Archive for May, 2010

My brother kindly drove me out to the trailer to help me clean up some stuff. Because I don’t yet have a fridge, all my food has been in the cooler. And due to the circumstances of last Tuesday morning, I have not been able to be at home to eat the food in the cooler. I was afraid I was going to get a cell phone call from the trailer park owners telling me about a wicked smell coming from my camper, or worse, animals managing to get inside.

Prior to driving out though, I inquired about Bell Mobility’s internet service and whether they would be able to assure me they had coverage at the location of my new home.  They told me that they believed I would definitely be able to get Internet connectivity with a Novatel Wireless U998. The local Bell Mobility store had some in stock and I picked one up. There was an additional challenge in that I use a Linux operating system, so I needed to get it running under Linux. I had been able to get a Rogers Rocket Stick running previously, but had no internet connection at the trailer with it.

I did manage to get the U998 working under Linux – it was actually easier (although more time consuming as I was searching and looking in the wrong places) than the Rocket Stick.

Off we went to clean up the cooler and of course, I took my laptop along. I was still feeling quite pessimistic about getting internet over broadband as my Bell Mobility cell phone has a difficult time keeping a connection here.

When we got there, I powered up the laptop, plugged in the U998 and lo and behold! Internet! At speeds that were not too bad – not great, but faster than dial up!

So that was something to be very happy about.

When C. came up on the weekend, we made a list of things we should get for the camper trailer. I already have camping gear but not enough of some things for actually living in a place with that gear. Here’s the list we came up with:

Bucket – for cleaning.

Butter dish (some plastic ware with a lid will do)

Sugar container with a lid to keep out the beasties that might appear when I’m not there

Forks

Plates

Cordless Vacuum (although there is an electric hook up, a full size vacuum would just take up to much room)

Internet connection

Freezer bags

First Aid Kit

Fire Extinguisher

Ulster Flag

Cape Breton or Nova Scotia Flag

Flag Pole(s)

Mugs

Bar size Fridge (the original fridge that came with the camper is not in it)

Kitchen table/chairs

Propane Regulator (but now I know it’s just a hose I need)

Also on the list include things that I need for personal and business comfort, including my “lap desk” that makes using my laptop easier when sitting and there is no table in front of me), shorts, sandals, bathing suit.

I also would like to find a better and less costly supplier of firewood. A bag of firewood costs $7.00 at the gas station down the road and is easily burned in one evening.

After C. left this afternoon, I decided to take the new propane tank out of the Jeep and put up in front of the trailer. At the time, I decided to turn on one of the tanks that is hooked up, and when I did, I realized that the spewing propane was not coming from the regulator at all! There is a hole in the hose that goes from the tank to the regulator and it’s from here that the propane is leaking.

That means I just need to get a new hose.

When I discovered this, I turned on the other propane tank (the first one is turned off, of course), and there were no leaks.

With that wonderful discovery, I got myself busy at getting the stove and oven in the trailer working as well as the hot water heater.  Attached to the inside of one of the cabinet doors in the Glendale Camper is a sheet of paper with the specifications of the camper and original equipment. On it, it instructs to light all pilot lights after turning on the propane. So I busied myself looking for any pilot lights that needed to be lit.

First was the water heater. I went around back of the trailer and easily figured out how to turn on the pilot for the water heater. Pretty standard – turn the control knob to “Pilot,” hold down the red button, and stick in a lighter where the pilot light is. A blue flame!

Next was to figure out the stove and if it had a pilot light even. I turned one of the burners on, and there was no “clicking” sound like on other gas stoves I’ve had. I was able to light the burner with a match. Then, I lit all the burners, thinking that if the stove had a pilot, it would catch with all the burners lit. It was kind of dark near the stove, so seeing a pilot light flame somewhere should be easy, but I couldn’t see one nor could I see any place where a pilot light would be.

I turned off all the burners, waited a while to see if I could smell propane which would be evidence of an unlit pilot light. Nothing. Then I lit a long match and slowly went over the top of the stove and into every part near the burners, seeing if something would light. Nothing.

So I am sure there is no pilot light for the stove. Which is fine by me.

Next was the oven. I opened the oven door and smelled. No gas. But a gas oven usually does have a pilot light, even those that have stoves that do not have pilot lights. Once again, I lit a match and slowly hovered it in and around the gas burners trying to light something. Perhaps the oven was not working?

I don’t like playing around with gas and flames very much.  But I thought I’d try to see what happens when I turned the oven on to “low.” With the match lit, and kneeling in front of the stove as far away as physically possible, I turned the knob to low.  The oven burner did not light up. Using a flashlight, I could see what appeared to be a pilot light burner burner near the back. I put the match close to it, and voi la! I had it lit.

I then turned the oven on to full blast. The main oven burner lit up. I turned it down to low again. The main burner went out but the pilot light stayed on. I turned the oven off. The pilot light went out.

So it seems that in order to light the oven pilot light, I have to turn the oven on to low and then adjust the temperature control. I have no idea if the oven thermometer works or not but that will be tested another day.

After being very excited about figuring out the oven and stove, I turned on the hot water tap. I had warm water coming out! The hot water heater was definitely working, and an hour later, I had very hot water flowing from the tap!

I can now do dishes without having to boil water.

No pots, no worries!

This evening we had steak. Delicious steak dinner! Remember, the stove in the Glendale camper trailer is not working on account of the three way propane regulator. But we were starving, and when we went into town we bought:

• Mushrooms
• Onion
• Butter
• Can of corn
• Can of beans
• Sour cream
• Ketchup
• Firewood
• Coleman fuel
• Beer (Molson Canadian and Harp)
• Campbell’s Chunky Clam Soup

We didn’t use all of that for our dinner mind you. But by the time we got back, we were starving! But we had planned on biking around the trailer park today, and wanted to see what we could see. So on our bikes we got. The sites that are back out on the river are absolutely gorgeous! Long and deep with a beautiful view. As far as privacy though, we are thinking that the site I have is probably the best! The sites along and across from the river are all scrunched up against each other, but – many have done a lot of work to really beautify their spots. Decks that would make many home owners envious. Gardens that are awesome. Cute signs and names for their sites.. which got me thinking…. 

But you want to know how to cook over a campfire and a barbque, without pots.  And have lots of nutrition too.  Thank you, C.!

So you’ve got steak.  Potatoes. Mushrooms, onions. A can of corn. A can of beans.

You’re going to do the steak on a bar-b-que – I have a nice cast iron unit from Lodge.

First, you get the fire lit. You will need some hot coals. When you have hot coals, wrap the potatoes in tinfoil and lay those on the coals.

Then, light your barbeque.  I like to use “Cowboy Charcoal.” To have it ready, it will take a good half hour or so. In the meantime, slice your onion and mushrooms and lay them in a sheet of tinfoil, about 18″ long. Add a tablespoon of butter.

Fold over the tinfoil lengthwise on both ends, then fold over the edges width wise. Take out another 18″ length of tinfoil and double wrap what you’ve just wrapped.

That’s your onion and mushroom package and now you’ll want to make a corn and beans package in a similar manner.

Drain the liquid from the can of corns and can of beans and add a tablespoon of butter after pouring beans and corn onto tinfoil. Once you’ve folded this up and double wrapped, lay both near the hot coals in the  fire pit.

Put steak on the barbeque and cook them as you like.

Make sure potatoes are done and then remove the two tinfoil packages and unwrap the mushrooms and onions, beans and corn and you’ll have an amazing dinner with no pots to wash.

Thanks to C. for how to cook veggies without a pot.

What a gorgeous day Sunday turned out to be. Kids diving and splashing in the pool. The warm sun beating down on us in the unshaded part of the site.

I awoke about 11:30AM and jumped out of bed! C. had already got up, and she probably needed tea!  Considering the hour it was when we went to sleep, neither of us got a lot of sleep – less than 5 hours each. And C. loves her King Cole Tea first thing in the AM.

I threw on my pants and walked out of the bedroom of the Glendale Camper trailer and the first thing I saw was C.’s beautiful “morning sunshine” smile.

“Good morning,” she said with that smile.

“Good morning! Oh, I need to get you some tea!”

“Yes you do,” she said sweetly. Do you actually have tea here?

“Yes, and it’s King Cole Tea too.”

“I knew I loved you for some good reason,” C. replied with a twinkle in her eye as she sat on the couch.

I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and filled up the coffee percolator (without the coffee grounds of course), got the single burner Coleman stove going, and set it on to boil.

There is one thing about C. (actually, there are a lot of things but for now as I write this, it’s a morning thing) – that strikes me and causes me to smile and feel good. She can get up, wake up, and while I am still trying to get the cobwebs out of my brain, and figure out what I am supposed to be doing, C. can smile.  And her eyes twinkle, and her smile lights up the whole day. The cobwebs disappear first thing, and I just want to give her a hug and a kiss after the tea.

The tea got made, good strong King Cole Tea. And we laughed and teased each other.

Takes me a few cups of tea to really wake up though. I think we both slept pretty good, but even with a good sleep, it was less than 6 hours, and I took awhile to really fully wake up. But that “morning sunshine” smile sure helped!

We mostly relaxed for the first several hours of the day. Looked at stuff I needed to fix, talked about how I could make the place even better, and then planned on how we were going to make steak dinner.

We wanted potatoes, baked in the campfire, mushrooms and onions and some vegetables to be healthy.

I also needed more Coleman fuel and firewood. C. wanted more beer.

So off went to town.

Last night around the campfire, I had pointed out to C. where I might put a garden. It’s a small area, but it appears previous tenants of this trailer park site had a garden here. The soil is well built up against a trellis, and there is one type of perennial that I can’t remember the name of growing quite well. The rest of it is now weeds (mostly dandelions) except for one plant.

Both C. and I love Bleeding Hearts. For me, it not only how pretty they are, but for sentimental reasons too, involving my now deceased grandfather.  Many many years ago, he watched me admiring the Bleeding Heart flowers in his garden.  A few weeks later, he came up to my house and started digging in my front garden. And then into the hole he dug, he placed the roots of some Bleeding Heart plants. I looked after them and they continued to grow each year. Sadly, when I moved from that property, it was the middle of winter, and I was unable to cut out any of the Bleeding Hearts to take with me to my new place. I’ve always wanted to have Bleeding Hearts in a garden ever since.

We were standing outside near the picnic table, and I took C.’s arm.  “I want to show you something,” I said. I pointed while saying “Look.”

C. smiled a big smile. There among the weeds that was once someone’s garden – a single stem of a Bleeding Heart plant, against the trellis, with its flowers in bloom.

I’m going to look after that plant, because I think it is special. Hopefully I can help it grow more too.

The day turned into a beautiful evening, and C. and I scounged for rocks in order to build a fire pit. Considering what we had to work with, I think we did a fantastic job!

It is likely this trailer site was not used for at least a year, and it was obvious that others had come scrounging for the rocks that once circled the fire pit. There were about three rocks left. C. and I went looking for more rocks and ended up building something that’s quite nice. We could build it up a bit higher even, but that will wait for another day.

By 11PM, we had a wonderful fire going. We had little newspaper but lots of kindling of dry dead branches of cedars, and cedar droppings. I had purchased a couple of bags of hardwood from a gas station down the road which wasn’t too bad as far as being dry. Some of the split pieces seemed to have been cut just recently as sap boiled out of them, but for the most part, our fire was really nice.

The stars were shining, the moon was almost full – and some in the trailer park were really partying it up! We could hear whoops and yelps from campers that sounded like banshees at times. I’m sure their neighbours were not happy. One nice thing – inside my trailer, they could be barely heard.

They were not too loud or noisy for us to talk, laugh and have our quiet moments, discussing dreams and hopes, with the fire crackling in the background until 5AM.

When the birds came to play and sing, we decided we needed to get some sleep – and after some cuddling – and the noise of some banging – woodpeckers looking for food in a nearby tree, sleep arrived.

I have a wonderful girlfriend. Stuff we have been through together, and I know she loves and cares about me. I am thankful for her and the day we met.  She called me this evening and told me she was on her way up!!  With excitement, I realized I still needed to get some cleaning done. No time for the dinner of Campbell’s Chunky Soup I had planned.

I was really proud of her for driving up here – not something she does too often – driving at the risk of being on rural roads in the dark, especially ones she is unfamiliar with.

I was feeling a bit nervous – would she like the place? Would she be impressed? Would she not like the place?

Previously, she had traveled with and camped in a brand new camper trailer and therefore knows a lot more about them than I do. So, I was looking forward to her visiting and giving me advice and teaching me things.

But I haven’t got the lights figured out yet, not much food in the cooler, haven’t tried out my two-burner Coleman Stove that I picked up on E-Bay a couple of years ago for about five bucks, and worse, haven’t touched the washroom inside the trailer yet with any cleaners. Thankfully, the flush toilets are only a 30 second walk away.

My girlfriend arrived just before sunset. Bring beer and steaks! We are drinking the beer tonight and saving the steaks for tomorrow. I showed her all around the trailer and pointed out all the things wrong:

• The 12 volt standard base bulbs I bought do not work seem to work – could be a fuse or wiring.
• Some of the smaller bulbs sort of work if you twist them just a bit or tap the fixture.
• The carpet in the bedroom is filthy and I don’t have a vacuum
• The propane regulator is broken, I think
• The neighbours are awfully close – not my ideal way to live
• I think the flush toilet in the trailer does not work right – sometimes it won’t flush – it just fills with water. (Being a guy, I could just go have a pee in the bush, but can’t really do that in this trailer park).

And on I went, pointing out what I knew was wrong with the place already.

When I stopped, she turned to me, gave me a big hug and said, “I am impressed with this!! When you told me what you had got and what you paid, I was expecting something totally rundown. The wood laminate floor is beautiful, the curtains are fine – they just need washed – the site is very nice, the kitchen is clean and organized and all the things wrong are minor. There are things you could and need to do, but this is going to be wonderful and comfortable.”

She then explained to me that there was probably nothing wrong with the toilet.  I just wasn’t sliding the flush slider.

She was right! The toilet works fine!

Oh oh!

I’m taking a break from cleaning. I’ve heard some interesting things today! I met my some of my neighbours – a Newfie and his wife who wanted permission to walk along the edge of my site to head toward the washrooms and showers. I don’t mind a bit and they seem like good people.

Earlier though, I heard a “screamer” – some man just hollering at the top of his lungs at what sounded like a toddler about 3 years old. Now I’m no one to advise folk how to be good parents, but screaming like that puts only fear into the child and more than mildly annoys everyone else around.

Hopefully there won’t be too many “Trailer Park Boys” incidents here, but it is now the Long Weekend – the first one of the summer, and probably the busiest here. Hopefully some of the Trailer Trash screamers don’t come up too often. Even better, hopefully they figure out that screaming at your kids doesn’t accomplish much as far as positive behavior in the long run.

I’ve tried to get an Internet connection with the Rogers “Rocket Stick.” No luck. Nothing. This worries me a great deal. I do have cell phone connectivity with Bell Mobility (although it’s flakey), but there is no internet.

I do need internet access! I don’t know what I will do at this point or what my options are if I don’t get internet connectivity. I’m thinking:

1. See if I can get a usb stick from Bell Mobility on a test basis. It needs to work here, and it needs to work under Linux.

2. See if Zing Networks has a tower nearby and can provide point to point radio wireless.

3. Last choice – but if needed, find out about satellite options. I’ve heard  upload speeds are horrendous though.

I arrived at the trailer quite late last night – about 1AM. My brother had some issues with the moving the moving truck so we didn’t get started unloading it until after 8:30PM! I left his place about 12:15AM, and with sore muscles and all but surprisingly  quickly, arrived “home” 45 minutes later. I probably could have done it quicker, but made a stop at 24 hour convenience store.

I need a comb. Clonvenience stores don’t seem to sell those men’s black combs anymore. And sure enough, Mac’s didn’t have any. Baseball cap time, I guess.

I had a fantastic sleep! Probably because of all the physical labour last evening. I set out my sleeping bag on the double bed in the bedroom of the camper, lay my weary body down about 2AM and promptly fell asleep.

That is one thing I have missed over the past 10 to 12 years. Hard physical labour. Operating a business from a desk and chair can be mentally tiring, but I think humans still biologically require physical effort throughout the day. We’re told to get lots of exercise – and we often try to do that – but too often we stop because some business matter “needs” our attention. This is another reason this move is good for me to a camping trailer. I will be forced to exert myself more, and work more physically to live.

Today, I have some work to do. Cleaning. The camping trailer is in good shape, but needs cleaned. Parts of it are filthy. I don’t when the last time the trailer was used, but there sure is a lot of dust and grime built up in places.

Ah, physical work. I am a good cleaner and can get things very clean, but it is not what I enjoy. I seem to need to take lots of breaks when I am cleaning. But I am happy I was able to pick up a broom, sponges, cleaning and disinfecting supplies, scrubbers and the like.

It seems I will have to get out the Coleman stove to heat water. Although I was told that the gas stove worked inside the Glendale camper trailer, when I turned on the propane, I heard a loud hissing noise and felt and smelt propane blowing against me. I fear the 3-way regulator needs replaced. Earlier, not knowing how much propane was in the two tanks sitting at the front, I picked up a brand new filled tank, but it looks like I won’t be able to use until I repair or replace the regulator.

Until then, it looks like I won’t be able to take advantage of the stove, oven and water heater that are in the trailer until I get it fixed.

Back to my cleaning.