Boats and 100 degee weather

Yesterday started out kind of slow. I have been wanting to get out to the Venture and  fool around but life happens. I finally decided damned the temps full speed ahead! Mostly it  has been moving things around.We have  been using the boat to store some stuff in light of all the drama that was happening. Since I'm stuck here, with a house I can't sell, for a while any way, the decision has been made, as painful as it is, to move the stuff back inside and stick it in a corner some where and get back to what's important to me! If I can't sell this place for a while I'm darned sure going to get this boat ready and take it ANY PLACE that will sustain sailing even if it is Lake Texhoma or one of the area lakes  for the duration!

Having said that! Well it was  still a good day. I got outside and in the boat. I started out right after sunset. When I finally looked at the clock, it was about 82 degrees F according to weatherbug at 3:16 AM. . The good thing about the houses immediately around me being empty is the misc noises I make fooling around late at night are not a problem as if my neighbors were really close. Now I can't exactly start up a drill or a power saw but  little noises like dropping a hammer or climbing in and out of the boat are not going to give any one a sleepless night.  Not having to worry about my trouble light shining into any ones bedroom window makes it nice. It's how I plan to beat the heat for the not so noisy parts any way.

Tried to  pull the chain plates off. It's not happening with only one person. Have to have someone man a screw driver on  the out side while I pull off nuts on the inside. Did get the measurements for backing plates. I figure to get some  3: x 3/16 inch .  I'm figuring 6 feet should be enough to get that part done. Throw another 2 ft of 1/4 inch for new chain plates and I should be good. Am going to get new  bolts, nuts etc so all the metals match . That and some bytal tape (spelling) and I'm good to go.  I have been toying with how to do this. The voc tech school here has a class that operates a hug computer operated  metal cutting machine . You see where that is going, right? Have to wait til it opens but what the heck I'm here any way may as well make the best of it. If that don't work I'll get the Dremel out and do it my self. I looked up sources for the metal . WOW can you say EXPENSIVE! If any one has a source for 316 Stainless  3/ 16"  x 2" or 3/ 16 x 4",at a decent price PLEASE post it or send me an email!

Have been playing around with the idea of going ahead and saving up for the solar panel to get the wiring started, Have to get a wiring plan figured out.  Its only a 22 ft boat so I'm figuring rough eye balling it , the longest run I should have is maybe 16 ft, not counting mast of course. I've got enough block to raise this gal up and drop the keel, so that is on the agenda s a definite.

Where is all this going?
The baby boy has LEFT THE BUILDING! Now that the set back is almost over, once again I am free at last! Momma's days of being Momma on a full time in house basis are OVER! We had a minor setback this last three weeks but things are getting back on track! I honestly cannot decide who this pushing your fledgling out of the nest is harder on. Yeah, at 28, since the medical issues are resolved, its time for him to be on his own. NO DOUBT about that.

What I do not get is why, once they are  "on their own",  when your child steps into the "goo" and ask for your help, do they seem to think that this willingness to help them sort it out, as in think it through to THEM finding a conclusion and or solution THEY CAN DO,  means in THEIR OPINION, you and your assets are on call 24/ 7 all of a sudden, as if they were three again? OK, I get that it takes time for them to adjust to a new life of living on their own.. That's just a case of they have to get experience and there is only one way to get that. What I do not understand is why it suddenly becomes (in their opinion) your crisis?  Can you say OY!
Parents teach your children  how to plan! Make sure they have coping skills for really bad days! Teach them that THEIR LACK OF PLANNING IS NOT YOUR CRISIS! My son understands what caused the problem. He was taught the skills to cope with adversity. Some things only come with getting knocked down and pulling your self back up. This was one of those. Time will tell how long it takes for all that stuff  we tell our children that they  did not want to hear takes root and gets solid. The good news is at 28 he only has about a year and a half before that second coming of age that seems to kick in at 30 starts to take effect.

 The good news is he has a really good distraction so now mother won't be the single most important women in his life. He found Ms. Right! I got to spend sometime getting to know her.  She is a trooper! She will definitely do to ride the river with . She in not a wimp by any means.  We have been talking about what I'm planing on doing with my life . At first all kinds of bad experiences were really making her anti boats. Now you KNOW that aint going to work very long around me, right? We had some talks .She seems to be slowly coming around,. Last night she informed me that being afraid of boats, sailing etc over what happened in her childhood was not sometime she was going to allow to continue,. The girl has MOXY There are very few things that make me want to climb up into someones face but, oh by howdy! I'll not go into the details as it is not my story to tell, but I would so love to keel haul or at least,put a extraordinarily large knot on someones head after hearing  about the DUMB STUNT that some  so called adults played on some children!.
The GREAT news is  this gal is the one that has him inspired to do all that stuff men are supposed to do. Who would have thunk it! LOL
 I must have done sometime right. My other son informs me he also has started a relationship with his Ms. Right. She also sounds like a trooper and a basically well grounded gal.  RELIEF!  Who knows maybe grand children are on the horizon? Time will tell.

well I guess that's it for now. Think I'm going to go get my tools out and ready for later when the sun goes down. I have  some hardware to pull off a boat.

Sail safe but sail!
 

Horse of a different color

Well its been a while. I have been in the south. We had arranged to go work for a guy doing some "minor " repairs on his house. Nothing big. Refinish a floor, refinish his wrought iron, little stuff like that. He was wanting us down  there and as any on who has redone a boat knows things ALWAYS take longer to do then anticipated and doing this house as no exception. so between him and me, we decided to go ahead, use his tools, and get down there. I wanted to take  the Venture since the original idea was a place to work on it and get her in the water. Tires being  as high priced as they are we decided to leave her here. go ahead and go do the job to make money for all this other stuff.
Turns out the floor he wanted to refinish was in a room filled with things he really should have put in storage It would have taken three days to just to get that out of there.
Nothing was ready to work on. Spent the first couple of days sorting through his garage looking for tools. and changing lite bulbs. Then he wanted to gripe about it.
Its funny I told him flat out I was not up for anything that required a license yet he wanted me to do plumbing.  One thing led to another and he wanted  us to do major remodeling like replace his windows in the front of his house etc. Now all of that we could have  done. That was not the deal breaker.


The job allegedly came with a 28 ft RV.  The orignal agrement was he would provide hook ups for and we would purchase on payments for my son. W wold work out some sort of contribution fr the utilities.  Almost immediately he wanted me to rent a spot at an RV park, Now housing and 10.00 a man hour is not to bad but when he took away the housing 10.00 an hour aint  all that much when your paying motel bills or rv space plus hooks ups. the profit margin crashed on that one. Still that was nothe deal breaker.  The fact that he wanted get work that wold have easily cos him way more then 10.00 an hour done as cheap as possible I can understand.Yes, I still have all the emails about this.




The travel trailer has storm damage which was repairable we knew that up front. When we got there and tore into the damaged area to see how  extensive the wood frame damage was,  come to find out that trailer has BLACK MOLD in it.  I've done black mold twice.  Once for myself and once for a lady I did garden wort for as a personal favor. THAT STUFF CAN KILL YOU!  Not something I want to Tackle especially not for 10.00 an hour after he had already tried to rip me off on wages. Black mold or mold of any type is a dangerous thing!  It is HEAVILY regulated by state and federal law.
Long story short in between that and him trying to gip me out of wages it did not last.  The final straw that broke the camels back was his hidden agenda. He knew this was a TEMPORARY THING!  He is in my groups and knew , same as any one else does that MY GOAL IS BLUE WATER! NOT living in an land locked area ANY WHERE!  He came up while  we were working on the wrought iron and tells me his real goal was to use the travel trailer to see how we did on it with the idea m and his brother would take turns hiring us to do work in his brothers RV rebuild place and his house.  He was trying  to "help" his bother since he apparently has trouble keeping people hired.  IN THIS ECONOMY?  That told me right there all I wanted to know.  When he old me that I about dropped my jaw to the ground.   After we go done working I told him we needed to solve the housing problem He allegedly went blank on ideas. He started griping about how I had not brought the boat., which he agreed to before we left. I gather his idea was that we would live in he boat when we found out the black mold was s to bad to stay in the travel trailer. I guess he figured he wold have us by the short hair and in a bind. I told him we were gong to go eat and he should text me if he had an idea. Spending  the night in a COLD mountain area in my van with two dogs and packed to the roof  was not my idea of how I wanted to live. Did not have enough cash left since I had spent ever thing  to just get there to do his job, so we headed south. Sleeping in the van is one ting but freezing  our butts of while doing it is a different horse altogether.
Yeah, I should have called OSHA or NLRB. I have something much more effective in mind. I am  letting providence deal with him.  Momma always said, what you do will ALWAYS come back to you and I expect he is going to get to walk a long walk in our shoes, sooner or later.




The good news is my son found him a place in a very nice area and is now on his own.
Me? I'm back in Oklahoma getting things set to up to deal with house. Have an unexpected gliche but nothing that can't be solved, It is just going  to delay selling house a bit. If your a praying person, do me a favor and pray the problem gets resolved so I can get house sold.


In the mean  time I am working on tiny things to get house  ready to go and working on the 16 foot challenger.


Sail safe but sail.

A Bit of Humor

As we are all getting older, i would like to inform my friends on new acronyms so we can understand each other.)
ATD- at the doctor)
BFF- best friend fell)
BTW- bring the wheelchair)
BYOT-bring your own teeth)
FWIW- forgot where i was)
LMDO- laughing my dentures out)
ROFLACGU- rolling on the floor laughing and cant get up)
TTML- talk to me louder)
T4M- time 4 meds)
PMA- pissed myself again)
SHTTF- shouldn't have trusted that fart.)

now that you're up to speed, be a pal and pass it on.

Wood Stove Surround Update

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Here are two photos.

You can see the ventilation holes in this photo. Once the tile is done there will be better balance between the intake and out put holes.

A close up some of the tiles I am planning on using for this.

Finally got the honey do shipping list pared down to just a few more items that need to be bought.  Finally I can start looking at boat equipment again! Yippppee!!!!!!!!!!    I ordered a puck GPS to go with the Open CPN. I have been playing around with the software just to get familiar with it. Down the road I want to be able to use sextant and old technology more then any thing. Lets face it the satellites are great and all that. GPS will tell you exactly where you are as will AIS. I don't have any thing against all that.  In the back of my mind I cannot shake this thought of what with the news reports of a major solar storms cycle being in progress, what good will GPS do if one of the solar flares they are talking  about as possibilities comes close enough to make an EMP that affects the satellites? The way I see it better safe then sorry.  Am I going to feel foolish if nothing like that ever happens? Absolutely not! Being prepared for worse case scenario is part of sailing the way I see it. Equipment breaks down. If I am not dependent on it, I do not have to worry about my trip being held up for lack of electronics.  For now I have a cheap plastic sextant  to use.  All I have to do is drill a hole in  it and put a lanyard through it to hang around my neck while I am using it so I don't accidentally drop it over board and I am good to go. Yes, eventually I want to get a better sextant. But I figure if  this cheap one is good enough to use as a back up it is good enough to use. as my main one until finances allow for a better one.