Working like a slave!

Location, Home

Has it really been almost a week since I last posted? Hard to believe! I have been working like a slave on the planting beds along the rear fence. I am digging down about a foot and sifting all the soil to get all the roots out. It is a back breaking job especially for me as I have been somewhat of a couch potato. I do walk every morning for an hour but that requires few muscles and none in the digging, bending, lifting area of my body.

I work for a while then rest for a while. Sometimes my rest breaks are longer than my work periods but that’s what being retired can do for you. During my rest breaks I sometimes work on other small projects.

When I arrived in Quartzsite in January, my refrigerator would not run on propane. The first thing I checked was the burner to see if any rust had fallen down from the vent tube. When this happens, the igniter can’t light the propane as it gets shorted out by the rust. This happened to be thee case so removing the rust allowed the burner to light. However, some rust particles did manage to fall into the burner openings so I made a mental note to remove and clean the burner after I got home. I did this during one of my breaks the other day.

I carry a small barrel stove on our winter camping trips to ward off the cold on those nights we want to sit outside. Believe me, we do sit outside when we winter camp except on those nights when the wind blows. I have been using the same stove for many years and because of the hot fires we have in it, the bottom was rusting through in places. My friend Jack had a new barrel this year and gave it to me as a replacement for mine. He had found a larger barrel to use for his stove. During some of my working breaks I have been getting the old hardware transferred to the new barrel. Here are a few pictures of the completed stove.



The door has a damper which can be adjusted to regulate the amount of air for the fire and there is even a plate atop the stove for heating water, etc. There is also a spark arrester on top of the chimney. When fully fired up, the stove glows cherry red and flames come out the chimney. You can site all around the stove and everyone can be warm.

To keep the bottom from burning out I have added a metal pan to keep the fire off the floor of the barrel. Thanks for the barrel Jack.