Friday 11 January 2019

Laundry Day

We could have bought a proper used laundry set, but then if we leave the island we'd have to sell it or leave it behind. I had seen many RVers with washer spin dryers and I had one myself when the kids were small, but in winter and rain I'd need a way to dry.... so to find something we could take with us should we decide to move on.

I found these:

There was no tracker on the washer, so best guess was Jan 11-23rd!!! However, it did show that it had crossed the border when I checked it on Wednesday am and since it was coming from California I didn't think it would take too long to arrive so we held off going to Duncan and having already received the dryer - I chose to wash a few things by hand (yes, red raw hands) and hope the washer came through in a couple of days.

By that very afternoon, it arrived. The wonders of Canada Post!

Washer/Spin Dryer

When I ordered it I thought it was orange so was much relieved when it arrived brown.

For those unfamiliar:
Clothes go in the left side, water enters through the hose at the top left and the clothes are agitated clean. You then drain the water out and move the clothes to the right side (to rinse, the hose is attached to the right top) and spun very rapidly which removes 95% of the water. 

Obviously 35 years ago the one I had wasn't plastic, so I was a little concerned about this concept (Brad was too) but its actually working well - so far.... had it now for 2 days and have done several loads as I need to catch up.

13 lb capacity. I checked and a typical washer does around 20lb, so not too far off.

This is the dryer.

 It is essentially a clothes rack with a zippered enclosure, there is a heater at the bottom which puts heat up through and dries the clothes, quite well I might add. Roughly an hour and its all dry. However when I was wringing the clothes by hand it took about 2 hours to dry them, fortunately that didn't last but a few hours before the washer arrived.

There are 6 cross clips (here used for socks) which you can then hang things on with a coat hanger. I have found it helpful if I turn the hangers half way through, for speed to get both sides dry when doing a full load but if I leave it to dry long enough, say an hour and a half, it will all be dry. 


Vent holes at the top allow excess hot air and moisture to escape - making the old stinky shed smell fresh and clean. 

We will be putting a proper laundry line in the yard somewhere for nice days but this will be great for wet/cold days.

Brad gave the windows a good going over and now we can see out 

Its been raining dogs and cats here the last week or so but apparently we've come out the other side of it and now we can get some stuff done around here..... and hang a laundry line, too.


Wednesday 2 January 2019

A New Year

Happy New Year Everyone!

We've made it. We are the new Managers of Mowhinna Creek Campground. Didn't think we'd make it this far but here we are, finally in our new spot - The Manager's Spot.

For those just joining us, we got bored this summer whilst sitting in our tin can in the middle of Saskatchewan in +35C temperatures. We had gone to SK because that is where we are from and where our family still are. Unfortunately, the kids are all working, the grandkids are all in school or daycare and so we were left with nothing to do, so we decided to look into Workamping - the art of working to earn a free camping spot - essentially (and sometimes wages as well).

We spent a few months July - October workamping in Alberta and then applied for and were given  this position on Salt Spring Island so we headed here once we finished in Alberta. We have now become residents of British Columbia and we love it here on Salt Spring having made so many friends on this island already. Worse case scenario, if this job doesn't pan out for some reason we will just move to Vancouver Island where I have already scouted a new campground (from a time when it didn't look like we'd be staying here)... the best part of RV Life is the ability to simply move should the need/desire arise..

Here we are all tucked in.

Quite a bit of room back here.

The workshop

I'm planning to make this add on at the back of the office into an indoor seating area, plenty of work to do in there. Then we can have people over as our little rig is just too small to comfortably entertain in the rain.

Our (read my) nice clean workshop - well mostly clean anyway... Wait, whats he doing in there?! I'll be going over it again but for now everything has a bucket - screw bucket, plumbing bucket, washer bucket, bolt bucket, etc. 
P.S. any container is a bucket to me.

Inside our soon to be outdoor livingroom, the front section is for gardening but the back will be the livingroom once I take those shelves out of there... anyone need an old door? LOL

Recently I've been having a thing about Narrow boats, ie Canal boats... (longtime readers will be rolling their eyes here). I'd love to (and we're English, so we could) buy a Narrow boat and cruise the Canals in the UK... Brad won't hear of it - of course... we'll see. LOL

I've been watching video's on YouTube by CruisingTheCut, quite a funny guy (English humour) and informative. His videos are roughly 5 min long so its easy to catch one here and there without tying me up for 20 min at a time. As always, when I start following someone on YouTube I am watching from the beginning, I am currently at episode 36 but have paused to write this blog post and no doubt His Lordship will expect his dinner before I begin watching again.

Because of YouTube copyright yadayada, he is drawing a diagram of his anticipated route... not to scale but hilarious if your familiar with the country.

It is raining at the moment and expected to rain all day tomorrow (15-20mm, at roughly 30mm/inch you can do the math... at least that's what I do since I don't do metric but I know its roughly 3cm to an inch, and 10 mm to 1 cm, so...) about 2/3 of an inch or in layman's terms - a lot. Haha.

Hoping this year will be better than last year, although in fairness to 2018 our day to day was pretty good but the overall life stuff sucked. We just have to put it out of our minds and carry on.

When we first saw our new site, I know I wondered if we'd made a mistake selling the Ranch but once it was cleaned up, I think it looks pretty good.

Besides, friends we made at the Ranch are also mobile so they can always come to us, seems only fair since we went there so they could meet us in the first place. Right Karen?! :D