Just the boys
***Bob IS down to 19 pounds from 22!
RV Hydraulics – jacks and slides
The motorhome has been to the shop for lube-oil-filter and general maintenance check… AND for the hydraulic failure experienced on the way home from Colorado. Shop, in tandem with HWH (hydraulics mfg) believe the problem is a bad pump and a new one is on it’s way from Iowa – scheduled to be installed on Mon, 7/30. Too bad it wasn’t a fuse… But, I want to document the fuse locations – for RV friends the Smith’s also Adventurer owners and an ORS member with a similar Winnebago hydraulic system.
Some photos of the hydraulic pump/motor, inline fuses and what I think is the hydraulic fuse box (this post to document locations of fuses and hydraulics for jacks and slides):
Pump – looking down into the engine compartment, just to the passenger side of the middle, right against the front grille.
Above – the elusive inline fuses – circled with white…. These were “buried” in amongst the wiring for the slide-out solenoids and jack valves. I started tracing wires away from the pump to find them – once I had the description of what to look for. You can hopefully see the fuse I’m holding – I have the cap back to expose the actual fuse – others have their caps on. The photo is taken from underneath – I’m on the ground looking up into the engine compartment at the underside of the hydraulic pump.
Above – looking in from the driver door under the steering column – behind the carpeted “board” is where the Above right “box” is.
You can just see part of the HWH (hydraulics mfg).
Taking back the Front Porch
By popular demand…the outfit….
Day 2 was much less stressful – it was cooler by 10 degrees and my anxiety level was less due to the success of day 1 – there were no visible wasps – a second dose of the foamy spray, knocked down the remaining 2 nests and done. I did do another walk around and found one mini-nest – stragglers from yesterday rebuilding??? Not sure but I will have to keep a watch.
Last night I went out with a glass of ginger ale spiked with maraschino cherries – all quiet… spritzed some fresh hair spray – still quiet. We’ll see – hard to believe there aren’t some colonies in one of the wood piles but maybe reducing the population on the house will do the trick.
At the moment, the front porch is ours!
Mad as a hornet!
– at Yellow Jackets – I think they are Yellow Jackets… they are some kind of wasp anyway and they are yellow and black and attracted to sweet stuff as in my glass of wine, tea, my hair (spray or shampoo??). I am pretty good at not swatting at bee type things and letting them figure out that I am not a flower (food) and they then go away. But these guys – actually I guess it is the girls that go out for food – not giving up! First sting on the back of my arm just walking and I assume she got caught between arm and the edge of my blouse – oww! but then not too bad until next day when swollen, hard, hot and red to nearly my elbow! So looked around and found a nest – a ha! – next morning I sprayed it well and knocked it down. Mission accomplished I thought…
But then, standing in the yard – stung twice more on the leg! Oh – maybe the first nest I saw was not the only nest so did a really good look around and found 7 more!
Most are small like the first, but 2 fairly large (photo left) and naturally in the peak of the roof.. requiring the extension ladder. It is not a seriously high peak on my little cabin-house but still I don’t want to fall and it has required some serious psyching up – dealing with the anxiety of possibly missing a few of them and having to remember to take my time on the ladder. I so BADLY want them gone!
And it is not just me – before tackling the 7 nests, I needed more spray. I stopped at the home and ranch supply place – none… the cashier said they had a run on it. Funny, I thought – I’ll stop at the hardware – none – same story… I go to a grocery and then thinking I’m being sneaky to a nursery and 2 convenience stores – None. And there are other people looking also – we are kind of following each other around chasing after Wasp Killer spray.
Apparently it is the summer of the wasps and no one can enjoy their decks or porches and lots of stinging. Yesterday, I even received an email from the fire department warning about them and reminding everyone where the Epi-pens were located in the medical kits – Yikes! – not quite Hitchcock but…
The hardware told me that a truck would be delivering about 1:00 yesterday – I phoned at 1:05 and was told that 95 cans were being unloaded. I wasted no time – hopped in the Jeep and went – grabbed up 4 cans and came home where they made me so anxious sitting on the counter that I had to hide them in a closet.
This morning, I donned my “outfit” – jeans tucked into boots, long sleeve denim shirt buttoned to the chin and wrists, raingear over with the hood cinched tight – ski goggles, gloves – no, I am not getting out the tripod to get a photo! I was nearly poached by the time I got to the ladder armed with 2 cans of spray which I had tested briefly. A little anti-climatic – it went well. I saturated the nests and didn’t fall off the ladder. I knocked down all but the 2 nests in the peak – those I will give another dose of spray tomorrow morning before I knock them down.
I’m sitting here dripping wet – it was 65 when I went out but still too warm for the amount of stuff I had on and it was closed down so tight nothing got in – not even air.
Now – whether getting rid of these nests will allow me back on the front porch – that I don’t know … Killer frost, that’s what we need! And believe me, I am not the only one saying that – the grumbling, whining and general misery with the heat wave is getting to everyone – I feel better not being the only grump! From inside the house until further notice…
RV Plumbing – drinking faucet replacement
I know, riveting topic… but if you read “The Start” and “About” – I did disclose that RV “stuff” – including maintenance and repairs would be part of this blog – great thing is you can skip a post that is of no interest!
And if you decide to read on, don’t be afraid – it really is about the drinking facuet – this has nothing to do with the toilet part of RV plumbing…
The old faucet fell off and sprung it’s insides when I was cleaning it after the last trip. So, I ordered a replacement from Winnebago Parts . The replacement is a much nicer faucet, but it is different which will make a bit of a difference noted later. The parts person said that his notes said to include a fitting kit – so I bought that. He did note that he rarely sent the fitting kit and people did not call to get it. I said send it as I can’t turn the water on without the faucet hooked up and I didn’t want to wait for a 2nd shipment if I needed it.
The best thing about the fitting kit was the instructions which showed everything and how it goes together… My favorite part, though is the first line about “Installation ….. being straight forward” – well, that itimidated me a bit. I mean, if I had trouble it would mean I was somehow incompetent.. and then the diagram with what looked like many pieces and steps. Well, nothing to do but proceed.
The only things I used from the fitting kit were a plastic ferrule and a tube sleeve. The compression fitting that I needed from the kit was too small for the pipe on the faucet. This I discovered after the faucet was in place and bolted on and that required my neighbor, Nancy, holding at the top while I did a contortion act under the sink. Under a house sink is not that much fun – under an RV sink – less so!
The 1/2 way point…
However, a trip to the hardware with the slightly small compression fitting (1/4) and I found a 5/16 and a 3/8 so brought both home. The 5/16 was the winner and things went together – a bit of teflon tape per instructions was also used. Water on – success! – a working filtered water drinking faucet – much nicer than the original. Not so bad after all.
Midwest girl to city girl to wood nymph
I was born and grew up in Northwest Ohio – Toledo and then Perrysburg. At 24, I took a job that moved me to San Francisco area and then several years later I moved to Los Angeles where I lived for 13 years before my move to Montana in early ’94.
Karl will do a bit of a perimeter check on his own first thing in the morning and last thing in the evening, but he is a homebody dog – staying in the “yard” unless I walk out and then he happily goes with. We are in the habit of a walk down the driveway as soon as there is a bit of light for me. Karl will venture into the woods on the way back, but the trip out is along the driveway. I have a cup of coffee with me and I amble along as he stops to sniff and explore a bit.
A few days ago I was standing where I took the photos above, absently watching Karl sniff around and looking at the moss covered stump. When I lived in Los Angeles there was always a neighborhood bagel place that I could walk to from my apartment. Standing in the early morning – something about the stump and the trees – it brought a vivid picture to mind of the contrast between the surroundings of my current home and how I once lived in the city. In California and particularly Los Angeles, I lived in apartments that were mostly next to other apartment buildings and I had maybe one window that looked at a bit of a tree. I was fortunate to find smaller buildings where I was one of 2 apartments on the floor so had windows on 3 sides usually, but still – it was Los Angeles – the city… sidewalks, cars, buses, small yards immaculately landscaped, office buildings…
In Montana, even my first house on a 90 x 100 lot in a subdivision – was a treed lot and there were 2 lots next to me with no homes as well as a woods behind that was a buffer between my subdivision and the one next – a huge leap from L.A. The next move took me to a transitional rental on Flathead Lake – on the lake with my own little beach and also woods and orchard around and between the house and the road. Swan River Road was next – a little craftsman house on 6 acres with about 2/3 in yard/pasture and 1/3 in woods – the river across the road and Swan Range rising to the east. The house was surrounded with old growth birch and pines
Now, here I am in the 8 acre woods and cabin – turned into small ranch house – 175 yards off the road, on top of the first foothill before the Swan range, 40 acres of meadow beyond my woods opening onto vistas of the mountains, 40 acres of state land on the north boundary, and a nice neighbor who enjoys quiet and privacy as I do – to my west. The woods is newly thinned and healthy with grasses and wildflowers growing up in between the trees. The sun shines through the trees in a beautifully filtered pattern which changes from first light to last.
It is difficult to explain the thoughts and feelings that flitted through my mind in a manner of seconds – the contrast between the city and this woods. I have lived in the lush midwest, near enough to the ocean to walk to the beach, in a neighborhood, on a lake and now in the woods by the mountains. It is the woods by the mountains that I love best. I bought a poster when I was 16 – it was about 2 feet wide and 4 feet high – it was simply sun shining through the trees of a woods – I could nearly duplicate the poster with any photo of my woods…. from the front porch, Saturday, July 21, 2007.