Personal

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Rae Versus The Moth

Just a bit of levity on a very hazy and smokey morning…

I have been dealing with a moth for about a week now. It comes out as soon as I go to bed, attracted by the light in the loft emanating from my iPad. It is HUGE. I can hear it coming, its wing flapping being that loud.

When it arrives, it repeatedly dive bombs me, landing on my head, my hands, and my thighs, as well as on the iPad. I have on multiple occasions thought that I managed to smack it because it lies still, but as soon as I go to dispose of the body, it takes off again. Yes, the moth is playing dead. I have determined that not only is it sentient, it’s smarter than me!

It took me ages to go to sleep last night because I was laughing so hard at the moth’s antics. It really does seem to be toying with me. I started giggling as soon as I heard the drone of its wings and then, boom! Impact with my ear! Then it flew around a bit while I tried to smack it, played dead for a bit, then took off, only to land on my NOSE.

I finally shut the iPad and the moth left. I’m at the point where I think it has earned the right to live since it has obviously outsmarted me, so I’ll just consider it a sign that I need to turn off the light and get some sleep!

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Mexico Visitors (Well, Really From Kelowna)

Colin and Contessa dropped by for a visit on Monday night! I was waiting for Contessa’s post about the visit before publishing my own.

I was still in Mexico when we started to plan this stopover and it’s a little surreal for it to have happened! They have been on a grand tour of western Canada for a couple of weeks and I was their next stop after Winnipeg, a couple hours detour versus taking the Transcanada straight through to Calgary.

Now that I have my own place, it’s really important for me to start paying back all the hospitality I have received over the years and I’m pleased that they accepted my invitation.

I thought that they could just park on the street in front of the property so they wouldn’t have to unhook, but Colin is particular about no trees touching the RV at all and there were a few low lying wispy branches that he was concerned about, so he decided to unhook and back into my driveway. They both felt more comfortable letting the slides out that way, even though I knew they would have been fine with the slides open on the street since we don’t get traffic worth mentioning overnight. All FYI for future guests of RV Park Chez Rae!

Two RVs and two toads fit comfortably on my driveway!

Two RVs and two toads fit comfortably on my driveway!

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Lots of room to move around even with the slides out.

I had run them two extension cords for 20A service and they hooked up to it. I spent the 2012 summer hooked up to 20A with these exact two cords and had done all the testing to check for voltage drop when running heavy appliances like the AC and there was no voltage drop worth mentioning. So the cords are well rated for this application. Colin had the necessary adapters to drop from 50A to 15A.

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This might look scary, but it’s perfectly electrically sound. 🙂

I let them get set up and take care of their dogs and then we sat outside with wine so we could catch up. It was the most beautiful day we’ve had since I got here and HOT. They’d just come from endless grey and wet, so this was a real blessing.

Once everyone was relaxed and a little lubricated, we got hungry, so I went in to cook. I don’t know how many times I’ve landed somewhere exhausted and been treated to a meal, so making dinner for us was really important to me. They eat very similarly to how I do, so coming up with a menu was super easy. I wanted something for which I could do all the prep ahead of time and then cook in under 20 minutes. So on the menu was zucchini ‘pasta’, a fresh tomato sauce, sautéd garlic shrimp, grated real Parmesan cheese, and a corn tortilla each. Contessa contributed a wonderful Caesar salad and wine! Dinner came together fast and was well received. 🙂

After dinner, I did the washing up while Contessa sat at my desk and wrote a blog post (since the internet signal doesn’t go beyond my office). She was several days behind, hence why this post is so late as I promised I wouldn’t blog about their visit until she did. 🙂

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This is a first, someone else sitting at my desk!

I lounged on the bed in the study with my own wine and my Chaco Canyon book while she wrote, just enjoying the end to a very full and lovely day.

We all went to bed fairly early and slept well. Like me, they appreciated the quiet and freshness of the air here.

Morning was very quick. Colin moved the motorhome onto the street and hooked up. They signed some paperwork that I had printed the night before and then I witnessed it before scanning it and emailing it. They left around 8:00. Seeing them drive off, I had a realisation and yelled out to Contessa’s waving arm, “See you in Mexico!” Don’t we have amazing lives?! 🙂

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Solar Powered

I never cease to be amazed by how different I feel when it’s sunny and pleasant out versus rainy or even just grey and damp. I knew this when I bought the property, of course, which is why buying property in what is supposed to be one of the sunniest and driest climates in Canada was important to me. We had a great 2013 summer and I was busy and super active, but it was all grey and rain last year and my activity level really dropped.

This summer is starting off shakily, with the odd beautiful day cut by a stretch of grey. I have been feeling utterly bla the last four or five days and thought I was coming down with a cold. But it started to clear up yesterday and it has been absolutely marvelous today. Guess what? I’m running on about six hours of sleep, absolutely all I needed and being incredibly productive!

I thought I had about 11 hours of work to do today, but it wound up being one of those files with a lot of dead air that goes very fast, so it’s going to come in at about only 6.5 hours worth of work. I started around 7:00 and then took a long break to work on my roof.

There are no pictures of the roof repair because, frankly, I don’t need anyone going YEESH. 🙂 I used a hair dryer to soften the Eternabond and it came right up.

(For the curious, I plugged an extension cord into an outlet in the kitchen, threw the cord out a window, and then threw the cord up onto the roof! I carried the hair dryer and supplies in a bag slung over my shoulder.)

I then scraped off all the Dicor and then washed with rubbing alcohol, which brought everything up. I’ve tried mineral spirits and acetone and the alcohol did the best job, even though it’s not something I’ve seen recommended for this type of project. Hmm. It really was impressive. I had little bits of Dicor that refused to come up and I just had to sprinkle them with rubbing alcohol to get them to peel off cleanly!

For the repair, I used Rust-Oleum Leak Seal in clear. I had a choice of black, grey, or clear and wish I had gone with the grey so that I could see if I missed any spots. This is a very easy product to use, similar to spray paint, and there is no mess. I applied, as directed, a fine initial layer along the entire seam, then I climbed down to have lunch.

When I came back onto the roof about an hour later, the rubber coating seemed to have seeped into the grooves and cracks of the seam, a good thing! I applied a second thicker coat (again, as per instructions), and headed back down to get more work done. I went up another hour later and applied a final coat, as I only had just enough in the can for three coats.

I’m cautiously optimistic optimistic at this point since the entire seam is covered with a thickish layer of rubber. But I believe in overkill, so I’m going to check the home stores in Assiniboia the next time I’m in town to see if they carry this product so I can do another three coats.

If this repair doesn’t hold, I am pulling out all the stops and going up there with more Dicor, screws, and a piece of metal roofing! In fact, I have a piece of ridge cap the right length and width left. Now, wouldn’t that be a redneck solution?! But hopefully, this will work…

The roof dealt with, I came in to type some more, then did some work in the kitchen. I want to add a counter under the window on the driver’s side. I thought of doing that last year, but the money went elsewhere. I think it’ll happen this year.

So that’s all the excitement out of southern Saskatchewan today. Back to work I go since I still have about 1.5 hours left. I don’t even feel daunted by that since I expected to be glued to my computer today rather than having had the chance to knock off a few projects!

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Thank You

Over the years, a lot of you lovely readers have allowed me to park my RV on your property and often took on the role of local guide. I’ve always been grateful for your hospitality.

This past month, I was offered hospitality beyond a place to park my house. I was invited into homes and lives. Thanks to lovely readers Kelly, John, and Vicki I was able to get work done, spend money on exploring instead of a bed, and take a break from living out of my truck.

I sometimes find myself wondering why the heck I spend so much time blogging. This past month was a really good reminder. Blogging has brought me in contact with so many generous and wonderful people.

Thank you to each and everyone of you! And remember, RV Park Chez Rae is open for the season!

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Typing

Work is a little out of hand this week, but needs to be done! I’m enjoying my Truth or Consequences apartment very much, especially the comfy bed in a dark and quiet room, as well as the kitchen. The weather has been beautiful, but I haven’t gotten out at all except to the grocery store across the street. This is simply not a tourism stop.

On top of my regular workload, I have to do all the bookkeeping to close April and start May. It’s especially important for me to keep on top of the budget when I have expenses straddling two months and I’m not entering transactions daily. I’ve gotten used to dealing with the three different currencies, but the addition of US cash is giving me a little more work. I may change my mind and just go back to using the credit card for everything and entering estimated totals until the transactions are posted to my account.

I came in right on budget for April, with about 30CAD to spare! This is a far cry from my last couple of months in Mexico where I usually ended with several hundred dollars to spare, but considering all the extra expenses I had this past month (not counting the truck, which came in within its own budget), I’m just glad to still be in the black!

I should perhaps point out that this is not the balance in my chequing account. I use a zero-sum budgeting approach where my budget resets to zero every month, I can only spend the money I earned for that month, and anything not spent at the end goes into the emergency fund. So this means is that I didn’t have to dip into the emergency fund this month and I put $30 into it. Every little bit helps. 🙂