I am writing this blog to the background melodic tones of a mighty Honda 2800 working its little alternator out.  We need the power.  It’s only 2:00 pm and thunder is following lightning all across the sky.  It is ‘wintery’ out there.  Dark-ish.  Dreadful. 2:00 in afternoon and not a shred of sunshine. We need the light.  Batteries need the juice. 

Water levels are up, tho.

Sal and I finished up what we could the other day on the warm room under the house.  I ran out of adhesive for the insulation board so it is still partially undone.  But that’s OK.  One more tube of goo and we are finished with that chore….mostly….

…..from one chore always comes many more little ones. 

This almost-completed large chore required a re-think on the ‘warming’ source.  My 8Kw diesel heater is just too much.  So, I got out my three old-school Japanese Kerosene heaters and had a go at them.  They are as old as I am. One works pretty well and the other two just need wick trimmings and a bit of fiddling.  Kerosene might help. I am pretty sure I could make them all work.  But even one is pretty hot for that little space. 

Then I remembered my old oil lanterns.  I have eight of them.  Four were from our living-on-sailboats days.  Lovely little units.  All on gimbals.  So, I got ‘em out, trimmed their little wicks and set ‘em on fire.  Interesting.  I would need two, maybe three of them to get to the level of warm I would want.   

So, one source is too big, one is almost just right (but old) and the last option is too little.  There is more to be done on this.  And this is the stuff of living OTG. 

I am reporting in mostly because the weather shifted quite significantly this past week.  I know it is mid-October and it is supposed to do that but, well, it really feels like winter is settling in rather dramatically.  The wind, high seas, rain, storms and cold kinda reinforce that feeling.  The dogs aren’t happy about it either.  

However, not all is dark.  One ol’ buddy from around these here parts decided this year to embrace the RV life and he just set out for points south in his old MoHo.  He is brand new to the game.  And he is excited. This will be an adventure for him.  Sal and I have RV’d since we got together 53 years ago.  It’s not new to us.  But all that fun is likely over for us now.  We aren’t drawn to the US anymore and we have been all over there, Canada and Mexico several times.  We think our RV’ing days are pretty much done.

Maybe our traveling days are pretty much over…?   

I kinda, almost, ruled out airports a few years ago.  Better that I should rule out airports than they end up ruling out me – and that latter event was shaping up to be inevitable. I hate them and, it was seemingly becoming a mutual feeling.  It’s mostly me. I have a problem with authority figures, especially when they exercise their authority and I tend to get extra vexed when they ‘power trip’ over my shampoo bottle or fountain pen.   I really should get therapy…..

…in the meantime, I stopped booking flights.  But that is still open….somewhat….we’ll see….

A short word of encouragement to some readers having a hard time right now. Like the coming winter, it will pass.