Repairs to our furnace were supposed to be finished last week, but weren’t. They were rescheduled for yesterday, but that didn’t happen, either. The mobile tech assured us that he’d be here no later than 9:30am today.
He arrived around 10:30am.
We like the guy. We like his work and the fair price he charges for it. And with no sub-freezing temps on the horizon, having a running furnace wasn’t (yet) a critical concern.
I mean, afternoon highs the last couple of days have reached 85°F.
To make a long story shorter, the furnace is fixed now. Getting it working required a new igniter and a new sail switch, as well as removing eight (count ’em) large mud-dauber nests and greasing the fan bearing.
So the RV is set for the year’s coldest months, or as set as it can be. Time will tell how well it handles the challenge.
Fortunately, this ain’t our first rodeo. I expect we’ll do just fine.
While the tech worked on the RV, I didn’t hover — I made myself both scarce and productive. I added a bucket of kitchen scraps to the compost tumbler, and I dumped ashes from the burn barrel before making a week’s worth of combustibles disappear.
It intrigues me that over four months of burning trash hasn’t generated enough ash to half-fill a five-gallon bucket. Very efficient.
Last, for safety’s sake, I raked a fresh perimeter around the barrel.
Moving down to the shed, I did my best to consolidate spare and salvaged parts I’ve accumulated. (The disorder was driving me nuts.) Some of the stuff came from the motorhome, some from the fifth-wheel and some of it I bought. I didn’t get to organize it the way I want to, but now it’s in one place.
Colder weather is coming, which means that our workhorse Polaris Ranger needs some attention. No chassis lube or oil change today, but I took care of a little pre-winter housekeeping.
Naturally, the doors would have to be mounted back onto the cab. The latch on the driver’s side has been maddeningly balky for a long while, so I took time today to slacken all the hardware and coax it into alignment.
When that failed, I smacked the latch post with a hammer, hard. That did the trick — not ideal, but much better. At least the door no longer requires a herculean slam.
I gave both latches and all four pivots generous shots of white lithium grease, wiped down the door panels and cleaned the windows.
One downside to running with the doors on is that they block the outboard rearview mirrors. Since the rifle bag mounted to the headache rack blocks the inside mirror, too, in reverse gear I’m basically flyin’ blind.
Then last week I hatched an idea. Once I’d hung the doors today, I loosened the bracket the driver’s mirror, slid it higher on the A-pillar (almost to the top) and cinched it down. I sat behind the wheel, pulled the door closed and looked up.
Perfect.
I did the same on the passenger side. In their new locations the mirrors are no more (or less) vulnerable to hits from brush, and (with a slight head tilt) they’re actually useful.
It’s been almost three years since the last time I shared this entire passage from Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. Somehow I feel like its time has come ’round again — not as some fluffy inspirational quote, but rather to leave you with an eloquent expression of dignity, sovereignty, Liberty.
“In the name of the best within you, do not sacrifice this world to those who are its worst. In the name of the values that keep you alive, do not let your vision of man be distorted by the ugly, the cowardly, the mindless in those who have never achieved his title. Do not lose your knowledge that man’s proper estate is an upright posture, an intransigent mind and a step that travels unlimited roads. Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it’s yours.
“But to win it requires your total dedication and a total break with the world of your past, with the doctrine that man is a sacrificial animal who exists for the pleasure of others. Fight for the value of your person. Fight for the virtue of your pride. Fight for the essence of that which is man: for his sovereign rational mind. Fight with the radiant certainty and the absolute rectitude of knowing that yours is the Morality of Life and that yours is the battle for any achievement, any value, any grandeur, any goodness, any joy that has ever existed on this earth.
“You will win when you are ready to pronounce the oath I have taken at the start of my battle — and for those who wish to know the day of my return, I shall now repeat it to the hearing of the world: ‘I swear — by my life and my love of it — that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.'”
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath #Ungovernable
#LetsGoBrandon #FJB