Sauble Beach, Part Deux…

Up at the crack of dawn today at the cottage… well, OK, 7:30… close enough.   Enjoyed coffee and breakfast, while Gerard and I surfed the world on our computers… It’s a man thing, you wouldn’t understand!

Shortly after 8:00 the plumber showed up, and disconnected the water pump and pressure tank.  That just forced Gerard and me to start work on the outside job, of installing the new base… yes, the reason we came!

Below, we got the hole dug out first off…

Gerard found a root from a tree he did not like, so got a saw, and cut it out…

Root be gone…

While Gerard was cutting roots, I was the wheel man bringing in some gravel to set the base…

Put some calcite down on top of the gravel and all set for stones…

 

With our stones all in place below, all we needed was some pump equipment…

There we go, tank and pump set for the plumber… hot water tank to come…

At lunch time, we took a walk down to the shores of Lake Huron, only a block from the cottage… the water was cold!  No one around, as the kids are all still in school.

It is sure a different view, than along the Pacific Coast of California, but very impressive all the same! 

 

This afternoon, we started another project… this pic below is of the bedroom I am staying in… we dismantled the paneling from the wall, in order to insulate it from the room beside it, which happens to be the bathroom!  Seems there was complaints in the middle of the night of some kind of “tinkling” noises making their way into the bedrooms… I don’t know a thing about this! 

Augh… there is the new insulation below, fresh out of the Lexus…

By lunch time this afternoon, with a lot of our work done… (yes, we are fast…) we were able to take a break, head into Sauble Falls, and play nine holes of golf this afternoon, compliments of Gerard!  He was even so kind as to let me beat him this afternoon… this does not happen very often!   We had a big debate over why I was able to beat him, but that conversation will have to “stay in Vegas”… It was a glorious afternoon to play golf, and I enjoyed every minute and swing of it! 

After golf, we got back to the cottage, and it seems Gerard found a bottle of Crown Royal that must have been hidden inside the wall we took apart, so we had to sample it for quality control purposes… and it seems it was OK!   Only thing that could top off an afternoon like this, was a great BBQ steak dinner! 

That is about all I can handle today…

Till tomorrow…

Reporting live from Sauble Beach tonight!

Quite a bit cooler on the weather front in Woodstock this morning, (welcome).  As it was quite pleasant, I decided to carry on with the  cleaning and waxing of the RV… big job.  I did not have to meet up with Gerard to head to Sauble Beach until 2:00 up in Kitchener.   I was able to put 2 coats of McGuires Wax on the top nose cone of the RV… about the worse spot in the world to do!  Glad to have that section done!

Judy volunteered to give me a ride up to Gerard’s house, as Friday’s forecast is lots of rain, which is not fun if I decided to take my motorcycle up.  Gerard and I were on the road by 2:30 or so, and arrived by 4:00 is Sauble Beach. 

Gerard and Deb have a great 4 bedroom cottage, with an open concept layout.  That’s right, Deb and Judy stayed back down south, this is a MAN only cottage run!  There is work to be done!  Argg…argg…

Under the blue tarp you see below, is the water pump and pressure tank for the cottage.  We will prepare a new base with the patio stones you see in the foreground, and place the pump and tank, along with the hot water tank, on the new base.   The hot water tank is currently inside on of the bedrooms. 

To fill in our time tonight, we got out and worked after Gerard BBQ’d up some chicken for us!  Gerard fired up the Lawn Boy and cut the grass, while I fired up the Toro Leaf Blower, and cleaned up all the front and back decks.  There are people out there who think we came up here for fun only!  Heh… is what I say!  It is work, work, work!

Now, we may watch Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs tonight, but we won’t be enjoying it!  It will be like work!

Till tomorrow…

Work clean up day…

This morning we woke up to pitter patter on the roof of a nice rain falling… I could hear all the local farmers cheering loudly!  They need it!  This whole area is agricultural based, and a lot of people rely on the rain to make a living here!

Judy was off to spend the day with Kristina and Gwenny, while I was left to some continuing jobs at the RV… namely cleaning and waxing… endless!  Got a bunch more done though today, before I ran out of gas.

Around 4:30, we were sitting taking life easy when the phone rang, and Kristina wanted to know if I was willing to come and give Chris a hand finishing up the back deck… she promised dinner, so we said “all right!” 

As our good friend from out west, Rick, would say, “measure twice, cut once”… that is what Chris is doing below…  we had to enclose the bottom of the upper deck, after we altered the stairs last week… we got it all finished up, along with a few other finishing jobs…

While we were working, Judy was feeding Gwenny dinner… don’t ask, I don’t know why she is wearing Gwenny’s hat!

Presto, the stair job is put to bed!  Good to have it all finished up!

Turned out to be a great evening, with the sun blazing and keeping us warm.  Tomorrow I am off for Sauble Beach and some cottage time with Gerard! 

Till tomorrow…

“The Heat is on…”

So how does 35 deg. C. sound to you for this afternoon… it was crazy!  We are still not out of May yet…  I keep saying, “What is July going to be like???”

This morning I started in an endless job… waxing the rig!  I decided that I will give the entire rig a good waxing with McGuires Wax I picked up in DHS… completed the entire cab today, the does not sound like much, but it is!  This wax job will probably take a couple of weeks to complete, as I will be away a bit.

While Judy was off this afternoon filling the RV with groceries, I jumped on the Honda and went for a nice ride through the Woodstock area… what a great day for a ride!

This afternoon, things started to boil over, so there was only one thing to do!  Head for the pool!

Judy had Gwenny doing all her swim strokes and had her in fine form this afternoon…

Mom and Dad were right into it!

Gwenny was going crazy as Dad was playing “Motor Boat” with her… she loved it!

You could not find a nicer way to spend the afternoon… what a day.

Hope you had a nice warm afternoon wherever you were…

Tonight I would like to welcome “Bee”, our 120th blog follower… welcome!

Till tomorrow…

RV Repair Day…

Of course, right in the middle of having all our Company over last night for dinner, I walk out the door with a bunch of food in my hands, and “CRACK”… I felt the stairs to the RV do some funny things…

We had to put a temporary stool in place to enter and leave the RV, so today I had to get on the repair wagon, and see just what went wrong…

We have an automatic, 2 step system, that tucks up under the RV when you are driving down the road… however when parked, you can lock the steps in place so they are not going in and out all the time whenever to leave or enter.

First thing on this job… make sure you got some clothes on that you don’t like anymore!  Very important!  It is not clean under there… it did not take me long to figure out what went wrong… the actual motor that operates the steps, broke free from it’s mounting bracket and was just hanging around…  I have the motor in my hand in the pic below…

It was a bit strange, as the four bolts that hold the motor in place, all snapped off clean, at the same time… not sure why, however… They were metric threads on the bolts, so it involved a trip into Canadian Tire, and Home Hardware to find the right hardware we needed to complete the job…

 

It is not a fun job, and now that I take blood pressure medication, it is not fun at all lying on your back… it makes me feel not so good, but you have to suck it up, and carry on! I eventually got it all put back together after a bunch of drilling and fooling around…

Steps are working fine again, but the big job was to come… clean up! 

Somehow, this job ended up taking most of the afternoon, by the time I was cleaned up… where does time go???  As Judy said… “Good thing you are retired!”  No kidding!

Till tomorrow…

Garage Sale Day!

Kristina and Chris had been planning for quite a while now to have a garage sale and clean out some un-needed items… we decided to throw in a couple items, and so did David and Diane, Chris’ Mom and Dad, as they are planning a big move this summer, and have lots of items to go through…

Turned out to be a perfect day for a garage sale!  Great weather, with a high around 28 deg. C. today, and muggy.

Here we all are at 7:30 this morning, planning our day’s game plan!  (Which was to sell everything!)

Woodstock, as most Communities, have a set pattern of people who go treasure hunting every Saturday Morning!  We put a few strategic signs out around the block, and presto!  They came!  People started coming shortly after 7:30, and continued to 1:00 this afternoon!  Steady all day!  Crazy!  People will buy anything!

We received quite a few offers for Gwenny, but Judy made sure she stayed put!  Had to have time out for lunch though…

Later this afternoon, good friends, Gerard and Deb drove over from Waterloo, and joined us for dinner at the RV.  Gerard is in great health, and better spirits, and we really enjoyed the afternoon and evening!  That is Tibby sitting on Debs knee below, and we were laughing as Tibby just loved trying to give Gwenny doggy kiss’.

Next Wednesday, Gerard is planning a couple days up at his cottage at Sauble Beach to do some work, so I was recruited to be supervisor!  Sure didn’t take me long to jump at the opportunity! 

Till tomorrow…

 

Wonder what July is going to be like???

We had to be at record setting temperatures here today… it was crazy hot!  It is only May 25!  What will July be like???

We were sitting out on the back deck this afternoon, trying to stay cool, and I looked over at the neighbours house, and they had a thermometer out on the side of the house… I took a zoomed in picture with the smart phone, and it turned out real lousy… but as you can see, it was nearing 100 deg. F.!!!

After our big deck project last weekend, it was time to take all the old deck material off to the dump… Jeep comes in handy for this kind of stuff…

This afternoon Judy and I took Gwenny out for a hike up the block to the park so she could swing for a while…

Woodstock is a neat little Town, and check out the street we got to walk up on the way to the park…

Other than that, it was off to the pool again!  Gwenny has been swimming 3 days in a row, and I think she is growing an extra fin on her back!

Till tomorrow…

Black Cars do look better in the shade!

Twenty Eight plus degrees C. here today… it just keeps getting better!  Tomorrow is even  better, and Saturday will be hotter!

“Black Cars look better in the shade”…  not a great picture, however this morning I was on clean up duty!  The Jeep received full bore treatment today, inside and out!  This morning I gave it a full wax job with McGuires Wax that I picked up in DHS… it is a lot cheaper down there!

Next on the list was the Honda… we got the bikes dirty travelling over to Newmarket on the weekend, so they needed a full cleaning!  Judy’s bike got a cleaning also… no pic though…

Judy joined Kristina in going over to London with Gwenny to visit the Family Dr. today, so I was on my own… after I got the bike all cleaned up, it was so nice, I could not resist taking it for a tour today… love riding the bike!  I headed out to Ingersol, just to the west of Woodstock, a nice Town of about 11,000 people.  Probably about 7,000 of them work at the huge GM Cami Plant in Ingersol.   This plant is a few years old now, and they assemble automobiles here.  Not sure how many work here, but it would be a lot!

I was able to drive a circle around the plant, which would be about 10 klms. in length!  They are now proud to assemble the Chevrolet Equinox here! 

As I drove around, I found about 500 Equinox’s parked out back, ready for shipment. 

I enjoyed the ride this afternoon, and retired back to the RV, only to find Judy, Kristina and Gwenny out there… ready to go for a dip in the pool!  Why not!

Till tomorrow…

Meet Gwenny the “Fish”…

Whew… good old southern Ontario humidity!  Lots of it today.  I think it got up close to 30 deg. C here today… whatcha gonna do???  Go swimming of course!

Kristina and Gwenny came out to Willow Lake this afternoon to enjoy the great pool in our Park.. Below they are getting ready to go!

NOW LOOK!  SHE IS GONE!!!!  WHERE DID SHE GO?????

THERE SHE IS… SHE IS BACK!  Gwenny just loves swimming, and it really helped that Kristina took her to swimming lessons at the Woodstock Pool over the winter! 

She really got into playing with the ball in the pool as well, just a great afternoon!

Too hot for anything else tonight… just enjoyed a great BBQ on the grill!

Till tomorrow…

Just puttering around today…

We are still enjoying warm mid-summer temperatures in south west Ontario… and we are loving it!

When we were driving home yesterday, we came through the Town of Tavistock.  It is a nice small Town, about 18 Klms. north of Woodstock.  As we came through, I noticed this one Rural Home, had a couple lawn mowers out on the street for sale… I turned around to check them out, and found that they were both free for the taking!  So, drove down to Woodstock, picked up the Jeep, and headed back up to Tavistock to pick them up!

Well, one of them, was simply in excellent shape!  I got it back to the RV, took a quick look at it, pulled the cord, and it started right up, and ran great… today I went into CTC and picked up a new spark plug, and a new mulch blade for it, and used it to cut the Kid’s Lawn!  Worked great!  All I forgot to do, was take a picture of it… will do.

However, as I mentioned, there was two lawnmowers… the other is pictured below, and the best I can come up with, it looks like a 1952 Lawn Boy!  (Iron Horse).  We all probably owned one of these, as well over 500,000 of these were produced!  I could not get it to start up, and it appears there is no spark to the spark plug…  will tinker a bit more with it before I give up…

Kristina and Chris were asking me if I could take a look at the old wipper snipper that I left at their house three years ago!  It is an older Yard Works Model, and was not running right when we sold the house, and moved into the RV.  Today was it’s turn… I took it all apart and cleaned it all up… including the carb.  After puttering around with it for a couple hours', I got it working again just fine!  Some how, the needle valve in the carb got turned and that is why it was not running right… after I made the adjustments, it was just like new!  I am so pumped up doing all this small engine repair work today, I think I might drive out to B.C. and pick up Ricks old John Deere Lawn Mower, and get it running like new!  (Yeah, right…)  Tomorrow I will take the snipper back to the house, and clean up the trimming!

One of the main reasons for the new deck stairs was so the top deck could be blocked off to allow Gwenny free run without the fear of falling down, so now all that has to be done is a new deck kid proof gate to be installed… this is next, and then all will be good for Gwenny!  Had some comments about this in the blog… Still some more work on this job yet, but it is a long summer!

That was about all that was on the go today…

Till tomorrow…

A bike trip to visit “Tara”…

Yesterday, Judy and I climbed aboard our motorcycles, all excited about the great weather here is south western Ontario, and decided to go and visit good friends Tom and Cheryl, over near Newmarket. 

We had to meet “Tara”…

Tara is a 39 foot DayDreamer!  What a beauty she is!  We never got around to taking pics inside, however it is real nice!  Kitchen Island, fireplace, the whole bit!  Tom and Cheryl have plans very similar to our, in that they want to retire and full time for a while!  Hopefully they will be on the road this fall to DHS… we will have to see… keep pushing Cheryl!  No, they are not going to pull Tara with that Ford 150 you see below… they Just bought a new Denali, 4X4, 3500 with duelys, so this should not be a problem!  They are camping out in the boonies east of Newmarket, so the cell service sucked, and the iPad just could not keep a good signal, so that is why we did not post last night.

We really enjoyed the ride there, and back on our motorcycles… you could not get better weather… it is about 220 klicks each way.  We were back home by 1:00 this afternoon, and went into Woodstock to visit Gwenny!  She was in a real good mood a usual!  Chris and his Dad were grinding away on the deck… I wanted to check progress!

With the stairs completed on Saturday, they were working on the railings, and deck work today… they put in a full day!   Looking great!

It was real warm this afternoon, and I helped out a bit cutting the railings for them to be installed!

Check out the new stairs and railings below… looking good!  Sill a bit more work to do but we are getting there!

Great long weekend, we really enjoyed it all!  Hope where ever you were, you had the good weather also!

Till tomorrow…