Living Our Dream

A Couple of Park Model Projects, a Craft Project, and Freeway the Lizard Hunter

Wauchula, FL - Events of Wednesday, May 22 to Wednesday, June 5, 2019

In our last post we wrote about a break we took from projects to visit the Naples Botanical Garden. Afterward, Paul was back working on projects.

We have a cupboard in the hallway of our park model where we store pantry items that we don't have room for in the kitchen cupboards. The hall cupboard is two feet deep making it very hard to see what's in back. Margery frequently had to take numerous items out just to find the one thing she was looking for.

Hall pantry

In order to provide better access to things in the hall pantry, Paul built roll-out shelves similar to those he built last year for our printers in the cupboard across the hall. The big difference is that the pantry roll-outs have higher sides and an even higher back to keep stacked items from falling off. Paul was able to use wood left over from the furniture project he recently finished, so the only expense was for the heavy-duty, full-extension drawer slides.

Roll-out shelves added to the hall pantry

Since there was still more wood left over from building the furniture, Paul used some of it to also add a shelf to the cabinet in the living room over the TV. Not only does this cabinet house our cable modem and wireless router, we also use the bottom shelf to store a lot of smaller items to which we like to have easy access because of the cabinet's convenient location right by the door. The problem is, there were so many things on the bottom shelf that they were piled on top of each other.

The project was fairly simple. There was much more time spent waiting for the stain and finish to dry than actually doing the cutting and fitting. The addition of the new shelf helps things stay separated, which makes it easier to quickly grab what we want.

Bottom shelf in cabinet over the TV before

Cabinet over the TV after the new shelf was added

Margery has been busy reading and has been very busy crocheting. Live Oak Church, which is the church we attended when we spent our winters at Blueberry Hill RV Resort in Bushnell, is very active in Samaritan's Purse Operation Christmas Child. Operation Christmas Child is a charity that sends shoe boxes full of gifts, including the greatest gift of all - the Gospel message, to needy children around the world.

Not only do the members of Live Oak Church purchase items and fill large numbers of shoe boxes on their own, the church also has a workshop with volunteers who meet once or twice a week to make wooden toys to go into the shoe boxes. A number of the ladies, Margery included, crochet hats to go into the boxes. Even though we have moved two hours farther south and now attend a different church, Margery continues to make hats throughout the year and sends them off to Live Oak Church in late fall. Below is an example of one of the hats.

One of the hats Margery makes for Operation Christmas Child

A few weeks ago, Margery found an idea online to wind yarn onto cardboard toilet paper or paper towel tubes, and place the tubes onto a floor-stand toilet paper holder. As you crochet and unwind the yarn from the tube the tension remains much more constant than when unwinding yarn from a skein or ball.

We started saving toilet paper and paper towel tubes, and Margery started winding the yarn onto them. The problem with the cardboard tube is the amount of yarn you can put onto it is somewhat limited because the yarn tends to fall off the ends, especially when the end of the tube gets squished.

Paul, the engineer, came up with an answer to the problem. He made spools from pieces of 1½" PVC pipe with cut-down adapter fittings on each end. He glued flanges made of thin PVC to the adapter fittings. The flanges were cut from pieces of mobile home skirting left over from when Paul put skirting on the shed a while back.

Each spool holds a whole skein of yarn. We even bought a second toilet paper holder so Margery wouldn't have to steal the one from the bathroom every time she wants to crochet. The next photo shows Margery using her yarn holder with Freeway sitting in his favorite spot next to her.

Margery using one of her new yarn spools while Freeway keeps her company

Speaking of Freeway, we want to share the story of how he helped track down a renegade lizard that had gotten into our park model. Florida has loads and loads of little lizards scurrying around everywhere. People sometimes call them geckos, but although there are geckos in Florida, the lizards they are generally referring to are anole lizards. There seems to be great disagreement on whether the name is pronounced "an-OLE" or "an-OLE-ee," so take your pick.

Male anoles have a flap of skin under their neck called a dewlap, which they display to attract females or to establish their territory among other males. Anoles get to be 6 to 7" long. Below is a photo of an anole displaying his dewlap that Paul took some time ago.

Anole displaying his dewlap

When Paul was working on cutting and fitting the shelf for the cabinet over the TV, he had to made several trips in the back door to take dimensions and back out again to make the necessary saw cuts to zero in on the proper fit. Margery was sitting quietly in the living room either reading or crocheting when Freeway suddenly got up and started snorting in a basket we keep by the back door where we put items that need to be taken out to the shed. He then ran to the bedroom and scurried between the bed and the bedside table. Paul grabbed a flashlight to see what it was that Freeway was chasing. Sure enough, Freeway had an anole cornered under the bedside table. The lizard must have darted in unseen during one of the times Paul was going in or out while working on his project.

Anoles eat mostly bugs, which means they're actually somewhat beneficial. Although they'll bite if cornered, they're normally not aggressive. Not only that, but don't have teeth and their bite isn't very strong, so their bite doesn't even hurt. However, we didn't want to see an anole scoot across the floor while we were sitting there watching TV, and we really didn't want to take a chance on having one run across either of our faces while we were sleeping, so having an anole in the park model was highly undesirable.

After considering several options of how to get rid of the anole, Paul ended up grabbing several pieces of leftover plywood from the shed. He laid down barriers on both sides of a path between the bedroom and the back door. With a little encouragement, the little fellow made his way out the door. We were very thankful for Freeway, our little lizard hunter, for cornering the anole so we could maneuver him back outside. Now we can sleep in peace.

Freeway Gets a Bath

Berlin, OH - Events of Wednesday, July 25, 2018

The weather forecast for Wednesday was for fair amount of clouds with a pretty good chance of rain later in the day so we decided on an indoor activity for the afternoon. There was a theater in nearby Massillon that was showing "Equalizer 2" with Denzel Washington. We had recently seen the original "Equalizer" on TV, and we liked it so we planned on a matinee for Wednesday.

We got an early start for breakfast on Wednesday because we had a a couple of other things we wanted to do before heading to the theater for the 1:30 showing. Boyd and Wurthmann Restaurant in downtown Berlin is a very popular place, but in all the times we have visited the area we had never been there so we decided to go there for breakfast.

Boyd and Wurthmann Restaurant

We both had two eggs, bacon and toast for $5.29. The food was good. The bread was thick-sliced and even looked like it was home baked, not some grocery store Wonder Bread. However, we thought their prices were a little high and service was a little slow.

Paul with his eggs, bacon, and toast

One of the things on our list of things to do that morning was to stop at Country Gatherings just up the road from the restaurant. Country Gatherings has lots of plants and garden-related stuff, and it's another place we always enjoy looking around.

Plants and decorative garden items at Country Gatherings

This time, we saw a water feature we thought would look nice outside the park model, but it was a little too pricey.

Margery with an interesting water feature

The second thing we wanted to do before heading to the movie was to give Freeway a bath. After our stop at the garden store, we headed back to the loft to pick up Freeway and take him to the Laundro Mut Pet Wash located on a side street in downtown Berlin. We're used to traveling in an RV and having everything we need to take care of things like dog baths, but we are finding ways to adapt to car travel.

Laundro Mut Pet Wash

For $5 you get 8 minutes of wash, rinse, and/or dry. You can purchase additional minutes at a reduced price if you do so during the 8 minutes; but once the clock runs out, you have to start over with another $5.

Freeway getting a bath at Laundro Mut

Like most dogs, Freeway doesn't particularly like baths, but he tolerates them and doesn't put up a big fight. He was a good boy and stood nice and still for the wash and rinse.

For drying, you can select "vacuum" to remove excess water, then switch to "blow" to blow dry. However, as we found out, the vacuum dry nozzle is designed for larger dogs. Freeway became quite apprehensive when the vacuum nozzle sucked itself onto his side and didn't want to let go. Once we got the nozzle free and resumed vacuuming, Freeway definitely decided he was done when his entire right hind leg got sucked into the nozzle.

Switching to blow dry wasn't much better because it sounded like a 747 taking off, and we've seen more gentle air flow on professional quality leaf blowers. We ended up just putting Freeway on the floor, letting him shake himself off a couple of times, and then drying him the best we could with the towel we brought. That's the way we usually do it at home anyway.

Back at the loft, Margery finished drying Freeway with her hair dryer because it was almost time to head out to the movie. We didn't want to put him into his crate wet.

After drying Freeway, we headed to Massillon to the theater. "Equalizer 2" is a great action movie that we thoroughly enjoyed.

We always like to get a large tub of popcorn at the movies even though it is way overpriced; but this time we only got a medium bag because we were planning to stop at Smoke: The Burger Joint in Massillon after the movie. Smoke has three restaurants in northeastern Ohio. They make great, 1/3-pound, smoked burgers, and they also have good hot dogs, wings, and grilled cheese sandwiches. They have a number of burgers with special toppings; but we almost always get a "make it your own" burger where you can pick your own toppings. We usually get cheese, lettuce, and tomato.

The fries at Smoke are also excellent. They're twice cooked. The first frying pre-cooks the inside and seals in the moisture, and the second frying, done at a slightly higher temperature, makes them extra crispy on the outside. We knew the fries were good so we got a medium order. Big mistake! As you can see in the photo below, the medium order of fries is huge!

Margery with her burger and our medium order of fries

We couldn't have eaten all the fries if we had wanted to, and we didn't want to because we wanted to save room for a milk shake for dessert. In addition to excellent burgers and excellent fries, Smoke also makes excellent milk shakes that are big and thick. We split a mocha, which has just the right balance of chocolate and coffee.

With our bellies full, we headed back to the loft for an evening of TV. Stay tuned for our next post from Berlin, Ohio. 

Change of Pace

Wauchula, FL - Events of Sunday, May 6 to Monday, May 14, 2018

We have now been in the park model for over a month and are starting to feel very much at home. Freeway was a little wary at first, but even he has gotten more comfortable in his new surroundings. He used to like to sit up on the back of our theater seating in the 5th wheel so he could see out the window; but now he has an even better view sitting in front of the sliding glass door to keep watch.

Freeway keeping watch by the sliding glass door

Although there are still a lot of improvements we want to make in the park model, many of the more pressing ones are complete so we felt we could turn our attention from working on practical improvements to decorating. Because of weight and space limitations, decorating our motor home and 5th wheel was pretty much limited to hanging a few family photos in lightweight frames on the walls with 3M Command Strips. We now have no weight restrictions, and we have more space so we are excited at the opportunity to express ourselves by adding some decorative items.

One of the first things we did was to stop at Michael's after church on a Sunday early in May to look for baskets to put on top of our hall closet. The baskets in the next photo are decorative, but we still couldn't abandon our practical side altogether because the baskets also hold most of our winter clothes. We used to store our winter clothes in a large, plastic bin, and moving the winter clothes to the baskets has freed up valuable shelf space in the shed.

Decorative storage containers containing our winter clothes

A little over a week ago, Margery had an appointment for a haircut in Sebring. After the haircut, we stopped at a nearby thrift shop and found some glass bottles and vases for $1 to $3 each. Paul painted some some of them with Krylon seaglass paint so we can use them as decorations beside some additional baskets we got at Michael's.

Decorative basket and thrift shop bottle

More decorative items in the kitchen

After Margery's haircut and our visit to the thrift shop, we stopped at Dee's Place in Sebring for a late lunch of half-pound burgers. This is love bug season here in Florida, and as we walked toward the truck after lunch, the angle of the sun was just right to highlight how many love bugs were plastered to the front. All the bugs in the next photo were from just one 30-mile drive to Sebring that morning.

Love bugs on the truck

For those of you who don't know what love bugs are, they are flying insects that were originally imported from central America. Love bugs get their nickname from the fact they remain coupled, even in flight, during several days of mating. Love bugs occur for periods of several weeks in the late spring and early fall. Fortunately, they don't bite or sting. Furthermore, the larvae feed on decaying plant material, and the adults feed on nectar from various flowers so they are not a threat to crops. They are, however, a real nuisance because of their sheer numbers. Love bugs can clog vehicle radiators; and due to their acidic body chemistry, they can damage paint if they are not removed from the front of your vehicle fairly promptly. According to those we have talked to who live in Florida year round, this is one of the worst years for love bugs they can remember. We have run into swarms along the road that are so large they sound like rain hitting the windshield, and it even looked like we were driving through black snow flurries.

Speaking of the truck, shortly after we made the decision to trade the 5th wheel for a park model, we also decided we would eventually trade in the truck because we just didn't need a vehicle that big. The truck was great for towing the 5th wheel, but it was big and rough-riding as a daily ride. When we had a motor home, we had a Chevy Equinox, which we absolutely loved, so we decided that's what we would get to replace the truck.

When we investigated prices for a new Equinox and the trade-in value of the truck, we realized we could get a brand new, well equipped Equinox and still get several thousand dollars back on the transaction. Therefore, we decided to trade in the truck sooner rather than later so we could use the money we would get back to help pay for the furniture and start-up expenses for the park model.

We wanted to buy from Colussy Chevrolet where our son-in-law J. Michael works, but we would have had to wait at least until we went back to Pittsburgh sometime this summer. We are very particular about our color and option preferences so we almost always special order our vehicles. By summer, it would be too late for a special order so we would have either had to take whatever vehicle they could find that was close to what we wanted or wait even longer until we went north for Christmas. Not only that, but the truck needed new front tires so we would have had to buy them before we made the 1,000-mile trek to Pittsburgh. Since we are so particular about our options, since the truck needed tires, and since the park model startup expenses are occurring now, we reluctantly decided to give the local Chevy dealer in Wauchula a shot at giving us a price. They were willing to special order a car for us, and they eventually came through with what we thought was a fair price so we placed an order 7 or 8 weeks ago.

The Equinox came in May 10, and we went to pick it up the next day. The color is called Pepperdust. It looks gray in the photo below, but it is a warm gray that has a definite bronze cast to it in bright sun.

New Equinox

We are loving the smoother ride and smaller size of the Equinox. Not only that, but the insurance cost is lower, the registration cost is lower, and fuel costs will be lower. The only downside to buying a new car now is Paul will be very busy cleaning love bugs off to keep them from damaging the new paint.

Last Monday, we drove the new car to Hobby Lobby in Lakeland to look for more decorative items. We bought a few smaller items that day, and we also got some inspiration for a new idea for our decor that we will explore over the next few weeks.

We left for Hobby Lobby fairly early so we could stop at Fred's Market Restaurant on the way for their breakfast buffet. All the meals at Fred's are served buffet style. The breakfast buffet costs $7.99 and includes scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, sausage gravy and biscuits, fried chicken, fried pork chops, home fries, hash browns, cinnamon rolls, blueberry muffins, fresh fruit, cereal, and more.

Margery at Fred's Market Restaurant

After breakfast and our visit to Hobby Lobby, we made a couple of more stops and then headed back to the Co-op. Stay tuned for our next update.

Getting Ready to Hit the Road

Berlin, OH - Events of Sunday, September 17 to Sunday, September 24, 2017

As we said in our last post, we delayed our departure from Ohio for at least a week while we monitored the restoration of electrical power and the availability of fuel in Florida along with the progress of yet another hurricane. Hurricane Maria hit a number of the Caribbean Islands again, but it missed Florida. Although it is brushing past the Outer Banks, it is a weakening tropical storm and is predicted to remain fairly far offshore.

Delaying our departure turned out to be a good thing for another reason. A week ago Sunday, which would have been the day before our originally-planned departure, Freeway developed a case of diarrhea late in the evening. We're really glad we weren't on the road because the problem continued off and on throughout the day on Monday. It started to taper off a bit in the evening, and Freeway made it through Monday night without any incidents so we thought he had turned the corner. Unfortunately, the diarrhea came back with a vengeance by mid morning on Tuesday so we decided it was time to take him to the East Holmes Veterinarian Clinic in downtown Berlin.

They wanted us to leave him for the day so they could run some tests and monitor him for dehydration. We got a call late in the afternoon saying they wanted to keep him overnight to start treating his dehydration and to run more tests in the morning if he didn't show improvement. To make a long story short, they ended up keeping him until Friday because of the dehydration and because they wanted to make absolutely sure he was on the mend since we were planning to leave town the following week. They never were able to find the root cause of the problem, but they think it was caused by bacteria. Where he picked it up, we don't know.

We visited Freeway both Wednesday and Thursday while he was in the doggy hospital. He was pretty chipper both days and was really glad to see us. It was heartbreaking to see the look on his face when we had to leave him, but we knew it was for the best. By the way, the bandage on his leg in the next photo is to hold the IV in place.

Margery and Freeway during our visit with him on Thursday

When we went to pick Freeway up on Friday, he was thrilled to finally be going home. He was really rambunctious when we first got back to the 5th wheel, but that wore off quickly. He was a little subdued for a day or two after that, but he is now back to his old self. Although Freeway will be on an antibiotic for a while, as well as some meds to calm his digestive system, the vet said there should no problem with Freeway traveling. We can't say enough good things about the care he got at the East Holmes Veterinary Clinic, and we also thought the cost was very reasonable considering all the tests they ran and how long he was there. 

Freeway leaving the doggy hospital

While Freeway was in the doggy hospital, we had lots of errands to run because we were hoping Freeway would be well enough that we could still leave the following Monday. While out and about, we hit a number of our favorite eateries in the area.

One of our errands took us to Menard's in nearby Massillon. While we were in Massillon, we stopped at Smoke the Burger Joint. Margery had a San Antonio Burger with barbecue/mayo sauce, American cheese, onion straws, and Carolina barbecue sauce. Paul had a House Burger with American cheese, house-made mustard, house-made ketchup, and house-made pickles. We shared an order of twice-cooked fries, and then we shared a chocolate mocha shake for dessert. Everything was delish!

Margery with her burger at Smoke the Burger Joint

When we went out to run errands on Wednesday morning, we stopped at Der Dutchman Bakery for cream sticks. Yum!

On Thursday, it was more errands. On our way back to the RV park, we stopped at Der Dutchman for their salad bar for lupper.

Margery waiting to dig into her salad at Der Dutchman

Friday was another busy day. Not only were there more errands in store with stops at Walnut Creek Cheese, Hershberger's Farm Market, and Walmart, but that's also the day we picked Freeway up from the vet.

Early on Saturday morning, we went out to Der Dutchman for their breakfast buffet one more time before we headed south. We also stopped in the bakery for fry pies for dessert that evening. Yum!

By the early part of last week, power had been largely restored in most of Georgia, northern Florida, and central Florida; and although the GasBuddy app still showed some fuel shortages, supplies were definitely improving. Freeway was also pretty much back to normal by Sunday, so it was full steam ahead with our plans to leave the following day.

After working on some of our pre-departure chores on Sunday morning and early afternoon, we went to Park Street Pizza in nearby Sugarcreek for lupper. Since we recently had pizza when we visited Lora, J. Michael, and Lydia, we had a small order of Buffalo wings, a medium order of boneless wings (chicken nuggets), and an order of bread sticks. It was all yummy!

Paul with our bread sticks at Park Street Pizza

After lupper, we returned to the 5th wheel for an evening of relaxation. We hitched up on Monday morning and headed south. We'll tell you about our journey in our next post.

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More Smoke and a Project for Lydia

Berlin, OH - Events of Saturday, August 29 to Tuesday, September 2, 2015

We have been putting our smoker to good use ever since we first got it. We have smoked a pork shoulder, a turkey breast and baby back ribs.

Walnut Creek Cheese has a nice selection of meats at their meat counter, and that's where we get most of our meats when we are staying here in Berlin. When we were shopping there last week, we saw they had beef brisket at $4.79 a pound. The going price these days for brisket is around $8 a pound, so we bought a small one and smoked it last Saturday.

Most of the time meat is smoked right on the grate; but this time, we decided to try putting the meat in a shallow, disposable pan to catch the juices.

Brisket in the smoker

The brisket took about 5½ hours. After a 45-minute resting time wrapped in foil to give the juices time to redistribute, the brisket was ready for carving.

Beef brisket

Wow, was it tender! It was also nice and smokey. The downside to smoking in a pan is you don't get a nice, crisp bark from the caramelization of the brown sugar in the rub, but the flavor of the juices that are captured in the pan are outstanding when poured over the meat. You almost don't need barbecue sauce.

Then last Wednesday, we smoked a meat loaf. The recipe we used is half pork sausage and half ground beef. Since is also contains bread crumbs soaked in buttermilk, the finished product is nice and moist. It was smokey and yummy served with barbecue sauce.

Smoked meatloaf

And now on to Lydia's project. Lydia loves swings because she seems to like to feel the wind in her face. Therefore, family friends bought her a swing seat by Little Tykes. Paul volunteered to make a frame to hang it.

Since Paul would have to assemble the swing to fit everything together before taking it to Pittsburgh anyway, he decided to build it in time for Lydia to use it when they came to Scenic Hills to be with us for Labor Day. Afterward, he will disassemble it, we will take it to Pittsburgh the next time we go, and he will reassemble it there.

After picking up most of the materials at Lowe's on a recent trip to Massillon, Ohio, Paul started cutting.

Cutting uprights for the swing

It was a little tricky to wrestle the leg assemblies around to get the crossbar bolted in place and then get the whole thing standing upright, but Margery helped. Once the main assembly was put together, it was only a matter of installing some angle braces...

Assembly upright with angle braces installed

...and then hanging the swing. It's now ready for Lydia to test it out.

Completed swing

Aside from smoking meat and building the swing, we continue to spend a lot of time relaxing. And who knows how to relax better than a dog. The next photo shows Freeway in one of his three favorite locations on the top of the back of our theater seating. His other favorite places are the top of the back of the couch so he can see out the back window or on someone's lap.

Freeway relaxing

With the Labor Day weekend approaching, the campground is filling up. We're looking forward to the arrival of Lora, J. Michael and Lydia. Stay tuned.