13-20, August 2012 - Raspberries, Zoos, and Propane Tanks.

The last time I used my sleeping bag I noticed that it needed a few repairs so it was time to unbury my sewing machine.  Of course Scott thought he should get the first look at it.  I took the needle out and let him play with it a bit before I put it to work.  In this case I needed to sew up the compression sack with the machine but  had to use a needle and thread for the seam in the sleeping bag.

This old machine still sews a nice, tight stitch.  I wish it had a reverse though!  We keep a spare belt on hand.  They usually last many years but we have to order them from Lemans which sometimes takes awhile.

Scott's my little helper when doing things outside.  Here we are getting the big generator moved to where I need to do some welding.

My latest project on the camper is building a rack to mount the propane bottles outside.  I brought out the generator and welder.  The wheel barrow has tools in it like vise grips and clamps, tape measure and squares.  I do most of my steel cutting with a skil saw and metal cutting blade.  If you're going to cut metal be sure your saw has a steel blade guard.  The sparks will cut right through a plastic blade guard.

I have the frame welded to the truck.  Scott wanted to test it out so he climbed onto it to play.  At this point I still need to bolt it to the back wall and finish the framework.

The next step was to run the line for the propane through the bathroom to the stove.

Under the stove you can see the fitting and copper tubing that goes from the steel pipe to the stove.

This is the left rear corner.  I welded in a strap hinge to the upper rail.  There's a hasp and padlock on the other end.  You just take off the lock then the top rail swings up and over to give clearance to remove the tanks.

The tank hold-down was fabricated from some old angle iron and an extra trampoline spring.  It's attached by a loose bolt at the rear so that I can lift it up to release spring tension and remove the tank(s).  The front part is retained by the top rail.  There's a bolt welded to the underside of the rail that engages a hole in the tank hold-down (like a pin).  When you close the top rail it presses down on the retainer to keep spring tension on the tanks.

I used a hasp and padlock to secure everything.

This is what it looks like from a distance.

We went garage saling on Saturday morning and picked up a few things.  Scott's lawn chair was one of them.  It's quickly become a favorite.

The closest major zoo (Seattle, WA) is about 600 miles away. We traveled with our daughter and son-in-law (Scott's parents), spent a day getting there, a day there and a day coming home again.  We stayed in hotels for two nights and ate every meal out.  Scott did well for a little guy but he was sure happy to get home.

We just took him out of the car seat and put him in the stroller.  He wasn't too happy about that!

We took approximately 130 photos each.  Obviously I'm not posting them all here!  Susan is looking out over to where a giraffe is feeding.

The snow leopard taking his siesta.  In striving to present the critters in their "natural" environment they also made them difficult to find at times.  Especially for the little guys.  Some of the animals were so far away and so well hidden that Scott never saw them.  We didn't even see all of them.

We headed for home in late afternoon and got a refresher course on what we hate about cities!  Traffic jams!  Once we broke free we drove a couple of hundred miles before finding a hotel for the night.

We stopped at the Cabelas store in Spokane but didn't buy anything.  They didn't have the only items I had on my list and I don't go shopping at Cabelas unless I have a list!  Otherwise I spend way too much money! 

The garden is doing okay considering that we've kind of neglected it this year.  This is Mint that Susan is harvesting and drying for future use.

Susan is picking raspberries.  We got several gallons on the first picking.  It'll slow down just little bit now.  We also have peas ready to pick but we may just let them dry on the vine this year.

The raspberries are very good this year.  We've had a fairly wet and warm summer.  So far the yellow jackets haven't found them.

Two canner loads finished.  We've given some away and frozen others to can or eat later.

Our strawberry beds aren't doing well.  Several small beds died out last year and the big one is struggling.  When the grocery store put theirs on sale we bought five pounds.  We're dehydrating three pounds and we'll have the rest fresh.