Monthly Archives: February 2013
The Deer Whisperer . . .
My main chore from my To-Do list today was to flush out our rig’s water heater. Normally I do this before we leave Houston for the year, but just ran out of time this year.
The first step was to turn off the water heater. In this case, the electric switch. Next I turned on the hot water in the lavatory and let it run until the water was cold.
Leaving the water running, I went outside and turned off the water to the rig, and then removed the drain plug on the water heater, as shown at the bottom of this photo.
I left the faucet open inside the rig to release the vacuum and make it easier to drain the heater. After letting most of the water drain out, I hooked up my cleaning wand to a hose, turned the water on, and inserted it into the drain hole.
Using the wand I flushed out the inside of the heater, noting how much trash and gunk comes out. And in this case I didn’t see a lot of stuff, which made my job a little easier.
If I had found a lot coming out, I would have put the drain plug back in, removed the T&P valve located above the drain, pour in about a pint of vinegar, fill the water heater with water, and then turn the power back on and let it set for a couple of hours.
This would dissolve and remove a lot of the crud. At this point I would start over with my flushing until the water draining out was clear.
In this case I just put the drain plug back in, turned the water back on to the rig, and then waited until water was running freely. At this point, I turned the heater back on, and I was done.
If you do this for yourself, be very careful to not accidently turn the power on to the heater without any water in it. It will burn out the heating elements in just a few seconds.
Later, about 2pm, Jan and I headed out for the afternoon to run some errands over in Boerne, about 25 miles away. Our first stop was Home Depot to pick up couple of things for my rig projects, and then a few blocks later, Radio Shack for some new test leads and connectors.
Then it was on to Wal-Mart, and then HEB for a couple of things that Wal-Mart did have.
Coming back to our park, we were passing a ranch and looked over to see a bull elk,
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and a cow.
Never can tell what you’ll see on a Texas back road.
Coming back into Lakehills, we stopped at Cowan’s on the Creek, a local restaurant that really good online reviews. Based on them, we were looking forward to a really good steak. Unfortunately the reviews didn’t seem to know about the empty lake and the lack of business, and the fact that the place had shut down their full kitchen two weeks ago. So we had our choice of burgers, chicken fried steak, or the lunch special, Meatloaf, Cheesy Potatoes, and Green Beans.
Jan and I both agreed it was really good, but it wasn’t the steak we were looking forward to. We did have a nice talk with the owner about RV’ing, and also about the missing lake. She said the real reason the lake was dry was that due to the drought, San Antonio was pumping so much water from the river that supplies the lake at the dam, that none was left to spill over the dam and keep the lake filled.
Getting back to the rig about 6:30pm, Jan got out to feed the deer, and was soon surrounded.
At one point I counted almost 50 of them crowding around her. They were so tame you could just hold out your empty hand and they would come up and nuzzle it.
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Nice Rack!
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Thought for the Day:
If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, you’ve likely misread the situation.
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I’m sorry, but I dabbled . . .
I didn’t mean to. It just happened. I got bored and started back on my To-Do List. Mostly just a bunch of small things that had been hanging around on the list.
Tomorrow I’m going to drain and flush out the water heater for this year. Normally I get it done before we leave Houston, but I ran out of time this year. But now it’s bubbled to the top of the list, and its time has come.
About 1pm I got the slow cooker out and started up a batch of Chicken Tortilla Soup using the chicken breasts that I poached yesterday. Two boxes of chicken broth, two poached chicken breasts, two cans of Rotel HOT Diced Tomatoes with Habaneros, one can of black beans, two diced fresh jalapenos, and a handful of chopped fresh cilantro. And of course, shredded Monterey Jack Cheese on top, as well as a generous supply of tortilla chips.
On another note, a while back when I did several posts about “assault weapons” and “high” capacity magazines. One of things I mentioned was the fact that banning so-called high capacity magazines was useless.
I mentioned that I could change a magazine out in about a second and several people took issue with that. They said that most people couldn’t do this.
Well, check out this video demonstration put on by an Indiana Sheriff with an experienced male shooter and an inexperienced female one. Check out the link below.
In a couple of cases they both were actually faster on the smaller mags, probably because they were easier to handle. So much for a “high” capacity magazine ban.
Tomorrow we’ll probably make a run over to Boerne to pick up some things I need for my projects.
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Thought for the Day:
Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness. – George Washington
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