5C's Que Pasa

Yes finally back with us and repaired 🙄 Colin got a phone call last week that it was fixed and ready for pick up. Our entire RVing future depended on this repair. We had to know that our RV was functioning 100%. Now we had the task of driving to Kamloops, a two hour drive, hooking up the Jeep to the RV and driving home. Easy except with the dogs. It would take some prep and time to load up for them, ramps, dog beds, blankets, water dish, lunch, treats , toys and so on. Last Thursday Colin was speaking to our neighbours’ father who was driving through Kamloops yesterday heading out on a fishing trip. He offered to take Colin with him to Kamloops. Perfect solution 😀

The entire time that Colin was gone the girls kept watch.

This is where I should insert some RV photos. Colin was tasked with a list of photos that l requested for this blog post. Well there are no photos 🙁  He got there about 12:30ish and was back home about 4 hours later. He stopped to top up the diesel tank first as he passed through Vernon.

Dreary day today thanks to the cold and the rain. Sometime I really want to get in that dog bed and take a nap next to the fire.

So you ask, what was the repair? Our road test in Las Vegas was perfect as it was for the Cummins technicians. Yet after a 200 mile drive to Ely it wouldn’t start the next morning. It died on us here and there all the way home. It would work in idle mode but not drive mode. Living with this nightmare was too much for me and it is taking me a while to recover, I am still not 100% yet, but getting there.  All this distress, pressure and trouble for a very very stupid error.  Cummins in Kamloops discovered that the new engine computer cable was not connected fully. One of the connecting pins was not making complete contact therefor sometimes the RV worked and sometimes it didn’t.  At first we were told that one of the pins had been bent on installation in Las Vegas by the service manager in Kamloops.  When Colin picked up the RV yesterday he spoke with the actual mechanic that had worked on our RV. He explained that the connection was just not solid. We did call Vegas Cummins and they agreed to pay our fuel for the trip back home for the Jeep and the RV.  At least we will get the diesel fuel reimbursed. Colin said that the RV functioned 100% and he is totally confident in our RV once again.

We had a busy day today. The girls had their nails done and their teeth polished. They got a good brush before they had a lovely warm bath. Oh, their ears are nice and clean as well.  They are preparing for a very important and unique visitor. You will have to stay tuned to find out the que pasa of it all.

In other news the lake has started to rise. It is almost up to our first step.

Thank you for all your comments yesterday, lovely to have comments to read. I really have to think about the dress. In all honestly I loved the water lily print but it made me look like an elephant ( in my opinion ). The B & W dress in the same style was flattering but I have so much black clothing already 😯 Plus we are on a budget right now so I am going to think on it for a while.

I so wish that tomorrow was Saturday.

Last Wednesday the 11th was our one day of sun and pleasant heat.

All of a sudden we heard jets, I commented that it sounded like the Snowbirds, officially known as 431 Air Demonstration Squadron and it was. They are the military aerobatics flight demonstration team of the Royal Canadian Air Force. What a wonderful surprise.

They made several passes, landings and up and over us again. A real treat for us.  They soared over the city on the way to Calgary after completing training in Comox. Living near the airport has benefits.

Still talking about Wednesday the 11th of May. I was surprised to see these two families on the lake at the same time.

I saw this group on the lake days ago and thought that this was my original family of seven goslings. I mistakenly thought that two were missing.

However the original seven are still here and they are just a bit larger that the family of five. Nice to see them together protecting their babies.

The girls are slowly showing an interest in playing with toys. The plan here was to put a treat ( I use pieces of their kibble and they are thrilled to get it ) under the balls and for the girls to remove the ball and get the treat. Instead Carlie just moved the ball around with her long nose to get the treat. She got 10 out of the 12.  I need my small size muffin tin that is in the RV, it would work perfectly with these small size balls. They had fun regardless.

It rained very hard last night and this morning we woke up to snow on the mountains., quite close to the lake level.

Totally unexpected but nice to see. When the wind blows off the lake int is really cold. The girls often just stick their nose out the door and go back inside.

I had to call Telus back ( we have been with the since 1986 ) today. We switched from the business mobility to the regular consumer mobility for less money. However I had a credit of $67.50 form errors made over the winter which I could not find anywhere. I called again today ( it is obvious that the fellow I spoke with yesterday had no idea what he was doing at Telus ). Today I started with the consumer area and they transferred me to Gabriel in the business section. It took two hours but between us we finally got it sorted out and yes I was correct. I will be getting a refund by cheque for $103.45.  I then called Virgin Mobile which was my cell phone provider. I had just received a bill in the mail. For some reason they had not stopped my account when I switched to Shaw Mobility on April 26th.  It only took 15 minutes to sort this one out and I will be getting a credit to my Visa for $29.12. So a total of $132,57 credit in one day. I wonder if I could make a living saving money this way.  How many people don’t check their bills and are taken advantage of?

Oh I forgot we spoke with our accountant today about the final company year end.  All is well and we are getting a refund of $2190.00 but that goes back into our company account. We are on a course to close our incorporated company down over the next four years, paying as little tax as possible.

I was tired because of this past week and the stresses. I have so many errands to run in the next week but I have little energy. Colin offered to drive me into downtown ( Bernard Street ) late this afternoon.  I have not yet driven since we got back home and don’t feel confident at the moment. I got a few things done thanks to Colin.

I was checking out a shop while Colin walked the girls, he appeared at the door and the staff let the girls in. They were so very good and never barked at all. Even on their walk in the park today they did not bark. Colin’s selfie.

Trying to take a family selfie reflected in the mirror. Yes I bought the dress.

Colin asked me to include this photo that he took. No I did not buy this dress. There was one in the same style that looked like a water lily painting by either Monet or Van Goh. I just looked up their water lily paintings and it is amazing how similar they are.  I think that the dress was more of a Monet style. He is one of my favourite artists, do you think I should go back and by the water lily dress? Spending all my hard earned profits of the day.

Colin even managed to plant the cucumbers seeds this afternoon. The only thing left to plant are our tomatoes plants.  Maybe Sunday. We will have some here and in the garden but only five in the garden as opposed to last year and another five here at home in pots. Looking forward to fresh tomato and cucumber sandwiches this summer.

A good day indeed.

Over the past few years our tankless hot water on demand went down perhaps twice per year. Colin would simply go outside and reset it.  It is built into a custom cabinet attached to the house. This system was installed into this new home in September 2012. We were told that we did not need to do anything to the system at all. Wrong. It should have been serviced once per year with the all import flushing/descaling done. We certainly had a good deal on our minds when we moved in as I was in major pain waiting for my second hip replacement among other issues. At least we were only here half of the years since it was installed and we always get the system blown out before we leave for Mexico  We also get bonus points for using a water softener. Still it was up to us to do our due diligence and to not rely on what we were told by the builder of this home.

Since we arrived home on April 10th it has shut down every few days. Now it shuts down every day over and over despite the resetting. So Colin found someone from Vernon to come and service our Noritz system this past Tuesday. He called before he left and told us the price would be between $700.00-$1000.00. It was obvious that he really did not want to do the thirty minute drive here. I got on my phone and found someone else who could come the next day (Wednesday afternoon – they service a neighbour on the street next to us),  for a much more reasonable price.  It seems that not too many people know how to service this unit. Meanwhile Colin got on the phone to Nortiz in California and was able to source the problem and got a list of what needed to be done. So he sent all that info to the new plumber so he knew exactly what needed to be brought here.

Our hot water on demand system.

The fellow arrived and had nothing from our list. He said he did not know what he was here to do, so no isolation valves, no equipment to do the descaling and no compressor to blow things out. What was his problem?  I called the office and they said that it was all on his work order including the PDF’s on how this system ran. He says he had worked on them before but did not know why he was here. Long story short he could do nothing and the next open appointment was Friday, May 20th. Plus he did not work overtime nor after 2PM.  Adios amigo!!

Made a great pizza the other night. I am now letting the crust rise 45 minutes and it is even better than before.

Meanwhile we each found someone else to come, one Tuesday morning and one Wednesday morning.  The Tuesday guy sounds good but the Wednesday guy sounds perfect as he claims to have rebuilt this units in the past.  I don’t think we can wait till then. No hot water at all yesterday so I could not bathe.  No hair washing, no dish washing, no laundry, etc.

This morning I called Telus, Colin’s cell phone provider and our home landline as we had made a switch from a business account to a consumer account recently. God why were we signed up as a business all these years for so much more money per month? I would like to add that we have been with Telus since 1986!!  Loyal customers you might say. Also when we came back from Mexico I called Telus Mobility to complain about roaming  charges made to Colin’s cell while we were in Mexico. Not possible as his phone was totally shut down as we only used my cell phone in Mexico. So on April 2oth, Kevin from Telus authorized $67.50 in credits. That appears to have been lost in space. I spent over 90 minutes today on the phone with Santos today and he had no idea. Finally I asked him to find and speak with Kevin. He came back and said that Kevin was going to call me back and sort it all out. Guess what, Kevin never called. I think Santos was just trying to get rid of me.  What a waste of two hours. I so look forward to doing this again tomorrow 😯

Thank goodness I have two of these.

Next I was working on our company Scotia Visa when I found a charge for $601.98 on April 14th.  Some data processing company in Quebec.  We had only been home for four days and we did not start using the Visa card until April 23rd. This was almost a three hour phone call. I spoke with the person who answered my call after 50 minutes of holding and he asked me 7 security questions, he eventually transferred me to fraud who asked me more security questions.  They then sent me to Ashley in the dispute department. I spoke with her for way over an hour. Very long story short, they will credit me the money but that will take 30 days so I have to pay it and the rest of my bill by May 24th.  We also now need two new Visa cards. I was told that it would take 7 – 10 business days. I said that that was not acceptable and suddenly the new cards will be delivered Tuesday. What a miracle!

Oh and in the middle of my five hours on the phone I got an email from our accountant that our company year end was ready to discuss. I emailed back that I could not until tomorrow.

Meanwhile our lawn boy showed up to repair our drip irrigation to the flower pots. They were  constantly dripping which gave much too much water. They were only supposed to work for a few minutes per day. Of course the system worked perfectly for him so he could not repair something that was working. We now need to keep constantly checking our automated system. Ironic I think.

Can you see the slight smile in the middle horizontal board?

Also Frank came to do some fence work today. We have been waiting for this since last fall. We need to put a steel bar in the 8′ high sections of the fence to keep it from ‘smiling’. The funny thing is that while both of these guys were here and in between their arrivals, I was constantly on the phone. This has been a major stress event for me.

Frank  ( dark head blob to the left of the tree trunk ) on the other side of the fence taking out the top. He then installed a steel member in the middle of the horizontal board. It is almost  perfectly straight now and of course much stronger with all these strong we are now getting.

This post was delayed because my website was down yet again.

You know it is 10:15PM and we have take out Subway for dinner.  I really would like a hot bath first. Oh right, no hot water 🙁

I wonder what tomorrow will bring 🙄 Stay tuned.

I was adding up some figures the other day. We drove 5,216 miles door to door on our recent trip, from home to the Isla and back here. These are just RV miles, we don’t count the miles driving around whereever we are be it in the US or in Mexico.

Playing in one of their many beds.

The cheapest we paid for diesel was $3.79 per US gallon and the most expensive was $5.099 and that was just a block from the US/Canada border. We filled the RV with diesel just before we crossed into the US and that got us quite far at a lower cost.

Ten minutes later, sound asleep.

The water has remained cool with some showers but Colin waters the garden daily to make sure the seeds germinate.  On May 1st when we planted our flowers in pots I added a few herbs to two of them and a sprinkle of lettuce seeds which are now sprouting.  Tonight we are expecting a low of 2C/35.6F  and a risk of frost as well as tomorrow evening. Will it ever warm up? We have not yet planted our cucumber seeds nor our small tomato plants.  Someone suggested adding some Sea Compost to the garden ( don’t think I mentioned that before ? ) and mixing it in on the top layer, supposed to give much more nourishment to the soil.

The scabs on my face have mostly fallen off and I look a mess. I return to see my dermatologist next Monday the 16th ( I was lucky to get a cancellation as she is gone for good on the 27th ). I really hope that she completes what she missed the first go round. This time Colin will direct her – well I hope she will let him.

They lost a good deal of hair when brushed the other day.

Today I called to cancel our October trip to Egypt. We were initially booked for October 2020, then changed that to 2021 and then to October  2022. They still expect folks to wear a mask on the tours as well as on our cruise down the Nile. I see no point in travelling to Egypt to wander about wearing masks in that heat. Most importantly Covid does not seem to be done with the world yet. This is not the time to travel, at least not for us nor for that long a distance. It is approximately a 25 hour flight with two stopovers. Instead of canceling we are now booked to leave October 12th, 2023 for two weeks. I am now taking applications for puppy sitters 😀

I have actually gone on three walks this week, a first since we left the Isla. Dogs are to be on leash here in the park but there are a few places that we let them off.  Carlie is kicking up her heels in this romp.

Their most favourite thing is running. Ciela in the pink had all fours off the ground and on close inspection Carlie only has one paw on the grass.

I caught Carlie sitting on top of her crate again. She did not jump this time. But still  worrying.

Colin found a dead canary who had hit one of our huge windows. I said to show it to the girls. Carlie retreated to her crate. You can see her nervously sticking her tongue out.

They eventually came up and sniffed the bird and left respectfully.

Making homemade pizza tonight and the buzzer just went off. Perfect timing.

Colin spent three days preparing our garden plot. He had to remove debris such as many dead leaves, remove the weeds and turn the soil . That is a huge job.

It looks so very tidy.

The new front fence that Colin found.  If you recall our fencing and gate had been destroyed in a wind storm last fall  when a tree fell across our garden. Nothing is wasted here in our park and what someone does not need any longer is placed in a certain area.  Colin found these two white trellis fences and with using an extra piece of dog fencing we have a temporary gate.

Someone suggested that we add Sea Compost which will enrich our soil as we have used it for two seasons already. It has kelp and fish guts in it.  It does not smell fishy at all.  Sea Compost is a great option, because it contains shrimp it will provide a great source of calcium which helps to create stronger cell walls. Why does this matter? Think blossom end rot, yucky weak walls and black spots. Sufficient calcium in the soil is one of the primary solutions for this problem. So Colin found some and mixed it into our garden soil.

Yesterday  ( Saturday, May 7th ) was the day to plant as it was supposed to be a good day. Well it was very cool and we had rain showers off and on. At one point I wore a sun hat and then had to use the hood of my jacket to avoid the rain. Flexible was the word of the day. We did have to leave the garden and return home for an hour before competing the planting.

Colin got this photo of me planting the carrots. We spent more and got the taped carrot seeds, so much time and back ache saved from having to cull seedings. We do have other carrots planted in another  area of the garden that we will have to cull.

So happy to have the garden planted. We are holding back on cucumbers and tomatoes. The weather is still nasty. Tonight the forecast is 2C  with risk of frost.