July 4th came with a storm that drove about 8 inches of badly needed rain here on the east coast.
I have been packing and moving for over a month now and it seems that I am not gaining ground. Setting up a campsite has added to the whole challenge. The site is about 1/2 mile from my farm and in a nice spot, albeit closer to the street than I wished. I hear the traffic in the early morning (not that I shouldn't get up), but I am finding it difficult to fall asleep at night.
The tent is large, 11.5 feet square. I have put my bed inside and it is quite roomy. I put a chest of drawers in too, a highboy that contains a lot of things I (think) I can't live without. Finding a place for clothes is a challenge since when it gets humid, I fear my clothes will mildew. I need a lot of clothes since I get pretty dirty on a regular basis. My friend lent me his porta potty from his boat, so that pretty much takes care of the toilet issue. BB the dog has been sleeping in his screen tent but I will soon move his regular kennel inside the tent. More comfortable for sleeping and I think he is more secure in there at night. My challenge with BB is that he can't stay at the site should I have to go shopping or to the dentist. I will need to figure out where to leave him should I have to do errands, etc. I do have several options but I can't take him in the car when it is so hot.
I bought a pop-up cover at Benny's a few weeks ago, on sale for $79.99 (+ tax). It didn't seem to be so great when there was a shower and water collected in the top inside the exterior supports. That was a week or ten days ago, I think. Last Saturday, at a yard sale, I bought a screen tent (10' X 12') for $15.00. A pretty good purchase except there were no directions on how to put it up! Took two of us over an hour to figure it out, but it withstood the rain very well. The pop-up didn't, it collapsed. I will return it to Benny's and see if they will refund the $$ and I might not buy another pop-up. But the sign at Benny's said no refunds, just exchanges. The problem with the pop-up is the sides of the cover have no connectors to the frame and when rain comes, the cover isn't taut enough to shed water and it collects, making the flimsy frame give way.
Interestingly and happily, the tent made it without any problem. This is a very old Eureka tent, canvass with a rubber bottom. It has very large zipper windows and a small vent in the roof. All are triangular in shape. The zippers are metal and pretty beefy. I bought a 16' X 20' tarp and put it over the top of the tent and extended the tarp using nearby trees and rope. Since the tent supports are on the outside of the tent rather than inside, they hold the tarp off the tent itself. The whole tarp extends outside of the tent and makes a very nice canopy. I covered the floor with many scatter rugs for insulation and comfort. I have a number of plastic and chrome shelves I am going to use inside for storing my clothes, etc. My friend Steve who let me camp in his woods had a three burner Coleman camp stove, several very nice tables and lent these to me for the site. There is a nice campfire spot, but we have yet started a fire. Steve has been very helpful and I am keeping my freezer and fridge in his garage. This cuts back on buying ice for coolers, etc and I provide good knuckle beef bones for his German Shepard, Holly, who loves me because I give her good bones and cookies. She is a very SMART dog but BB is very wary of her since she does get exuberant oftentimes.
On the other hand, moving out has been very expensive and time consuming. Just the packing has taken me weeks. I didn't realize I had so much stuff stuffed inside this trailer! I rented a small storage unit for many of the things that won't fit into my box storage area or my camper. Speaking of the camper, the fat man pissed in the toilet before the new, locking door handle came. What a jack ass he is! I cleaned out the toilet and walls in the camper and now the odor is gone. My neighbor Alan came and removed one of the tires off the camper, but before the other one comes off, I have to jack the camper up higher. I have to get more cement blocks...sigh.
So, I have to get cracking on the packing! I am challenged with what to do with my hanging clothes until I thought of putting up a bar in the bathroom in the camper and using that to hang my clothes on. This will work, but I have to find time to get the pipe, make the brackets, etc. Most of this I am doing alone. I have hired a lot of help to move the stove, fridge and freezer along with many boxes of packed things to storage and into the camper. Most of what is going into the camper is for yard sale. Also, I had to clean out my garage so I could edit and toss a lot of things that were old, worn out or just no good anymore. That got done two weekends ago.
There are a lot of things to get done but not a lot of time. I was supposed to be out of the trailer yesterday, but we had the storm...not that I was ready, to say the least!
But at least my tent held up through 8 inches of hard rain and some wind.
I hope you are all having a good summer so far. The east coast has enough rain for a week or ten days.