A Week of Firsts!

Last week of course was our first Thanksgiving at the J-B, now this week we had several more firsts. Our most surprising was our first Christmas card received at our South Dakota address! We have not received a Christmas card in years so when we got the mail this past Tuesday we were thrilled to have gotten a Christmas card from our good friends and neighbors Jim and Brenda who are wintering in Florida this winter. Thanks guys!

Rather than go into detail about our next first I will just post this picture…..

Our first fire! Actually, we had our 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th fires as well but the first fire was a very special moment. 

After having it set in place late last week we were anxious to actually get it operational. The biggest challenge to accomplishing this goal was punching the 10” pipe through the roof. Scary! But fear not, we have Kevin here! We started it late one afternoon. We put the firerock in place, stacked the pipe from the fireplace up and punched a hole through the vapor barrier and insulation. This is where we received our first stroke of good luck. The pipe went directly between two trusses so there was no need for an offset or any other adjustments. The next step was to install the insulation shield which is quite a bit bigger than the actual pipe and offers air space between the pipe and the insulation or anything else that might come close to the pipe. Once that was done, Barb lifted Kevin up to the roof with the basket on the skidsteer. Good news/bad news up there. The bad news was that the roof was covered with about 2"'s of ice and snow. The good news was that the penetration point was only about 3’ up the edge of the roof. So for that day we just cleared off as much snow and ice as we could and called it a day. The next afternoon we went back up there and as we had hoped the sun had cleared off any remnants of ice on the area we had cleared. Kevin laid down a section of rubber-backed carpet, jumped up on roof and started cutting. An hour later we had the pipe through the roof and we were ready for our first fire!

Next step, build the frame up to the ceiling

Another first was the first time (and hopefully the last) I was in our cistern. For the past year or two our cistern pump was temporarily hooked up to an outlet out by the RV parking area. But over the past couple weeks I had been building the parts around the pressure tank showing our neighbor Doug (who is a licensed plumber) how I was building it. 

Ready for water!

Once that was done it was time for me to jump down into the cistern and hook the well pump into the pipe going underground into the house and eventually into the pressure tank. I had been waiting until the cistern was almost empty as I did not feel like jumping in a 2500 gallon tank that was half full!

I wrapped the legs of our ladder in clean plastic, put on my waders and scrubbed them with a water/bleach solution and was ready to head down into the depths of the cistern! One problem. I did not fit! Between the ladder and me donned in waders there was not enough room to get my fat @ss down the hole. After thinking about it for a few minutes I came up with the perfect solution and pulled the ranger up as close to the hole as I could, made a loop with the winch rope stuck my foot, through it and had Barb lower me down into the cistern Batman style! It worked like a charm. The only problem is that Barb was thinking of putting the lid back on and having me "take a timeout". Luckily she could not lift the concrete lid and the only thing I had to worry about is whether she was going to lift me back up. She must love me as she brought be back up and a few minutes later we had water in the house! We had a few drips on some of the connections around the pressure tank. It started out with about 8 areas that were dripping, but one by one I eliminated each one. 

Down I go!

Help me!

Barb thinking of putting the cover back on!

Speaking of Doug our neighbor, he has spent two days over here running water lines and sewer pipes. He has the entire upstairs bathroom plumbing done and just need the waterlines tied off up there and we will have an operational bathroom! No sheetrock on the walls, but it will be operational. It is called an open concept bathroom.

With less than two weeks left we have a checklist of things we would like to get done before we leave. Most of it is around finishing off walls as we hope to have a sheetrocker come in while we are down south. I needed to do the ½ wall in the bathroom...….

1/2 Wall in the downstairs bathroom

The ½ wall for the dog wash. This wall also serves as the water supply and drain area for the washing machine as well. 

Before

Still need add a stud and run waterlines 

 Soffits around the boiler venting and plumbing pipes.

Soffited and ready for sheetrock

And last but not least finish the closet in the upstairs bedroom.

Bedroom closet, done!

We just need to finish the rest of the waterlines and we will be ready for sheetrock!

The turkeys and deer visit us daily. In fact it has gotten so the turkeys don't leave at all spending most of their day under the birdfeeder waiting for the other birds to drop seeds down to them. 

In the meantime we have also been busy getting ready to leave. High on our list is emptying as much as we can out of the 5^th wheel so it is ready to sell once we get down to Arizona. Here is a link to our ad if you know anyone who might be interested.

We have not picked a departure date yet, it depends on when we get everything done here and are all packed up. We are thinking by the 16th at the latest. Looking forward to the warmer weather and happy hours with our Quartzsite friends!