This And That

The BoggsMobile cranked fine Thursday afternoon, aired up good and climbed the incline up to the road with no trouble at all. None of that was an accident. I put a heater next to the engine all night, I try to maintain the air system and I worked on the drive Tuesday. 

I was still concerned about all three things but it all worked out perfectly. Praise God. There is nothing like a little preparation blessed by a lot of grace!

I will tell you more about all the travel later but everything has been going well.

I snapped a couple of pictures inside the barn early Thursday morning that I want to show you. This thermometer is only a few feet from the bus and it was reading below 25 degrees.

This one is upstairs in my study and it was reading about 22 degrees.

When we are home I try to begin each morning in my study. It is nice to have a private place for my devotions. Obviously I have not been spending much time up there this visit home!😀 

It does not take much of a heater to warm the study but all heaters have been called up to active duty to heat the house until the HVAC is installed. That should happen Saturday.

I told you back in November about the Kidde fire extinguisher recall. You can follow the link to that post and follow links from the there to the Kidde recall site. Out of seven fire extinguishers we own, three of them are Kidde brand and all three fell under the recall.

I filled out the forms online and in 3-4 weeks they sent three replacements. There were waiting on us in the barn when we arrived December 23rd.

They came with instructions concerning sending the recalled units back. Kelly Jo jumped through all those hoops and I set them out for FedEx pickup early Thursday morning.

They were still there when we left the ranch Thursday afternoon but tracking information says they have been picked up. That was easy. At least it was easy for us. It must be a very hard blow for the Kidde company.

If you own a fire extinguisher, and you should, check it to see if it is affected by the recall. If it is not, it will not hurt to look at it anyway to make sure it is charged properly and within the date range to use. It would be awful to need an extinguisher, pick it up, point it at the fire and then nothing happen but more burning.

That is all for today. Thank you for dropping by.

Davy

Installing Rev-A-Shelf

Another small project we completed on the house while home for Christmas was installing the pull down shelving in the upper kitchen cabinets. 



It allow a person in a wheelchair to use the upper cabinets because the shelving unit pulls down and out of the cabinet. 



We had seen these in handicap accessible places we have stayed and we knew they would be a benefit to Odie. The brand is Rev-A-Shelf.

Bro. Galen Cummins (His company built the cabinets, which is another story I need to tell you) made it possible for Odie to have one of these in all of the upper cabinets in the kitchen and also the cabinet in the utility room. It was an incredibly generous gesture and one that will be a blessing for many years.

Bro. Galen installed one of them so that I could have a pattern to go by. I am thankful I had one as a guide. The instructions were good but having an installed shelf unit to compare to the directions was a huge help to me.

Here is the process.

I first marked the center of the opening. Then measured over the prescribed distance to the first screw for the bracket below. I made a little jig for that and the other measurements. It helped speed up the process.

Install the bracket in the cabinet.

These are the sides with gas pistons and springs.

The sides and the baskets.

The baskets, the brackets and the handle on the bottom assembled.

Then I installed that assembly in the cabinet and fastened it to the brackets. Next I installed the synchronizer bar across the back. That turned out to be the most difficult part because of my short, fat arms.

There you have it.

The Rev-A-Shelf pulls down easily with one hand and locks into place.

You pull down on the handle again and it will go back into the cabinet on its own assisted by little gas piston.

There are two on the east wall of the kitchen.

And three on the south wall.

Plus one in the utility room that is not pictured. It was the pattern Bro. Galen installed.

The directions said it should take 45 minutes. The first one I was interrupted by phone calls and visits. Plus I took time to make a little jig for the various measurements. With all that, the first one took me 1 hour and 45 minutes from opening the box to closing the cabinet door. Ouch!

Did I ever tell you about the puzzle one of my toddler nephews or nieces received for Christmas one year? It said on the box 2-4 years and it only took me 6 days. I guess I am a little above average.



You will be happy to know the second Rev-A-Shelf took me only 38 minutes and by the fifth one I was down to 22 minutes. Maybe you can teach an old elephant new tricks.😀

It felt good to get those put in the cabinets. There were several other little things I completed during this short stay and I am sure there will be a few dozen more on our next visit to the Lazy OD Ranch. We are making progress.

Thank you for going with us.

Davy

A House Project Update

Here are a few pictures and a description of some of the small projects on the house construction we tackled the few days we have been home. Dad put in all the breakers in the panel and did a fine job. This used to be such a simple process but codes have  complicated it.

Now you not only need GFCI breakers for certain circuits but you need AFCI (Arc fault) breakers on a bunch of cicuits. A few of the circuits required combination GFCI/AFCI breakers. Wow, give me a break (er)!😏

The inspector told me that the special breakers add an average of $700 to the cost of the panel. Evidently this house is running pretty close to average! They are a little more difficult to put in too, but Dad made light work of it.

Do you remember when we poured the master closet/safe room ceiling in early August? You can read about it HERE.

David Butler told me to leave the forms up for a while and since we were gone for a few months, I did leave them up a while, over four months! That should be enough.

Ready to pour in August.

In the process of pouring August 8.

One of the first things I did after Christmas was remove the vertical bracing.

Then my brother Steve helped me with the overhead forms and scraping the concrete that seeped through off the walls.

I did not get a good picture after the wood against the ceiling was removed but the concrete looks great.

Next on the agenda was insulating above that ceiling. This was the say it was poured.

Then after the insulation.

That made a huge difference in the temperature of that room. I fully intended to paint the block with block filler but the surface, air and paint has to be above 50 degrees. I decided I better wait until it was above 0 outside.

While I was working in the attic I completed the switch and plug for the attic entrance lights. I am using the 4' LED lights that look like florescent lights. I used those type of lights in the tent the last couple of years. They sip electricity and put out a lot of light.

I bought several for the house construction. A few of them will be mounted permanently in the attic and a few in the garage.

Tuesday I worked on getting the drive in shape to be able to pull the BoggsMobile out of the barn and hit the road soon. There is a small hill on the gravel drive after exiting the barn and I was a little concerned about it.

It has been so cold that the snow is pretty much frozen in one piece. I used a blower to chip away at the snow that was not packed down. Then I put ice-melt where the bus wheels will go. The little sunshine we had Tuesday afternoon helped and hopefully we will get some more today.

All the places below where you can see gravel are places I was able to remove with the blower.

We did take a few minutes to eat a late lunch at Acapulco.

But we kind of HAD to go. Someone at church slipped this in my pocket at church Sunday night.

It is $20 and great Acapulco coupons! I am pretty sure it was Bro. Gary Scott but I have not confirmed it yet. If I did not go to Acapulco and spend the money and use the coupons, then whoever gave them to me might have had hurt feelings and I would not want to be responsible for that!

Yesterday evening I cleaned up the house and carried my tools back to the barn. This morning I am meeting with a counter top guy and then sorting the tools between barn tools and bus tools. After that we will begin preparations to leave in earnest.

I sure appreciate you taking time to read today. Have a great day.

Davy