Home Sweet ‘Our Family’s' Home

At Sister’s House, Citrus Heights, CA

We pulled in at my Sister and Arny’s house around 5:15 Thursday.  Hoped to be in earlier, but had a leak in one of our tire extensions, which are needed for our Tire Pressure Sensor System.  As we started out from Bakersfield, our left front motorhome tire was down to 47 psi…should be 65 psi.  The RV Park had a inflator, and got it up to 72 psi, and it seemed to hold there.  As we drove north along US-99, known as the eternal bumpy highway, we were dropping 1 psi per 10 miles, so we stopped at America’s Tire Store (known as Discount Tire’s in other states) where they quickly diagnosed the problem (after waiting an hour for ‘our turn’) and we removed the extender and the sensor and drove on north.  The rest of the drive, outside of ‘Devil’s Revenge’ in Atwater where the road was much like the Yukon as you near Alaska, went fairly well…considering we hit ‘Rush Hour’ in downtown Sacramento.

  

The DOGS are probably happier than we are…and we ARE HAPPY ourselves…to be here.  They LOVE Arny, Sandy, and the backyard.  Bubba has rolled in the grass more than I can remember.  Skruffy, despite her eyesight problems, knows right where everything is, and she chased her first Squirrel yesterday.  It won’t be long before the Squirrels start teasing her by coming down to her face and laugh at her…but we hope brother Bubba will step up and give teach them a good lesson…time will tell.

Last time we were here I mentioned that they got rid of the Turtles, and now the turtle pens have been converted to a nice garden.  Here is the home of half of the Naked Ladies, some Tulips, and these various bushes and shrubs.  They also got rid of the rose bushes that ran along the patio, opening the patio up to the nice grass without fear of getting poked by Rose Thorns. 

  

Sat outside for awhile yesterday and today listening to and watching the various birds that come and go from the backyard.  This guy above (top two pictures) was just singing away, turning its head back and forth.  The three in the bottom picture live in the Oleander Bushes which are on the neighbor’s property, but which intrude into Sandy and Arny’s yard.

  

  

So far there are fewer Doves, but numerous of the other birds…including the Humming Birds.

And I think this squirrel will learn ‘real fast’ that Skruffy is not the threat she seems to have been in past years…but it sure was checking her out far below…it just did not understand that Skruffy never did see it, but her nose sure was twitching a bit.

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day, Liver and Onions and Steak for Dad and me.  YUM!

The Triple Whammy

Can you even imagine what it is like to be sitting along the beach, 72 degree weather…and two weeks later be sitting in the Sacramento Valley with temps up in the 100’s?  Well, that is our triple whammy…temps in the 3 digits.  But alas, things are looking better…

…two more hot days, then the possibility of tens days with temps under 90.

I mentioned that we had two small issues to fix…first, the lower part of tis mirror had become loose.  I took it off before the wind while driving blew it off.  That was an easy fix, Arny said he used a tape that would not come off.

Second, we had the electrical problem that we had before.  It worked fine until we left Port Angeles…then I noticed that we were not getting a charge from the engine when we were driving.  So today I did some research into these two gizmos, because one of them is most likely the culprit. 

    

The bottom one had the words “Ignition Proof Coach Chasis”, with a label which read, “01-00055-010 / 17704 /  BD Relay”. Quickly I found that this is part of the Intellitec Battery Disconnect Relay, which is what normally is called, “Storage Shut Off Switch” for when you want to kill the drain on the batteries when you go into storage. (Which gives you more time, but let’s face it, you store it for more than a few weeks and you batteries are going to be DEAD)

Which leaves this little thing….no writing on it, but a little research and found out that this is a “12 Volt Continuous Duty Solenoid”, which are easy to find, and found one on Amazon for under $20 which will be here Friday.  I am 90+% sure this is the culprit.  I figure that when we had loose wires eight weeks ago when this first went out, that the sparking and arching which took place as the loose wires did make contact just sore this thing out.  If I tap on it, it will make the recharge light flicker…so the solenoid is probably just wore out.

Yesterday I spent the day grooming the dogs. With this hot weather, I think they will both enjoy the loss of fur.  I can tell that Bubba is already feeling better, but so is Skruffy.

   

The hummingbird is still protecting “his” bird feeder…only letting his mate use it, chasing away all the others.

This blue Scrub Jay is a bit younger than the others.  The older ones are very mean, chasing away the doves, even going after the squirrels sometimes.  This younger one is also picked on…but that is how it will learn the trade I reckon.  Since Saturday we have seen two non-native birds which I have not gotten my camera lens on yet.  One is a Parakeet…the other looks like a small Parrot, perhaps a type of Love Bird. They don’t come around very often, and seem to hang out with the finches…but I hope to get a picture of them soon.

We have a number of birthdays in our family in August.  My brother Roger, Sisters Sandy and Patti, and brother-in-law Arny…the only Patti having celebrated hers already, and the other three take place in the next four days.  So HAPPY BIRTHDAY all of you!

Update: Mom, Hummingbird and Travels

Lots of response to my Facebook posting last Sunday about mom being in the hospital.  Family and friends from all over gave “likes” and made “comments” about mom.  I am sure the “likes” were that they ‘liked the fact she was ok’, and not that they ‘liked the idea of her going to the hospital’.  It’s that “facebook” thing you know….  However, one set of comments seemed to be a bit amusing, and I will share that with you in a bit.

But just so everyone could see mom in her normal condition, the two pictures above were snapped this afternoon when mom came over to read to Euleda, who is Arny’s mom. 

My brother Bob has two children, Jennifer and Jared.  I have talked about the story when I took both of them, along with my oldest brother Jim’s daughter to the park here in Sacramento around 1978 and Jennifer pushed Jared into a duck pond….anyway, I did not realize that the effects of not being able to breath air for those few seconds would have such a devastating effect on little Jared who made this comment in Facebook about his grandmother who was taken to the hospital with chest pains, just to find out it was Gastritis.

Don’t know what got into his head thinking that someone died, let alone his Gma, but his response to my response is just darn funny!

    

The resident Hummingbird, the one which rules the feeder, likes to perch himself up on a twig where he can watch for intruders.  A couple of days ago I saw him up there grooming himself, and got these shots…the last of which included a rare picture of his tongue. 

A couple of weeks ago while in Oregon we realized we were not charging the house batteries (the ones that all the 12v lights and other electrical items run off of in the motorhome).  Took it to a shop and we could not figure out where the battery isolator was located.  Well, there it is, right there in the main cargo bin by the front door.

A bit easier to see now that I removed a few things.

When I removed the door guess what I found?   It was the biggest RATS NEST that I had ever seen.  That entire compartment behind that pull-off door was full of leaves, tissue paper, droppings, AND, the most important thing, NOT ONE CHEWED UP WIRE!!!!

But this one red wire, the one with the white arrow pointing to it above, was very loose.  The rat was long gone, the nest is long gone and I filled the hole where he easily got in from the frame at the top, marked by a blue arrow.  Now this was definitely a Florida mouse because all the leafs were Florida trees and not California trees…and they were very, very dry and thank goodness there had not been a spark in there!

As I said before, we have only had the motorhome for under a year, just at a year now…and we are still learning about all the little hiding places.  YES, I had looked behind that door once last year, made a mental note about which quickly got lost in the quicksand of my mind  (Jared is thinking that my brain didn’t get oxygen when I jumped in to save him, but it only came up to my knees, so I can’t use that excuse).  Never gave it a thought when we had it in the shop up in Oregon even though I kept running through my brain all the places I had seen “large wires” at during the previous year.

So after Father’s Day, we are going to do our first minor trip up to the Sierras, to get out of the heat down here in the valley.  I have a few National Forest Campgrounds and a few Full-hookup Campgrounds which I want to visit over a ten day period.  Overall it is a little over 300 miles, but at any given time we will be no more than 100 miles away, and it will give us some non-hookup time to try out the solar panel and the generator, and some full-hookup time too. If all goes well, than after the 4th of July we will expand a larger loop further north.

There Be Awning…

The year, 1986.  The event, Star Trek IV, The Voyage Home.  Scotty utters one of his many, famous lines, this one being, “Admiral, there be Whales here!”  I now feel Scotty jubilation….because “Folks, there be AWNING here, and it is up on the motorhome doing its job.”

It took quite a voyage to get here, there were many battles which had to be faced, but in the end, Kerry McColloch at McColloch’s RV repair and storage got the new awning on, put in the toilet gasket, ordered the line for the propane which should be in Thursday or Friday and Arny and I will install it, all for $375 after taxes.  We got it in there a little after 8 am, and as we were leaving he was crawling under it looking at the missing propane line, and he already had opened the awning and verified that everything was there.  Now that is service, and Kerry gives good service.  He is just a tad younger than I am, he works with his son and another “hired hand”.  I asked him which one of them did the toilet, and he looked me in the eye and said, “I did it myself.”  Wow, would have never guessed that, but that is the type of guy he is.  If you ever need service in Sacramento, give McColloch’s RV repair and storage a try…I don’t think you will be disappointed.

With the motorhome out of the “perch”, I told Arny that I would clean the RV pad.  Didn’t know he had a very high pressure washer, so I did the RV pad and the driveway leading up to it.  It did not get all the marks and stains out, but it sure looks better.  I told him that I would do the patio another day, and do the driveway again since I ran out of gas before I could give it a second shot.

This little White-breasted Nuthatch has been hanging around a lot lately.  Has some characteristics of a Woodpecker, but it is of the Nuthatch family instead.

And I also got some good pictures of the hummingbird…I think it is the same one that was hanging around, or should I say, keeping all other hummingbirds from hanging around, that was here last year.  He is very protective of “his area”, always chasing other hummingbirds away, except for another female who he allows to use “his” feeder.  I nearly got a picture of the Black Hawk that has been hanging around also.  Had him in the camera view and just as it was auto-focusing…whoosh, it was gone in the blink of an eye, and I had a picture of fuzzy tree.  I sure hope I can get a picture of it before we leave in a few months, it is a huge hawk.