Southern SK had a bad windstorm yesterday. I think the record was gusts of 120KPH in Swift Current. We were gusting around 85 to 90KPH here. It didn’t scare me the way past windstorms have frightened me in the past. It was just more of an annoyance since the evening was a write-off.
And then bedtime came.
The winds were letting up enough that the rig had stopped rocking, but the tarp was flapping badly in the wind. It’s actually very secure and held up beautifully, but there was extra material at the front that kept slapping against the overhang. After two hours of trying to sleep and even going out in my pajamas to add a little more reinforcements, I stalked off to the office with my pillows and duvet. Yay for the second bed! And even more yay that the weight loss means that said bed in the back was actually super comfy!
An RV is not suitable Saskatchewan accommodation… 🙂 I think a project for next summer will be to find someone who can help me really get the RV secure so it doesn’t rock so badly in the wind, whether we put it on blocks, strap it down, whatever.
It should be a pretty quiet Thanksgiving today now that the storm has passed. I want to make some soup that I would have made last night (…). C&C invited me out to Fife Lake for a steak dinner tonight (grill your own), so that should be fun. I just have to stress that I can’t be back toooo late. What with last night being mostly a write-off, I can’t afford for tonight to be, too.
The countdown to departure is really on. After today, I’ll only have one Monday left before I leave. And speaking of Mondays, one week, and 12-some hours left till we know if we have a new government or not…
I am working the advance polls…they don’t even open the votes on the advance polls until the night of the 19th actual election. They only count them to see voter turnout so nobody will find out until then. Lots of people turned out though – I expect it to be excellent voter turnout all over. We had lineups over an hour the first day which is unforgivable but elections Canada only permitted one poll station per most locations. People were mostly nice with one or two exceptions.
I am really glad to hear that they don’t open the ballots till the night of the election. Thanks for confirming that, and thanks for your service!
There are usually long lineups. I think the reason for it is the low tech way we do our elections. Five minutes of the time I spent were because of the returning officers flipping through paperwork trying to find me. I think it would be cost prohibitive to take our elections into the electronics age, but we may not have a choice one day. What I envision, as more and more people have smart phones, is a very simple scanner system to complement the paper system, where you get a QR or bar code that can be scanned at the poll. I wouldn’t want electronic ballots the way the US has, though.
We are members of the NDP and when there is an election for leader we vote on the Internet. We get mailed the website and a PIN. We then go to the website and vote using our name and PIN. It seems to work without a hitch. I think we should try it out for general elections, maybe starting at municipal elections and then expanding to Provincial and finally Federal. Then we could vote even if we were away from home.
That’s how I vote for the NDP leader, too. Works well.
The Canadian government is very slow to get online services and when it does, they are terrible and archaic. I’m not ready for them to screw up our elections that way…
It would be a very good idea to secure and level Miranda using concrete blocks and wood shims. Just jack up the highest corner 2 or 3 inches (enough to take pressure off the springs) and block it. Then work your way around the other three corners, jacking them all up to level one at a time. Do a final check for level and then install skirting and build a set of wider stairs.
Not really a hard job if you have or can borrow a good bottle jack. You have the tools and a proven record of the ability to do these things.
I don’t know how you have secured your tarp but I have heard that using bungie cords on all the grommets helps keep it tight.
I tried that with L two summers ago, but the jack just kept going into the gravel. Maybe now that the gravel is harder packed, it will work.
Forget bungies with the tarp! C&C had to retarp me last winter because the bungies were just too flexible. They tied it down with baling twine. I did the same thing this year, but skipped the step where I literally wrapped a rope around circumference of the rig a few times. So that’s this afternoon’s project.
If the jack kept sinking then the concrete blocks might as well. Maybe use a 2X2 foot concrete pad on the ground and work up from there. Or like you say, the ground may have hardened. You should figure out a way to do it as you could start having tire failure as well because of lack of use and age.
At this point, I’m banking on the ground being hard enough to hold the weight. I’ve just been sinking all summer at the rear driver’s side tire and I doubt I’ll be able to move the RV again next year to get myself level, so, really, I need to find an alternate solution. I may try to relevel myself before I go this fall, just to make it ‘less worse’ when I get back in the spring.
If you can jack that wheel up high enough just throw some rocks under the tires to keep it up. Temporary fix without moving onto another piece of soft ground.
Also, if you have not been at least starting and idling the truck engine it is doubtful it will start without some work. The fuel has probably gone bad and will probably be full of water.
I started the RV in one try after recharging the battery the day I got home. 🙂 🙂 🙂
I had the same thought as you, to try to get it jacked up enough to get another leveler underneath. Will have to see if I can borrow a jack to do that.