that you get equity back every year and you can get a payout at retirement age.

Now that I have a couple of proofs of residence, it’s time to start working on my transfer to Saskatchewan. I’ll likely go into Assiniboia on Thursday or Friday to talk to an insurance company and get the ball rolling.

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Upgrading a Magnetek Converter

Stock RV converters are notoriously poor battery chargers. One of the worst, and most common, is the Magnetek. It is essentially a trickle charger that can boil batteries dry because it doesn’t know when to stop charging. I spent up to six months at a time plugged into shore power in the last few years and I know that is part of the reasons my last set of batteries didn’t last long.

Because the charger in the Magnetek only puts out a few amps, it is not efficient for charging batteries with a generator. I usually consume 45 to 70AH per day and the generator puts back in an average of 1.5AH. At that rate, I would have to run my genset for up to 47 hours to get a full charge using the Magnatek only! Of course, I have solar, but when it’s grey like it’s been here the last little while, solar just isn’t enough.

An easy and relatively inexpensive solution is to charge the RV batteries with a dedicated charger that can put in up to 15A. This works well enough when I turn off the solar, otherwise the dedicated charger thinks the batteries are full and won’t work. But it’s a pain to have to hook it up and run an extension cord.

What many boondockers do instead is upgrade their Magnetek converter to a better multi-stage smart charger, such as a Progressive Dynamics Converter Upgrade Section, matching the Progressive Dynamics unit to their Magnetek model. For example, my Magnetek was a 45A model, so I had to pair it up with the 45A Progressive Dynamics model.

I picked this converter upgrade because it was well rated and available on Amazon so it didn’t cost me much out of pocket ($2 for the unit, $21 for tax, plus the gas to go get it in Montana). I had it shipped to Opheim, MT, where it arrived Friday.

This morning, I headed out around 8:45 and enjoyed a scenic, albeit very isolated, drive to the border where I was grilled about my last trip to the US. Oh, I hope not to have any issues this fall…

My package wasn’t at the post office since they don’t accept Fed Ex, but I was told to try the bar across the street. My package was there and cheerfully given to me in exchange for $5. I got some beer for C&C while I was there, filled up with gas since the SK stations were closed for the civic holiday, and then I headed home.

I got grilled by CDN customs about why I’m now living out here and then paid the duty and tax on the beer and the tax on the converter. Then, it was an easy drive home. The trip took just under three hours.

I got to work immediately, having previously read the instructions and gathered the bulk of the tools I would need (many types and sizes of screw drivers and wrenches, plus a wire cutter that I only needed because one screw in my DC panel was badly stripped and I couldn’t get the wire out without cutting it). I also had different coloured electrical tape on hand to use as markers. This came in handy when I had to wire the new DC panel as I had many wires the same colour. I wrapped each one in a different coloured tape and then made a note of in which order I had to reconnect the colours.

Installation was easy. I just followed the step by step instructions and really didn’t have any problems beyond needing a strange screw driver that isn’t stock in most basic tool kits (thankfully, I’m well beyond a basic tool kit) and having to struggle with too short wire lengths. It took me 2.5 hours to install and a good part of that involved getting up to get more tools, trying to get the flashlight angled so that I could see, and wrestling with tight screws. None of the difficulties had to do with the technical part of the installation.

I’ve been so nervous about tapping into the factory-installed wiring, but now that I have, more upgrades are in my future!

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Beer On the Porch

Laura came over around 7:30 to get some more information I had printed out for her. It was a nice evening, just a little cool, so I had put out some chairs in case she wanted to have a beer and a chat. She did, so we gabbed for about an hour. I love having a semblance of a porch since it’s so rare that I host others (but not rare for me to bring beverages to share at a gathering). L thinks that once my awning is down regularly, my porch will be all the more inviting.

I hadn’t had dinner and thought I was too tired to cook, but Laura brought me some fresh picked green beans! Green beans are on my list of most favourite things in the universe, so after she left, I put together a dinner of a teeny amount of rice, a chicken breast, and a giant mound of green beans. YUM!!!

I still have some transcription left to do and am going to power through then have a long hot shower. My wrists and lower arms are going to be soooooore tomorrow!

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Driving It Home

I got up early this morning to work on a transcription project, then I printed out some stuff for Laura and headed for her place. There, I helped her level her new fridge, a job that wound up being much hard than either one of us would have expected.

We then headed across the street to see if C&C needed our help. Not yet. We were asked to come back around 1:00. So I went home to do a load of laundry and continue with my transcription.

I returned to C&C’s promptly at 1:00 and got put to work. They had spent the morning laying out and leveling patio blocks that would serve as the foundation for their addition. The next step was to build the beams on which the floor joists will rest. Making their own beams would cost a fraction of buying them premade, plus the premade ones would have been too short anyway.

So the afternoon passed quickly to the sound of hammers pounding big spikes to connect three layers of wood. My wrists were already a little tender from yesterday’s hauling, so I ran out of steam in a couple of hours. No problem, that coincided with snack time. Caroline makes wonderful coffee and has it exactly the way I do, so a cup of her joe is always perfect. 🙂

It then took only an hour to do the remaining half of the job. I then earned a ginormous and delicious gin and tonic. Yuuuuuuum.

I’m feeling quite done for the day, but I still have a little transcription to do, so I’m trying not to crash. I’d rather finish it tonight so I can sleep in tomorrow before heading to Montana.

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On the Work Detail

I promised C&C that I would help them with their house this weekend. So I showed up around 11:00 this morning and was put to work spreading out the gravel for the new addition’s foundation. The first step was to shovel it from the front of the house into a wheelbarrow and then trundle it to the other end to eventually be spread.

That job nearly done, we got a snack break for a cinnamon roll and coffee. I’m pretty sure I haven’t had a cinnamon roll since the Braeburn Lodge ones Spike Fortier of Alaskan Discovery RV Tours would bring the Bonanza Gold staff in Dawson.

One word: YUM.

Fortified by our snack, we got the gravel moved and then we had to spread it out with rakes. That got interrupted by Laura returning from town with her brand new refrigerator, which we helped unload, unpack, and move into her kitchen before bringing out her old one.

We finished spreading the gravel after and it was then time to pack it. Charles and I moved sheets of plywood around and Caroline drove over them in her little car. After a good round of that, she went in to make us lunch (bless her) and Charles and I continued to pack the gravel using water-filled barrels. Those suckers were HEAVY.

A hearty lunch of Caroline’s chicken noodle soup was then muchly appreciated. That was pretty much it for the day so I headed home to do a load of laundry and get started on a transcription project. I’ll be back on the work detail tomorrow. We’re apparently going to be laying the foundation blocks and making up the floor beams.