Good morning!!!!

[daugen]

successful trip to Home Depot, contractor area a madhouse, thankfully only one person ahead of me in customer service where you have to go.
we then walked back to the far corner of the building where the doors were. Next time I'll check the box for curbside.

friend picked me up in brand new Sprinter work van, he went to Charleston to get it, only one in US not painted white he said. It was battleship grey, big tall van, four cylinder diesel instead of six, but I saw him accelerate and it had no problems keeping up. They started out with Dodge Sprinter vans when they first came out, have stayed true to MB in their coffee delivery business. Early Dodge Sprinters had real rust problems, apparently now better.
He said he got 24mpg coming home from Charleston at extra legal speeds.

my last motorhome was built on the MB chassis, but the last version. This one has a much nicer dash, bigger screens, etc.
I never got more than 13mpg in it without a heavy foot. At 10mpg now on regular gas, likely not a huge difference in cost per mile.

headed out to plant some donated hosta in a bit.

 

[kenmbz]

Drew, this you on your way ?

Stolen from another site of course

 

[buckeyefarmer]

was pricing MB sprinter vans. Looks like you can only get 4 cyl diesel. Then looked at a MB Sprinter camper, $245,000.. Maybe I need to build my own. I just want a small bath with shower and a bed. Microwave for heating things and a small fridge. Don't need oven. Can use standalone induction unit I have for cooking if needed.

overachieved for the day, sprayed some wet and forget on the front of garage that's turning green...

 

[rswyan]

Good morning ... delayed in yesterday's posting due to problems with Apple Air Drop ...

Yesterday's post:

75F and sunny @ 12:00, heading up to around 81F for the day's high.

Made some further progress yesterday.

Woman got plants on shelves all watered before She headed out.

I started off by taking friend's bucket up to the shop and removing the grapple and its bracket and the toothbar. Those will get cut down and re-welded to go on his new tractor which has a narrower bucket.

Came back down after that and took down monofilament fence on the eastern edge of the garden.

Removed the deer barrier on the east side of the vertical trellis.

After that I got the new section of weedblock fabric stretched out and fully pinned down.

Once that was done I started mowing the back down here by the house, got that done but still have the sides to do ... along with the front ...

I had The Woman pick up gas for the Cub while She was out, refueled one of the two tanks when She got back. Still have to do the other one.

Went back up to the shop and took the ash bucket over to the compost pile and emptied it.

Scraped out the inside of friend's bucket with the square-nosed shovel to get some dried mud out.

Came down to the house and dropped the ash bucket off and got the Kubota and got friend's bucket and brought it down here to the house, will take it around back and hose it out later today.

After that I got two rows marked out on the weedblock fabric for holes:

Woman worked on watering tomatoes and peppers.

Once all that was done I went and got the Kubota and grabbed the pallet with the two rolls of 6' chain-link fence and we put that up on the east side of the vertical trellis to keep the deer off the tomato plants.

Then I put the monofilament fence back up and called it a day.

Variety of things on agenda today, the primary one being mowing.

Hope everyone is having a decent Wednesday ...

 

[rswyan]

81F and supposedly "mostly cloudy" (I wish) @ 11:30 ...but the light coming in the window tells a different story ...

Heading up to at least 87F for the day's high although the local weather guessers are claiming it could hit 89F.

Got front lawn mowed yesterday while Woman was out at Her appointments (PT and dietician)

Had Her pick up gas for the Cub while She was out.

Refueled the left tank after She got back.

Once that was done I took the Kubota over to the west side down here by the house and gathered up the larger logs from the fallen ash tree and hauled them up to the wood pile with the pallet forks:

Woman watered plants on shelves while I was doing that.

After She was done with that She gathered up the small stuff tossing it in the woods and raked up the area.

I got the weed burner torch out and started melting the holes on newly installed weedblock fabric on the east side of the garden and got that all done:

Neighbor lady came by walking the dogs and we visited a bit, got rid of one tomato plant to her.

By the time she left it was getting dark so we called it a day.

We did sneak down to Swenson's Drive-in for a treat - Woman got a Sloppy Joe (which I ate half of) and I got some onion rings ... and a large Hot Fudge Peanut Butter Malt ...

But we made it back home before 22:30 ...

On the agenda for today:

Start getting the cabbage and broccoli plants put in the ground. Not really sure if they will do much ... should have been planted at least 2 weeks ago ... but the area wasn't ready.

Hopefully things will go better next year.

Beyond that, I still need to add some more screened compost to the eastern edge of the garden ... and finish up the mowing down here around the house.

Need to get moving before it gets any warmer ...

Hope everyone is having a decent Thursday ...

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Interesting van build video.

 

[daugen]

Drew, this you on your way ?
View attachment 875230
Stolen from another site of course

no, but hoping it won't be on the way back when I go through the mountains of Colorado the first week in October...

 

[Looking4new]

Got a note from post office to clear brush from around my mailbox. Only mine is clear, it’s the neighbors that is brush covered. They can’t even get that right. I’m tempted to leave a note back at them to not cram oversized packages into the box. I have lots of traffic on the road, and have been close to getting hit while trying to unjam the box.
Or maybe show them the mail lady backing over my wife’s flowers.

BEF, I guess in your part of the country it is not illegal to back onto a thoroughfare/road?
We have a saying that I stole from Alberta when I worked there; the mail lady couldn't drive a sharp stick up a dead dogs a$$.
She drove straight in, so why couldn't she back straight out? The post master needs to see that video.

 

[daugen]

as expected the rv jack stabilizer company said my only option was to buy entire unit.
475 dollars later, I ordered one. Will ask Popgadget to install it for me, looks fairly simple and it's very
accessible.
will be interesting to take old one apart and see if simple seal replacement will fix it.
no overhaul kits available...
considering the system is 3500 new for four rams and pump controller, seemed like a reasonable charge. What is not reasonable is it failing after
five years. I hope to come out of this with a spare. Which is good because it appears all four are identical.

got all my donated bulbs and plants dug, not easy to do in area with lot of gravel and roots, planting auger on Makita drill would catch
on a root and really yank on my wrists. But got it done, watered everything

might need to check on bush beans

and i bet lurking down there, successfully hiding out of sight, will be my first cuke.

 

[daugen]

needed to buy more oil for rv, instead of driving out in heat, found it cheapest at Walmart and they deliver in two days for free.
Amazon was out of it, something about dumping that supplier due to some alleged unhappiness.
This will help Mrs Walton, of Walmart, the many Mrs Waltons, put diesel in their megayachts.

so i ordered three 5 quart jugs and probably saved five bucks in gasoline by not driving.
specified oil is Motocraft semi synthetic 5W30
latest versions of this engine I think have gone to 5W20 and I think it's interesting they spec semi synthetic.
normally I would buy full synthetic but makes no difference to me, gets changed at 5000 miles no matter what.

last time I bought oil filters I bought a pack of four so good on that. And I have a new oil drain plug.
want to stock up on enough oil to change during trip, either in Colorado or Texas. Problem is almost all campgrounds forbid doing mechanical work.
Reminds me, need to pack a few oil diapers along with the oil and don't forget the oil filter wrench.