Won't you be my neighbor?

6:33 am - Sunday - June 30th - Ramona, CA - 65° F, 66% humidity, wind - CALM.....partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 89° F.....the view this morning.....↴

We have a new monthly neighbor

At 87° F Saturday was the warmest day since we had the heatwave back at the beginning of June.  To add to it there was no breeze whatsoever, it was humid, but we did have cloud cover most of the day which did mitigate to a certain degree the heat.  Of course, I use the word heat advisedly.....it's not really heat; it's just warmer.  The real heat will come in late July to mid September. For now we have a lot of 80 degree days as far as the eye can see, and that is really not too bad in the overall scheme of things.

I began my work day as I always do opening the storage yard, Red Barn and pool.  Once I was finished with the pool I went down to site #71 to help Rich and Mike finish leveling the site for our new monthly customer, which included spreading out the gravel once again, and then retrieving a few bucket fulls from the storage yard t complete the task. Considering how few hours we spent on this project it came out looking great......

.....and it stood up to the weight of the 38' 5th wheel which arrived around 4 pm.....

.....it took us until about 10:30 am to finish spreading the new gravel, and then I was off to new tasks.....checking the water level in the water tank, and blowing the eucalyptus leaves off the mini golf holes.  That pretty much took me to lunch time.

A week, or so ago Rich found a supply of the plastic containers online matching the ones we use to organize our very large fastener inventory, and they arrived Saturday morning.....all 30 of them.  By this time it was getting quite uncomfortable outside temp wise, so I was more than happy to spend my afternoon working in the air conditioned maintenance building transferring more fasteners from their boxes to the new plastic containers......

The new containers

The existing containers

.....someone started organizing the fasteners about a year ago, so now it is time to finish the task.  In addition to transferring the rest of the fasteners into the new containers I will be labeling each container with the type and size of the fasteners inside.  It will take a while, but it's great to know I have an inside job when I need to escape the heat.

By the time I was about 50% done it was almost 4 pm, and our new monthly customer, and also new neighbor, had just arrived from San Francisco.  I escorted them up to site #71, helped them get into the site, and answered any questions they had.  I headed back down to the office to give TLE a ride home, but she had already started walking home.

We watched the final quarter final match of the FIFA Women's World Cup between Germany and Sweden.  Germany was the favorite, but the final score showed them losing 2-1 to Sweden.  German started fast scoring first, and that usually means good things, but then Sweden turned the tables on the Germans scoring the tying goal in the 22nd minute, adding the second and decisive goal in the 48th minute.  So two semi final matches are set.....the USA will play England on Tuesday at 12 pm Pacific time, and Sweden will play the Netherlands on Wednesday in the same time slot.  The final will be Saturday, July 6th at 8 am Pacific time.....let's hope the USA is there!

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On the level.....

6:43 am - Saturday - June 29th - Ramona, CA - 55° F, 87% humidity, wind - CALM......partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 87° F......the view this morning......↴

I began my golf cart ride down to the office wearing my hoodie sweatshirt, but had it off by the time I arrived there....it was going to be a warm day!  The view from the water tank down the valley was the clearest this week.  By the time I had opened the park facilities, and done my pool tests Marnie had the meter reading list ready for me.......  

....once a  month, on the 28th of each month, we read the meters of our monthly residents.  Why the 28th?  Well, February has just 28 days (most of the time) so that was the date chosen years ago as the monthly meter reading day.  I managed to read about half the meters by my lunchtime at 11:30 am (Friday is my split shift day), and then  finished them after lunch.

SDGE (San Diego Gas and Electric) changes the rate/kilowat each month.  Last month it was 25¢, this month (June) it is 26¢.  We used 520 kilowats since May 28th which comes to $132.20, but as employees we get a $50 credit leaving a balance due of $82.20.....not bad.  We used the A/C quite a bit when we had that heatwave back in early June, and we have used the electric heaters most mornings the past two weeks.

One of my readers asked when the broken anti siphon valve was going to be repaired.  The answer was Friday. The replacement anti siphon valve was delivered Friday morning by FedEx.  Rich and Mike (the one who backed over it) got busy installing it, and within 90 minutes it was done.

New anti siphon valve installed

We have a new monthly customer coming into the park on Saturday which necessitated the leveling of site #71, the one next to us.  Leveling site #71 has been on the docket since we arrived.  Most of the site is pretty level, but over the final 4 feet it is 11" out of level.  Rich and Mike worked at peeling back the layer of gravel covering the site, then hauled in a few loads of dirt to to bring the site closer to level.  They were still working at it when I went on my 3 hour break.

When I came back at 5 pm Rich was getting ready to pack down the dirt with the Kubota loader, so I helped direct him, and then retrieved a garden hose from the tool shed to wet it down.  Rich will finish the work Saturday morning in advance of the arrival of the new monthly customer.  At some point in the next 60 days we will have to move out of our site (#72) while they replace the electrical pedestals in our row, and our site will be made more level at that point....ours is 6" out of level from side to side, so it should be much easier to bring into level.

The USA Women's National Team was slated to play France at 12 pm our time, so TLE and I watched it when we got home at 7 pm.  I have been nervously awaiting this match since the beginning of this World Cup.  Many commentators considered this match the real 'Final', and it was a good match if you were for the USA women.  They scored their first goal in the 5th minute of the match, and their second unanswered goal in the 65th minute, both scored by Megan Rapinoe.  The USA led 2 to nil until the 82nd minute when France scored their lone goal.  The final score was 2-1, and now the USA moves on to the semi final match against England on Tuesday.  The USA has made the semi final match in every single World Cup, and won 3 times.

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Border dispute.....

6:37 am - Friday - June 28th - Ramona, CA - 55° F, 96% humidity, wind 3 mph ot of the east by southeast......clear and sunny this morning with a forecast high of 84° F.....the view this morning......↴

Before I get into Thursday's shenanigans I was remiss in not mentioning some excitement we had on Wednesday.  Mike, one of our high school employees (will work for us this summer only) backed the company truck over a large anti siphon valve near the office and created a temporary geyser......

....fortunately the shutoff valve for that anti siphon valve was right next to it, and we had the water shut off pretty quickly.  The office is the lowest point in the park, and, therefore, has the greatest water pressure.  On the upside, the company truck got washed for the first time in months!

After my opening rounds I headed to the tool shed to get some, of course, tools fully intending to do some more work on the split rail fence along the southern border of the park.  As always I noticed the missing pink concrete garden border along the right side of the driveway, as well as several other sections which had been pushed over by the ice plant.  I have been thinking about fixing that for a long time, and just decided on the spur of the moment to do it Thursday.  The missing section along the right side of the driveway was not really missing, it was just buried under the gravel.  Over the years people backing the truck into the driveway had run over the decorative, concrete border over and over eventually pushing it below the surface of the gravel.  I decided to dig it up and restore it.......

 The restored garden border!

......the border along the right side of the driveway took a long time to excavate, and I spent most of the morning fixing that section, but before I was done I took care of two other smaller sections, also.  When TLE and I first arrived the office/tool shed/maintenance building area looked okay, but it needed sprucing up after a few years of neglect.  Now that 95% of the weeding has been done, the ice plant cut back, and the garden borders fixed it is beginning to look pretty good again if I don't say so myself!

I spent the afternoon spraying weed poison (not Roundup) around the Red Barn, the dog run, and around several of the mini golf holes.  In all I deposited about 10 gallons of weed killer.  This stuff works slowly, but over the course of 10 days the weeds die, and stay dead.  I just have to keep up with any new ones as they appear.

The last 90 minutes I spent working on returning a dozen split rail fence posts to the upright position, and replacing a couple more rails.  Just like that another day at RORVR was in the books.

TLE was home a little after 5 pm, at which time we commenced to watch another FIFA Women's World Cup match; this one between England and Norway.  Based on the last couple of matches Norway had played I expected this to be a very close match, but England scored a goal about 2 minutes into the match from which Norway never recovered.  England prevailed easily in this match 3 to nil, and it easily could have been 5 to nil (including a missed penalty kick).  Next up: The USA vs. France....this one should be a good game, and I have no idea who will win.

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Horsing around......

6:49 am - Thursday - June 27th - Ramona, CA - 55° F, 93% humidity, wind - CALM......sunny this morning with a forecast high of 81° F......the view this morning.......↴

Wednesday the power was turned off in the upper part of the park, which includes the pool, and Red Barn, so they were both closed for the day while our electricians continued the transition from the old power system to the new.  So, what to do for the day?  Well, I've had this project in the back of my mind for about 3 weeks now....rework the horseshoe pits.  The dirt in all four of the horseshoe pits was shallow, and hard causing the thrown horseshoes to bounce out of the pit.  The pins were also pounded in too deep.....they only stood about 6" above the pit, and they needed to be at least 12".  Additionally, the colors of the horseshoes were indistinguishable one from another....there should be two distinct sets.  Finally, the rubber mats in front of the pits were no longer flush with the ground......

 Pin in forefront raised up to 12 ", and the dirt is now

 soft, and about 4" deep

 Rubber mats.....before......

....and after.....

 Two complete sets of horseshoes now painted

.....I first removed the pin in each pit....they are about 36" long, then loosened the dirt with a pick, raking it level with a rock rake, then pounded the three foot long pins back into the ground leaving just 12" showing above the pit.  I next fixed the rubber mats so they now lie flush with the pit, and then spray painted the two sets of horseshoes green, and orange.

All of this took me from 9:30 am to about 2 pm to accomplish, but now the horseshoe pits look much better....they look like somebody cares.  I spent the last two hours repairing the wire fencing around the mini golf course, and blowing the ever present eucalyptus leaves off of each hole.  From there I took the Stihl hand blower and cleared the leaves, gravel and dirt off of Maple Street once again (runs from the Red Barn down to Oak Street).  All that took me right to 4 pm.....time to head home.  

One of our long time employees, Linda, had given notice last week, so TLE will be by herself in the office on Wednesdays and Thursdays meaning, for the foreseeable future, she will have to stay until 5 pm on those days to close the office.  By the time I finished showering, and putting away my tools for the evening she was home, and another day at RORVR* was in the books.

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*RORVR = Ramona Oaks RV Resort

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May/June gloom continues.....

6:50 am - Wednesday - June 26th - Ramona, CA - 59° F, 87% humidity, wind - CALM.....marine layer this morning with a forecast high of 77° F.....the view this morning.....↴

Normally on an off day I would stay in bed until after 7 am, but since our power was to be shutoff beginning at 7 am I was up at 6:30 am to retrieve our Honda 2000 from our trailer in the storage yard in order to power the Newell during the power outage.  After all, there were soccer matches to be watched!

Before we assumed our sedentary positions for the morning we took a walk around RORVR once again.  This time I suggested we do two laps, and TLE agreed.....  

.....we paused behind the Red Barn to enjoy the view down the Ramona Valley....a little hard to see as the marine layer was still present......

.....in just over 53 minutes we covered some 2.65 miles, had total elevation gain of 385', and burned 476 caloric unites.  That is the furthest I have walked in about 3 months, and it felt good to head out setting a good pace for a change.....

.....we were back home by 9:30 am setting up the outdoor TV, and within minutes were watching the first FIFA Women's World Cup match of the day....Italy vs. China.  Italy was, by and far, the best team on the pitch this day, and won easily over China 2 to nil....China just could not muster any offense.  Although I had set up the outdoor TV, we ended up watching the match inside as the marine layer was still present, and made it too chilly to sit outside.  We did, however, sit outside for the second match featuring The Netherlands vs. Japan.  This was a very good match, and going into the 88th minute was still tied 1-1 when The Netherlands was awarded a legitimate penalty kick, which they converted, ultimately winning the match a few minutes later 2-1.

By this time it was 2 pm, and we had not eaten lunch, so being Tuesday we drove into town for 'Taco Tuesday' at Rubio's Coastal Grill followed by a brief shopping foray at Stater Brothers.  By the time we returned home at 4 pm the power had been restored to our section of RORVR, and it was time to power down the Honda 2000....she ran for 9 hours straight, and did a great job!

Normally, at this time of day on an off day, we would spend another couple of hours out on the 'lido deck' reading, and listening to music, but the marine layer had returned, and it was getting too cold to be outside again. I know in a few weeks we will look back at this time of almost daily marine layers with fondness as the summer temps continue to rise into the high 80's, and low 90's, but right now we wished we could have sat outside for another couple of hours enjoying the evening air.....'You can't always get what you want, but sometimes you get what you need.....'......

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Idyllic Monday......

7:14 am - Tuesday - June 25th - Ramona, CA - 61° F, 83% humidity, wind 5 mph out of the north.....marine layer this morning with a forecast high of 75° F....the power will be turned off from 7 am this morning (off now) until almost 5 pm while our electrical contractor continues the changeover to the new grid, so our Newell will be power by Mr. Honda 2000 most of the day........the view this morning......↴

Monday began with lots of sun, and ended the same, but it never really got too warm....the forecast high for Monday was 82° F, and I think it might have gotten there.  It was just a very pleasant early summer day.  As is our habit on days off we took a walk around the park, which is about 1.25 miles, give or take.  While that is not a long distance, there is the elevation gain factor, which comes in at just under 200' from beginning to end.  When we passed by the office area I took some pictures of the ice plant trimming I did last week.....

 That's the tool shed straight ahead, and the maintenance building is the building to the right of it

 The RORVR office

 The entrance kiosk, and security gate

.......the ice plant was extending out over the sidewalk about 12" before I trimmed it.  We were back at the Newell around 9:30 am, at which time I set up the outdoor TV so we could watch the two soccer matches slated for Monday.....USA vs. Spain, and Canada vs. Sweden.  The first match was much to close for comfort.  The USA gave up their first goal of the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup on a silly mistake by one of the fullbacks.  The USA had just scored a goal 3 minutes earlier on a penalty kick.  It remained tied 1-1 until the 76th minute when another penalty kick was awarded to the USA.  Both penalty kicks were legitimate, and there was no controversy, thankfully.  The USA played what I call 'oooogly' (very ugly) soccer, and was lucky to advance to the next round, and, frankly, this match could have gone either way....Spain played a great tactical match against the USA frustrating them, and keeping them from getting into any kind of rhythm.

In the second match Canada never really had a chance.....Sweden was just way better than they were on this particular day....the game was not really as close as the 1 to nil final score would indicate, although Canada did have a chance to tie when they were awarded a legitimate penalty kick, but the coach, inexplicably, did not have Christine Sinclair, their best player, take the kick.  The player who was chosen to take the kick had her kicked easily blocked by the Swedish goalkeeper.  Sweden, on the other hand, had many chances to score, but just did not convert.

We spent the rest of the afternoon reading outside listening to music on Pandora.  TLE made a delicious dish called 'Orange Chicken' with a side of stir fried zucchini, onions, celery, and mushrooms, which we ate outside at our picnic table....the first time since we arrived at RORVR.  I wish we had taken pictures.....another restaurant quality dish from the amazing TLE.  To chase the dinner TLE chose a Savignon Blanc, which was the perfect pairing for this dish!

The evening was so delightful we remained outside after dinner reading until almost 7:30 pm, and only went inside because it began to get a little cold....the perfect day off work!

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Coma.......

7:50 am - Monday - June 24th - Ramona, CA - 60° F, 86% humidity, wind 7  mph out of the west by northwest........clear, blue, sunny skies this morning with a forecast high of 82° F......the view this morning......↴

Sundays have become my pool vacuuming day.  We work a short day (9-2), and it usually takes 2+ hours to properly sweep and then vacuum the pool.  We take lunch at 11:30 am on Sundays, which leaves us just 2 hours after lunch before we punch the clock.  Having a short day just before our two off days makes it feel more like 2 ½ days off work.   Sunday is a good day to do a thorough cleaning of the pool as it is also 'vacuum' day in the park.....all the weekenders are leaving by 11 am each Sunday so there is no demand for the pool to be open......

 This is the best the pool has looked in our 2 months on site

.....while I have been generally negative about last summer's experience with the management at Smuggler's Den, I have to give kudos to Todd, the owner's husband, who taught me how to maintain a pool, and keep it looking good day after day.

I finished my pool work about 11:25 am and headed down to the office to retrieve TLE for our lunch break.  After lunch I spent about 30 minutes driving through the park at Marnie's request to document which sites have electrical meters, and which do not.  The master list seemed inaccurate, and the quick survey did review a few sites, not on the meter list, which did have meters.  I then spent time trimming some iceplant at the office which had been missed the day prior.  By the time I finished with that task it was almost 2 pm and time to put away my tools.

Within 20 minutes of arriving home I had the outdoor TV set up for viewing the two FIFA Women's World Cup round of 16 matches.....England vs. Cameroon, and France vs. Brazil, and by 6:30 pm TLE and I were in a soccer coma.  The England vs. Cameroon match ended up being a farce.  England won 3 to nil, but the behavior of the Cameroon players when calls went against them was disgraceful.  On several occasions after a call with which they disagreed they would refuse to restart play for minutes at at time.  So much time had to be added at the end of each half that we ended up not seeing the end of the game as the recording time had expired, and I had even added 30 minutes to the recording time.  It was just embarrassing.  The second match, while very, very well played, had its own share of controversy.  At about the 20 minute mark of the first half France appeared to have scored a goal, but there was a collision between the French player who scored the goal, and the goalkeeper.  I told TLE that the keeper had been interfered with, and that the goal should be disallowed.  Ultimately the VAR (Video Assisted Review) team made that exact ruling, but the announcers went ballistic.  

I was a professional soccer referee for 20 years, and we were taught to protect the goalkeeper when they were going after the ball with their hands extended over their heads......they are at their most vulnerable at that very moment.  In this case the keeper had two hands on the ball when she was hit hard in the chest by the attacking French player's shoulder dislodging the ball from her hands, and then into the goal.   To me it was an obvious call, but to hear all the announcers during the rest of the game, and afterward complaining about call was mystifying. While I never officiated at the FIFA level, I did a number of semi pro games, Division 1 College soccer, and a hundred or more matches in the U-19 Premier league in SoCal from where many of the top American professional soccer players have come over the last few decades.  Regardless, the principles are the same.

Ultimately France did score a goal in the second half, which was countered a few minutes later by Brazil.  At the end of regulation play the score was tied 1-1 meaning they had to play two mandatory 15 minute over time periods.  France scored the winning goal one minute into the second 15 minute overtime period and held on to win the game 2-1.

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The last of the 70's......

6:40 am - Sunday - June 23rd - Ramona, CA - 59° F, 90% humidity, wind 3 mph out of the north by northwest.....sunny this morning with a forecast high of 85° F......the view this morning.....↴

The morning sun is back!

Compared to the prior Saturday, this Saturday was a walk in the park.  We only had one group in the park, and over all the park was about 70% occupied....very few children this weekend.

After performing the morning opening ritual I settled in at the office trimming iceplant.  In all I carted 6 large barrels of iceplant to our brush pile in the storage yard.  That took me up to lunch time.  After lunch I donned the Stihl backpack blower to clear the office sidewalks of the mess I had created, and then proceeded to blow dirt and leaves off the office parking lot almost down to the entrance, the road on both sides of the entrance kiosk, and all the way up to site #1.....

.....while I was cleaning the office parking area I looked up to see a snake crossing the road right near the security gate.  He/she was moving pretty slowly so I got out our snake handling pole and helped him/her across the road to avoid being squished by a customer car.....

.....it was not a rattlesnake, but some kind of gopher, or garter snake.....about 36" inches long.  I'm sure my daughter Meredith's boyfriend Jake would have just reached down and picked it up.....not me.  That makes two snakes I've seen so far this summer, and no doubt there will be more sightings.  The first one was a baby rattler in the storage yard a few weeks ago.

I ended my day with the Stihl backpack blower in front of our site blowing leaves and grave off the road.  About 3:50 pm I returned the blower to the maintenance building, and then picked up TLE from the office for the ride home.  Another nice work day in mid 70's temps, but never fear, that will be the last time we see a high of 72° F at RORVR for a long time.  It will be 80's to 90's for the next couple of weeks!

On the health front I feel great.  I am gradually acclimating to warmer weather, and finding that I continue to recover from each work day more quickly.  I have lost a total of 14 pounds since my heart attack, and hope to be under 200 lbs within a week, or two for the first time in a couple of years.  We both have completely settled into a good routine, and we love the Ramona area.  

For our evening entertainment we watched two recorded women's FIFA World Cup matches, the first between Germany and Nigeria, won handily by Germany 3 to nil, and then Australia and Norway, won in shootouts by Norway 4 goals to 1.  The score was tied 1-1 at the end of regulation, and  the two 15 minute overtime periods.  Since we are now out of 'pool' play and into the 'knockout' rounds there must be a winner in each match until the new champion is crowned.  A nice way to end our day!

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The outage......

6:38 am - Saturday - June 22nd - Ramona, CA - 57° F, 90% humidity, wind 3  mph out of the south.....marine layer this morning with a forecast high of 77° F.......the view this morning......↴

Friday, once again, was my split shift day, and it was also the day the power of the announced power outage at RORVR from 8 am to 3 pm while SDGE and our electrical contractors switched over to the new electrical system.  True to their word the power was shut off at exactly 8 am on the dot.  I wrote about our plan to plug the coach into our Honda 2000 generator for the duration of the shutdown, and that is what we did at 8:05 am.  

Of course, when there is no power one cannot vacuum the pool, because the pumps which provide suction for the vacuum are electric, right?  Right!  That had been my plan, but both Rich and I never connected the two until there was no power. Additionally, we had to shut the pool for most of the day since there were no pumps running to circulate, and clean the water as well as add chlorinate it.  What I was able to do was to take the Stihl hand blower to the pool and blow all the dust, leaves, and dirt off the pool deck in preparation for vacuuming it Saturday, or Sunday.

Later in the morning I spent time weeding a cactus garden we have near the entrance of the park.  Weeding around cactus can be problematic as one might guess, and I got my fair share of stickers in my gloves, but the garden looks much better.  I also spent some more time working on the split rail fence I wrote about yesterday replacing a couple more rails, and straightening a few more posts.  

Just about the time 2 pm rolled around, and it was exactly then, I heard over the 2-way radio that the electricity had been restored to RORVR.  Always nice when they get done more quickly than you expected.  During my 3 hour break I had planned to drive into Ramona to buy a new 5 gallon gas can to replace my aging 12 year old one.  When we filled up the can the other day I noticed the pour spout was cracked, and leaking.  Napa Auto Parts is the closest auto parts store to RORVR, so I stopped there and picked up a new gas can for $20.....ouch, they have gotten expensive since I bought my last one!  After a quick stop at the local Union 76 station to add 11 gallons of Premium Unleaded at $3.97/gallon (a buck more per gallon than almost any other state) I was home by 3 pm.

By 5 pm I was back on the job making my rounds of the park, which included checking the water level in our water tank on the hill....it was down a few hundred gallons, so I took no action. I think most of our full time residents left RORVR for the day due to the announced electrical outage, so water usage was not that great during that 6 hour period.

We were home a little after 7 pm, and watching some recorded shows a few minutes later.....'Alone', 'Masterchef' and 'Elementary'.  We did our usual 9:30 pm shutdown of the park facilities, and were in bed a little after 10 pm.

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It's a gas......

6:46 am - Friday - June 21st - Ramona, CA - 59° F, 84% humidity, wind 4 mph out of the southwest.......marine layer this morning with a forecast high of 70° F......the view this morning......↴

It hardly seemed like work Thursday.  The weather was perfect....if only it could be 75° every day with white, puffy clouds, and gentle breezes.....if only.  Wednesday the guy from ProFlame Propane came out to turn on our propane station so we can begin pumping, and selling propane once again.  The station has not been operational since we arrived due to the electrical work being done in the park.  We had to move the propane station to a different location, and then run new power to it before it could operational again.  We began Thursday with Rich showing us how to operate the station safely.  We have a number of BBQ's we provide for guests and all of those propane bottles needed filling, so we took turns filling different bottles.

Classical Gas by Mason Williams....one of my favorite 60's songs

Once that was done I headed off to do my normal opening procedures, finishing at the pool where I ran the required tests, adding chlorine as needed.  The pool remained in pretty good shape; there were just a few toys at the bottom of the pool to fish out this time.  When I was finished with the pool I headed back to the office to pick up a few tools.  As I drive up and down Oak Street each day I have noticed a few sections of the split rail fence which runs along the creek behind the RV sites needed some repairing.  This has been a low priority since we arrived, but I had time Thursday to attend to a few of the sections.  

We have a large stack of split rail fencing stored in the storage yard for just this purpose so I retrieved several rails, as well as some 3 foot long pieces of rebar to help straighten up a few of the posts which were leaning over.  In all it took about an hour to effect the repairs, and now the fencing looks much better.  

Next I needed to shut off the water to site #35 to replace the two hose bibs in that site.  To shut off water to site #35 you must turn off two valves located at opposite ends of the loop covering sites 1-55....there are not individual shutoffs at each site.  Even though the water was off site #35 is at the bottom of the hill, and all of the water from the sites above it must drain before the pressure is reduced completely.  That would take too long so I just changed them out with the water gushing out getting a little wet in the process, but was able to get them both replaced in about 10 minutes.

In the afternoon I retrieved the keys to the riding lawnmower and went to mow the road leading to the water tower.  Even though it has not rained for a couple of weeks things are still growing, especially the mustard, which can get quite tall if you don't stay on top of it.  There are two ways to access the water tower, and they both need to be kept clear even though we only use one access 95% of the time.  In all it took about 90 minutes to finish mowing.

Next up was a painting task Rich had assigned to me.  AT&T will be installing a new fiber optics line into the park, and their control equipment will be attached to a piece of 3/8ths inch plywood they mounted on the wall in Marnie's office.  I needed to paint that plywood to match the paint on the wall around it.  From beginning to end it took me about an hour to knock out that project.

All that was left to do was to attend to the daily removal of eucalyptus leaves from the 9 mini golf holes, and by the time I had completed that it was 4 pm and time to head for home.  As I have written previously, TLE works till 5 pm on Thursdays as she is the only one in the office Thursday afternoons.  I headed home, took a shower, then a nap and returned at 5 pm to give TLE a ride home.

The USA women's team had a soccer match Thursday versus Sweden.  They are the 2nd best team in the pool, and we anticipated a close, well played match; that is what we got.  The match was televised at 12 pm, so we watched the recording of it when TLE got home.  In the end the USA women bested Sweden 2 to nil, and have not yet yielded a goal in the World Cup.  In all they have scored 18 goals in pool play, which I believe is a new World Cup record.  We also watched a recorded match between Canada and Holland, won by Holland 2-1....another well played match.  So the U.S. women move onto the round of 16, and play their next game on Monday against Spain.  Now that all of the weakest teams have been eliminated the matches will get much more difficult with each successive game.

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