RVers have the opportunity to learn lots of stuff that most folks have no reason to know. Like the difference between black water and gray water, living with electricity supplied at two different voltages, or taking a “combat shower.”
Something else we all discover, sooner or later, is that wasps love propane. They’re attracted to its vapors and the sweet (to them) taste of the stinky chemical added to LP that alerts us to leaks. They like to build nests around valves, regulators and pilots.
Over three years ago, between returning from our shakedown cruise and setting off cross-country, I installed a complete set of purpose-built vent and exhaust screens on the motorhome. With them in place, we didn’t have a single nest. We’ve taken no such preventative measures with this fifth-wheel, however, mostly because it’s temporary (and we’re cheap), and now we’re paying the price.
We noticed a few weeks ago that wasps had built nests in the furnace exhaust. The next day I heard them buzzing behind the wall, from inside the camper, and so I began an early morning ritual of hitting the exhaust ports with insecticide foam.
It’s working, albeit gradually. When I finished shooting the foam this morning, I decided to check the other places they’d be likely to nest — LP tank compartment, water heater, refrigerator. Only behind the access panel to the fridge did I find activity. I knocked down two nests with a broom.
One of the nests was occupied. I got nailed on the back of my left hand by a sleepy, pissed-off thread-waisted wasp.
Yeah, that hurt. The site of the sting swelled some, but it went down after a few hours.
While I was in town today, I had the good folks at Miller Hardware cut me three feet of 48-inch aluminum window screen. I’ll be cutting that to size and fitting it over the water heater vent, the louvers on the fridge panel, and the furnace exhaust.
It cost nine bucks for two cans of insecticide foam, seven for the screen material. We should’ve done it sooner, but we didn’t.
Storm cleanup continues still, 18 days later. I stopped to talk with a neighbor below us on the subdivision road as he began dealing with an enormous downed oak. From where we stood, he pointed out several similar trees in the nearby woods, all of which will require attention.
“MOWERS AHEAD,” said a sign set out on the county road. Shortly after I passed it, I rolled up on a Marion County crew cutting back the usual roadside brush as well as limbs broken by high winds.
Life goes on. A large hay field in the bottoms had been mowed this morning, as far as I know the first cutting, waiting to be raked into windrows.
Looking out across the field toward Crooked Creek, I spotted several whitetail does taking advantage of the easier pickins.
I ran into Deb’s cousin at the Yellville post office. It was the first conversation we’d had in months — strange, maybe, considering that he lives at the end of the road and drives past our place all the time, but not surprising.
It’s just the way of things up here in the woods. Everyone’s friendly, but this isn’t what you’d call a social environment. Interactions happen naturally, if they happen at all. Nothing is forced.
People choose to be here precisely because it’s different. It sure ain’t suburbia (and thank goodness for that). A person is either cut out for this Life or they’re not.
We are.
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath #Ungovernable
#LetsGoBrandon #FJB