Bejeweled gossamer

Carl is not a fan of spiders, but he sure takes good pictures of their webs! From around the yard this morning, the first ones are on the cow handling chute just in front of Gracie:

Then he went to the garden and found more to take amongst the tomato vines:

Since he was in the garden area, Carl could not resist more pictures of the flowers there!

So pretty!

p.s. I looked up the definition of "gossamer" to be sure I was using an appropriate word and found this: "a fine, filmy substance consisting of cobwebs spun by small spiders, seen especially in autumn." Yep, I think that's appropriate!

Helping out

A friend here in the county needed some help with some yardwork, so we went with Jimmy today to help out. We cleaned out a flower bed, mowed grass, and got the grass clippings and leaves off the lawn, in preparation for some other folks who would be coming in the next few days to prepare the yard for winter.

In the flower bed, there was a praying mantis on one of the bushes...

It seemed to be wondering what these people were doing.

I thought that the brown might have been a fall coloration, and maybe it is, but what I have read on the internet indicates that they may change colors after moulting.

And why they were sticking that rectangular contraption up next to him.

Our friend and Carl heading into the woods with some clippings.

We had a good day, and were glad to help out, but... now we're quite sore!

A trip?

From a friend's Facebook page:

Anybody interested in a free ride in a helicopter flight for 4 people?! I'm still looking for 2 more people to join us. We leave early Saturday (October 24th) and will fly to San Diego, CA where we will have breakfast and then board a yacht for lunch.

Then we’ll do a flight along the coast to see the California Beaches then returning to San Diego for dinner, then fly back home.

 

If interested please email me.

 

Preferably someone with a helicopter and yacht, otherwise we can't go...

 

 Some pictures from our last few days at Chesapeake Bay RV Resort:

We found a pier that went out into the water -- this was on Saturday - the wind was up and the water was rougher...

a panorama view

Looking back toward the shore where we had taken pictures a couple of days before.

Hardly a cloud in the sky!

On Monday - the water was like glass again.

You can even see the jet contrails reflecting in the water.

Some cypress along the shore

On our bike ride on Monday afternoon, Carl got some pictures of a gaggle (herd? congress? flock?) of satellite dishes that probably service some of the seasonal sites in the woods.

A signpost at one of the seasonal sites - very wooded, right at the river.

Another collection of satellite dishes - this one next to one of the ponds on the property.

We enjoyed our stay at the Chesapeake Bay RV Resort. It was relatively quiet (got a little busier on the weekend) and the roads were in decent shape for walking or bike riding. We only went out one day to see some of the area - stopping at a couple of produce markets and getting groceries. We would definitely rate it as a Thousand Trails campground that we would be willing to return to - though we heard from some of the other "overnighters" there that it can be hard to get a reservation during the summer. The campground has a good number of non-seasonal sites (I think we were told 140 out of 365 are available for non-seasonals). The seasonal sites are reasonably well kept - they aren't showplaces, but they aren't junky either.

Southern home cooking

Do you remember on "Hee-Haw", there would be a scene where "Grandpa" was washing a window, people would say, "Hey, Grandpa, what's for supper?" and he would respond (while putting his hand through where the pane was where he was supposedly just washing) with a list of country / Southern foods?  (example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6u0VQbvDwA)

In a like manner, here is, "Hey, Carl, What's for Supper?"

Collard greens, sweet potatoes, and fried chicken

Another night, leftover fried chicken, sweet potatoes, and collard greens, and also squirrel patties!

And yet another night, sweet potatoes, roast with gravy, black-eyed peas with stewed tomatoes.

 

All together now, "Yum, Yum!!!"

Catching up on posting pictures from the farm

We have a number of pictures from the farm that I didn't post while we were there... so I'll get them posted now!

Jimmy and Carl worked on cleaning out brush around the back of the container that we use on the farm. This was one of multiple loads of brush that they extracted.

A beautiful sunset one evening...

Another view of the same sunset, a little later - from the end of Ricky's driveway looking back at the Poplar Springs Farm house.

A few days ago, a new "little one" arrived at the farm.

Another beef grower in the county had a calf whose mother had not taken care of her... so he had come earlier and gotten colostrum to give her initially, and then brought her up to the farm for bottle feeding.

That big one behind her is Mocha - the calf that was born in early May when we were here earlier this year.

Mocha and "mini-Mocha" -- at least for now, she is smaller than Mocha.

But with good milk from Regina's Jersey cows, I bet she'll be catching up to Mocha in a bit!

Many of the crops in the garden are done, but the flowers are still beautiful...

I recognize zinnias, but I know that there are others too...

So pretty!

 

 

Some tasks around the campground

A few weeks ago (actually, back in July!), when we were going through a tunnel on the interstate in West Virginia, we suddenly heard a lot of clanging outside the motorhome. Carl was driving and, looking in the rearview mirror said, "Did a paint can fall off that truck in front of us?" He had seen something that looked like a paint can bouncing against the wall of the tunnel.

When we got to Tamarack, where we were going to spend the night (in the parking lot), Carl discovered the source of the "paint can":

We had lost the hub cover on the tag axle on the passenger side of the coach.

If we had not been in the tunnel, we wouldn't have even known when we lost it.

So, a week or so ago, we went to Freightliner (Excel Truck Group) near Richmond to try to get the missing pieces. Carl had already called the parts department at Newmar and had a quote of over $750 for the three parts. He figured he could get them more reasonably from Freightliner (who makes them) directly.

Since I had driven the Jeep to the Freightliner location, Carl suggested that, while he was in the Parts department, I could wait over there -- with the other "Drivers" -- I elected to wait in the Jeep!

Carl went in to the Parts Department, and could get the "paint can", but they did not have the bracket and center hub bolt, and did not know where he could get them.

After he got back in the car, we thought of Freightliner Custom Chassis, the place in Gaffney, SC where we had been back in July to deal with the gauge problem on Gracie. Sure enough, he contacted them, and they knew exactly what was needed, and sent it out immediately. He was able to get all 3 parts that he needed for a total of $210 (compared to $750+). Just a reminder to us that it is probably better to get chassis parts from the chassis manufacturer rather than from the motorhome manufacturer, and that the Custom Chassis group is the part of Freightliner that makes and services the chassis for motorhomes.

Carl had installed the new "paint can" at the farm, and had polished most of the wheels when we were there, but just had two more to complete, which he did here at the campground.

He had finished the next-to-last wheel (the dual, on the left) by the time I got out there to take pictures. The tag wheel on the driver's side was the last one to get polished.

He was using a wash-and-wax product that he had gotten - spray it on...

... scrub with a wet cloth...

... then polish with another cloth.

He finished up with polishing the lug nut covers and then putting them on.

Another task: I mentioned in a blog a couple of weeks ago that we had a piece of tape come loose on the roof (also discovered when we stopped at Tamarack - on our second stop there on our way east... maybe we shouldn't stop there anymore as we find things that have come loose and need to be replaced when we are there!). We had ordered the tape (Eternabond) and Carl had put it on the roof a few days ago, but he still wanted to seal it down on the ends with Dicor self-leveling sealant.

So, we headed up onto the roof and Carl sealed both ends of the newly-placed tape -- one end...

... and the other end, right next to the air horn on the roof.

While we were up there, we also checked the sealant on the screws that are holding the solar panels in place. That all looked good. We still need to get the solar panels wired in to the system so they can be used to charge our batteries, but, we're thinking that will wait until we are in Mesa this winter.

We're glad that we got the sealant on the roof yesterday (Thursday) as it is raining pretty steadily here at the campground today.

Some pictures from around the campground yesterday:

Our campsite here at Chesapeake Bay RV Resort (Thousand Trails). It is a really wide campsite -- we have a lot of space on our "public" side of the coach (though we are pretty close to the RV to the other side and the one parked behind us).

The only negative is that the entry to the site was between two trees, but Carl got it backed in with no problem. We probably should have had it a little further forward (or back, but I think that would have run into the site behind us) as the front door is right at the tree roots, but we are surviving that!

We went on a long bike ride around the campground yesterday afternoon -- this was one of the ponds/lakes we saw as we were riding.

Our campsite is C-45, one of the yellow (full hookup, 50A) way over on the far right side. We rode around the roads that form the outer perimeter of the campground. The pond that was in the picture just above is the one that is near the middle bottom on the map.

 

We're getting inside work done today as we enjoy being in a dry place (no leaks from the newly-taped area!) during the rain.