Removing Things

It looks like we finally will be able to pick up our new Rpod-171 on Monday. We plan to move it to a campground with hookups to check everything out. Then we'll head out to the coast.

It has been a challenge getting this far! We were all set to go last week, but hadn't figured out soon enough how we were going to manage the removal of our old 5th wheel. The person who bought it on June 27th had a problem with his tow vehicle. It ended up taking three weeks to get the part. By the time we had figured out he wasn't going to be able to come the week of July 16th, it was too late to schedule a pick-up time for that week. They offered us a time this past week, but we had doctor's/dentist's visits and grooming for the dogs in the middle of the week, leaving only a couple of days before Sandy's puppy training class, not enough time to drive to Eugene, pick up the trailer and take it to a campground to check everything out. Our buyer called later in the week to discuss picking the trailer up, and Charlie pointed out that we would be gone all this week, so it was either the week of July 23rd or he was going to have to wait until the second week in August, because he was going to have to help hook it up using the special 5th wheel hitch. Tuesday we got a call from the buyer. He had found someone who could drive to Bend, pick up the trailer and drive it to Portland. We had to work the scheduling around getting the pups to the groomer, Charlie's doctor visit and picking the pups up again. For once, things went our way. After the doctor's appointment and while the pups were at the groomer, Charlie pulled the trailer out of the RV driveway.

He had to drive all the way around the block and pull up in front of the house, then back up to park on the street in front of our house, where it would be easier to hook up. Someone else was parked behind that spot, so he couldn't just line up the wheels next to the curb and pull forward. He was disconnecting the truck from the trailer when the buyer's friend, John, drove up. Charlie showed him how to hook up. 

They had to check out the lights and make sure they all worked. 

When everything was working, John drove off, and we said goodbye to our old vacation home, which had sheltered us in many places in the country during the 23 years we had it.

We had removed all our stuff, cleaned it inside and out, and done some repairs, including preventative calking the seams on the roof to prevent leaking. I had made up a checklist for preparing the inside for setting up and then moving, including how to move the slide out out and in. I taped it to the table when I went in to check and make sure the poles were in position above the slide out, to keep it from moving during transport, and that nothing was left sitting out on surfaces to move and possibly damage something.

Then it was time to pick up the pups. We had scheduled Sandy's neutering for the next day. I explained it to him. I'm not sure he understood, but he does now.

Both dogs looked good, as they always do, fresh from the groomer.

Sandy's neutering was not expected to be ordinary. As Marie from Ash's Mystical Poodles had prepared us, Sandy's...um...testicles were not where they should be. The is apparently common in the parents' particular family. The vet might have to dig around for them if they didn't come down before neutering. We waited until Sandy was 6 1/2 months old before scheduling it, in hopes the extra month and a half would make it easier. Our veterinary clinic prepared us for a possible $1K more than the cost of normal neutering. We lucked out, though. The vet who performed the surgery guessed correctly where the little gems were hiding, so the cost with everything was only about $300 more than if they had been correctly positioned. The toll on Sandy was less, too. It was about as invasive as a spay would have been. The vet said where the testicles were located, it was unlikely that they ever would have descended, and without surgery, that could have made him susceptible to testicular cancer. Better out than in, as they say. By Wednesday evening, Sandy was home and relaxing on the couch with Dusty and Snowball.

The recovery has been going well. We still have to prevent strenuous activity for another week, which is a challenge, but he isn't licking his stitches, so he doesn't need the dreaded "Cone of Shame."

As if the trailer and Sandy's surgery wasn't enough going on this week, Josh has been working on the back deck, and it's coming along. He will be putting another coat of stain on the front porch for us this week, so we moved all the furniture from the porch into the house. Between the trailer, the neutering and the deck work, it has been crazy around here. This is our living room.

At least we have plenty of places to sit. (I should have taken a photo when we had the puppy play yard set up the first day after Sandy's surgery! It was really crowded then.)

The back deck is done, and it looks good. We can move the deck chairs back when we come back from our trip to the coast.

In preparation for our long trip this week, I wound up two skeins of the main color and the other skein of the contrast color. It might have been overly optimistic, but I don't plan to take the ball winder with me, and I'm keeping all the yarn together in my knitting bag. (Sandy has been leaving it alone.)

Someone in one of the RV groups on Facebook mentioned being in New Zealand with a big trailer. That brought back memories of our trip to that country in 1996, when we were living in Indonesia. We spent three weeks traveling in a rented "campahvan." We had a cooktop but no oven, so when we were planning our trip, I put together some recipes for things I could cook on the stovetop. I printed them off and had them spiral-bound in a book. As we traveled, I wrote notes the recipes of what I fixed and where we were at the time. I dug out the book and had a look. I think this cookbook might come in handy with our new trailer, which will have a microwave/convection combination, but no propane oven, so no oven to use if we don't have power. 

Speaking of cooking, I started come kimchi on Monday. I usually use my rice canister to place on a plate on top of the cabbage and brine, to keep the cabbage submerged. When I picked up the rice canister I found a lot of bugs inside. I took the whole thing outside where the light was better to have a look. Rice weevils!

I put the lid back on, squashed the ones that had escaped, and went online to find out what to do. Every pest control company under the sun insisted we needed to have them come out and eradicate the buggers. Iowa State University had some actual good information. I chose the freezer option. Three days in 0ºF should do it. I put the whole thing into a plastic bag and made room for it in the big freezer. I'm not even going to look at it until we're back from the coast. I may not have removed them, but they won't be going anywhere on their own.

I used oat milk cartons to weight the plate on the cabbage. Later that day, the cabbage mixed with the other stuff went into the kimchi press.

The kimchi was ready to put in jars on Saturday.

One of our neighbors came by and picked up my extra jar of sourdough starter. (It's easy to make more.) The next day, she sent me this photo of the result:

I love to see my little creations going out into the world. The sourdough starter is just one thing.

Speaking of my creations, my editors finished working on the manuscript for the new book. This one was more involved. I've been working on corrections for several days. I hope to be able to finish it this week. It's longer and more complicated than the first three.

I have a lot of difficulty responding to comments to my blog posts because of technical issues beyond my control (my lack of understanding of how things work). Message me on Facebook, Ravelry or Spoutible if you need information.

If you have a few minutes and are willing, please go to Amazon and B&N and search for "Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook by Peggy Stuart" in Children's. Every click on the page for the book makes it more likely they will keep a good supply in their warehouse and stores. If you are outside the US, you may have a separate website for these retailers. If you have a copy of any of our books, including Emil and Mariah, please leave an honest review on the websites, especially if you bought from them.

Where's my blog: If you want to follow my blog, go here and sign up to follow.

What's on my needles: Still the Kultainen käki cardigan and the EmPower People Kerchief (hibernating).

What's on my loom: I didn't make any progress on the placemats.

What's on my sewing machine: Still quilts for the grandsons.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: Jolena learns about lying and bullies in "Flying or Lying," this week's story from #TheDollsStorybook.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still listening to Die Unendliche Geschichte by Michael Ende. Just when you think the story is over, it continues on. Well-named, but it's fine that it goes on, because I'm enjoying it.

What's in my wine glass: Pyramid Scheme Cabernet Sauvignon 2021. Excellent!

What's my tip of the week: Here's a knitting tip this week. I've found that careful choosing for picking up the floats results in a smoother appearance. I pick a spot anywhere from three to five stitches from where the new color started to pick up the float. I make sure I pick up the float with both legs of that stitch. On the next round, I'm careful not to pick up the float directly above the one from the previous round. It's tedious checking the row below each time, and the light has to be good, so I mark my pattern where I'll put the float, with an eye to the next round as well. Sometimes I have to erase and move it.  

Where are my books: The stories in each book first appeared in the blog and they are reproduced with a few changes. 

Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is available from BookBabyBookshop and other booksellers worldwide. The stories are Little Green Greatcoat, The Boy Doll Who Cried Wolf and Lost in the Woods.

Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook and Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are also still available from booksellers. The link for Book Baby is here. The three stories in Emil are Best Buds, Getting What You Want, and The Boys Cook Dinner.

The three stories in Mariah are Being Little, Besties, and Distraction.

If you don't get free shipping from Amazon or B&N, buy from the BookBabyBookshop, because 50% of the price goes to St. Jude. Other booksellers pay much less. 

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.

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Going Nowhere Fast

Well, we're still in town. The formerly ours 5th wheel still hasn't been picked up.

The part the buyer needed for his pickup truck has come in, but it still needs to be installed. He will try to get here this week to take our special 5th wheel hitch off to be installed in his truck, and then he will come get the trailer. We tried on Monday to get an appointment to pick up the new trailer on Tuesday, but they were unable to schedule it on such short notice. They need a fairly large block of time to go through and test everything and then show us how everything works. They were willing to do it this week, but we have doctor's appointments, dog grooming and Sandy's neutering planned, so we now have it scheduled for July 31st. For the first night we have a reservation for Armitage Park just outside Eugene with full hookups to check everything out. It's a Lane County Park and looks to be fairly rural. When I checked a couple of weeks ago, I thought they were booked through August, but we were able to get a pull-through site for July 31st. After that, we plan to go to Florence, where Charlie's brother, Jim, still has a large account balance at the place where we stayed before on the Siuslaw River, at the Port of Siuslaw Campground. It's very scenic and we can walk into old town and lots of restaurants.

Jim had paid in advance to stay there while he was looking for a place to buy in Florence, but then he found something right away. They give raincheck instead of refunds, so he offered it to us whenever we want it. We plan to stay there for the rest of the week. If there are any problems with the new trailer, we can stop in Eugene on the way back.

Monday we realized that Sandy had what appeared to be a rock or a small piece of wood stuck in some sap/pitch between the pads of his foot.

On the advice of the vet, we tried to remove it using olive oil to dissolve the pitch. It helped us see the rock better (it turned out to be a rock), but it was going to need clipping of the hair between the toes to get it out, so we made a trip to the vet. They were able to fit us in toward the end of the day. Charlie identified the tiny rock as a feldspar, probably plagioclase (because it wasn't basalt, and the feldspar that's common here is plagioclase). It's a little over 1/4" across in the longer dimension.

We had an appointment for this coming week for Sandy's canine influenza booster, which we had scheduled when we thought we would be gone this whole week, so we got that done while we were there. We also had the bloodwork done for Sandy's neutering, which is now scheduled for Wednesday. It could be a rather involved surgery, as he has undescended testicles. One may be more accessible than the other. 

Wednesday we decided to drive to Suttle Lake, a few miles past Sisters, to hike the trail around the lake. Our back deck is being refinished, so the dogs can't go out to the backyard. My toe was a lot better, and the hike went well for the most part. Sandy had his first experience with off-leash hiking. He did very well, turning and checking on us every few minutes, which earned him a reward. Sandy and Dusty took turns being in the lead.

Both dogs got into the water, and when we threw a couple of sticks, they both really got into it. I think this looks like synchronized dog paddle. It's hard to see, but they each have a stick.

Sandy's favorite spot to hang out at home is on the floor of the dining room, in the corner next to where I sit when I use the computer. We had a square seat cushion that was delivered to us by mistake when IKEA brought my Billy Cabinets. IKEA told us to keep it, and they would send a new one to the people who ordered it. It has been under the bed in the guest room ever since, more than four years. I decided it would make a good dog bed, although we have a bigger one in the family room. I thought about making a cover, because I couldn't find a ready-made one the right size and shape, but then I found an Etsy shop, KoveredUp. They make custom crate covers and dog bed covers, among other things. I got the instructions for how to measure the cushion and ordered one. It came on Thursday. Sandy likes it! I could have washed it, and I'm sure the folds would come out if I did that, but it's easy to take off, so I decided to wait until it gets dirty.

On Friday, we decided to walk to the dog park nearest to our home. It was hot, and there weren't a lot of other people and dogs there, but the pups had a good time with each other and those who were.

The back deck is coming along. We hired Josh, who has done several other jobs for us, to refinish it. He spent a couple of days doing repairs and did the sanding on Saturday. It should look good when it's finished.

I made some progress on Soren's quilt. The main body of it is almost done. I plan to put in a narrow inner border and then add an outer border.

I had a chance to work on the Kultainen käki sweater for a few rows. I like how the pattern is coming out. It's subtle, but it shows up.

Some political figures during the week suggested that slaves benefited from slavery. It caused me to go back and look through the book my ancestor kept of his family and holdings. I came across this page in the book, where he recorded the births of slave babies among the people he "owned." 

If you look at the dates, you will see that Vilet gave birth to five children in a little more than five years. The entry at the bottom is a different woman, Mary, who gave birth once and died four days later. This started me thinking about another ancestor of mine who came from Senegal, most likely as a slave.

I have a lot of difficulty responding to comments to my blog posts because of technical issues beyond my control (my lack of understanding of how things work). Message me on Facebook, Ravelry or Spoutible if you need information.

If you have a few minutes and are willing, please go to Amazon and B&N and search for "Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook by Peggy Stuart" in Children's. Every click on the page for the book makes it more likely they will keep a good supply in their warehouse and stores. If you are outside the US, you may have a separate website for these retailers. If you have a copy of any of our books, including Emil and Mariah, please leave an honest review on the websites, especially if you bought from them.

Where's my blog: If you want to follow my blog, go here and sign up to follow.

What's on my needles: Still the Kultainen käki cardigan and the EmPower People Kerchief (hibernating).

What's on my loom: I didn't make much progress on the placemats.

What's on my sewing machine: Still quilt blocks.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: Outdoor Fun, another rerun. The four girls leave off watching a movie on the tablet and find some interesting things to do outside in the fresh air.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still listening to Die Unendliche Geschichte by Michael Ende. Just when you think the story is over, it continues on. Well-named, but it's fine that it goes on, because I'm enjoying it.

What's in my wine glass: 19 Crimes "Sauvignon Block" Sauvignon Blanc 2022 from South Eastern Australia.

What's my tip of the week: Some salad greens come in thin plastic boxes, and mushrooms often come in smaller plastic boxes. These boxes usually can be recycled, but they also are useful for organizing storage drawers and shelves. We plan to use some of them in the new trailer, which has some storage but no drawers. 

Where are my books: The stories in each book first appeared in the blog and they are reproduced with a few changes. 

Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is available from BookBabyBookshop and other booksellers worldwide. The stories are Little Green Greatcoat, The Boy Doll Who Cried Wolf and Lost in the Woods.

Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook and Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are also still available from booksellers. The link for Book Baby is here. The three stories in Emil are Best Buds, Getting What You Want, and The Boys Cook Dinner.

The three stories in Mariah are Being Little, Besties, and Distraction.

If you don't get free shipping from Amazon or B&N, buy from the BookBabyBookshop, because 50% of the price goes to St. Jude. Other booksellers pay much less. 

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.

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Packing for...?

We've been getting ready to pick up our new trailer in Eugene. I made a couple of dishcloths and a nylon scrubby. Unfortunately, the pattern I have for the scrubby is no longer available, but I found this one, which looks to be almost the same. I used a much finer nylon net this time, and I found it easier to work with.

I'm adding this dish mat, which is the second one I made two years ago. How I made it is on the project page on Ravelry. I'm keeping the red one here at home.

You can see we're going with grey and turquoise as our main colors. I like these two colors, alone and separately, and we thought they would go well with the grey cabinets and the rag rugs I made last year for the trailer. Most of our bedding needed replacing anyway, so we got new sheets (only our third set in 23 years!) a new duvet cover (replacing the first one we got 23 years ago), which came with pillow shams. The mattress cover was also original and was starting to have holes in some places. We're keeping the original quilt for now, because it's a good cover on the bed to protect from muddy paws, but we're adding a fake fur throw, which Sandy loves. We can put the bedding into black plastic trash bags and hope they don't get mixed up with actual trash. 

We have inexpensive bath and hand towels, but I used those to pack our kitchen things, which includes our dishes. It mostly fits into five small boxes. This is greatly pared down from what we had in our old fifth wheel. It doesn't include our clothes, toiletries and personal items. We will only take enough clothes for a few days, because we have to fit everything into the truck. We'll tape up the boxes, put them in the bed of the truck and hope it doesn't rain.

It also doesn't include food, other than coffee, tea and a few other shelf-stable items, along with any leftovers from our fridge that might spoil if we left them. We'll use an insulated bag with cold packs from our freezer for cold stuff, and then we'll grocery shop for what we need when we get custody of the trailer and know how much will fit into the fridge, which is 6 cu. ft., which I think is smaller than what we had in the fifth wheel.

How about that old 5th wheel, which we sold on June 28th? It's still sitting on our RV pad. The gentleman who was supposed to pick it up had his tow vehicle break down. Sound familiar? He lives in Portland or Salem. It's taking some time to get it fixed. (Looking for parts, is my guess.) The registration and insurance on the fifth wheel runs out this month. We were going to give him the tow hitch, but he will have to get here and get it installed. We will need a place to put the new trailer. We're still trying to work things out. Right now, we don't know when we'll go to pick it up.

Health issues (mine) interfered with my activities this past week. I had an infected toe, which took me (limping) to urgent care. The day after I went to urgent care, I discovered that I had a UTI, which sent me to see my regular doctor (still limping). Now I'm on two antibiotics and no longer limping, but it took a lot of time getting it all sorted out. I did manage to get the blocks for Soren's quilt organized according to the arrangement I worked out last week. I have each block labeled with a pinned sticky indicating where it goes. 

Sandy continues to grow, tipping the scales at 17 lbs. as of Friday. He is now six months old. Minis grow faster and finish maturing sooner than standards, so we still have the expectation that he will be under 25 lbs. when he stops growing. He made us look good at training class on Sunday, in spite of the fact that I was unable to practice loose-leash walking with him during the week due to the toe, which continued to hurt when wearing any kind of shoe for most of the week. Dusty keeps Sandy exercised when we can't walk (or maybe it's the other way around).

Here's Sandy and his friend Snowball having a bedtime tussle in the upstairs hallway.

Sandy brings Snowball to bed with him at night. I think Snowball will have to go camping with us when we go.

Soren has been enjoying summer school. Here he is, off on the bus.

Johan, who turned nine this week, learned how to use a power drill, when the family put together a new shed for tools and things in the backyard. Useful life skills!

Useful in a different way, is Zachary's hiphop class. (He's the one in the white shirt.) I think he's very good!

I only got a couple of rows of the Kultainen käki sweater done, with the dish cloths and scrubby taking up my knitting time and all the other things, including another new story in The Doll's Storybook this week. (More info on that below). Here's how it's looking.

I have a lot of difficulty responding to comments to my blog posts because of technical issues beyond my control (my lack of understanding of how things work). Message me on Facebook, Ravelry or Spoutible if you need information.

If you have a few minutes and are willing, please go to Amazon and B&N and search for "Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook by Peggy Stuart" in Children's. Every click on the page for the book makes it more likely they will keep a good supply in their warehouse and stores. If you are outside the US, you may have a separate website for these retailers. If you have a copy of any of our books, including Emil and Mariah, please leave an honest review on the websites, especially if you bought from them.

Where's my blog: If you want to follow my blog, go here and sign up to follow.

What's on my needles: Still the Kultainen käki cardigan and the EmPower People Kerchief (hibernating), but also the dishcloth.

What's on my loom: Still the rag placemats, no progress.

What's on my sewing machine: Still ready to put the quilt blocks together.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: Nico has a problem in "The Secret," this week's story in The Doll's Storybook. Pauly thinks Veronika can help.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still listening to Die Unendliche Geschichte by Michael Ende, not much progress there, either. 

What's in my wine glass: Another Madroña El Tinto, always a favorite.

What's my tip of the week: If you need to save on space and keep food for a trip cold in an ice chest, use frozen food you expect to use up in the first few days as "ice." (Be sure it's food that is safe to cook thawed.)

Where are my books: The stories in each book first appeared in the blog and they are reproduced with a few changes. 

Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is available from BookBabyBookshop and other booksellers worldwide. The stories are Little Green Greatcoat, The Boy Doll Who Cried Wolf and Lost in the Woods.

Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook and Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are also still available from booksellers. The link for Book Baby is here. The three stories in Emil are Best Buds, Getting What You Want, and The Boys Cook Dinner.

The three stories in Mariah are Being Little, Besties, and Distraction.

If you don't get free shipping from Amazon or B&N, buy from the BookBabyBookshop, because 50% of the price goes to St. Jude. Other booksellers pay much less. 

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.

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