The Wandering Minstrel

Seen outside a restaurant near Pittsburgh, PA . . .

Hat tip to my buddy Frank N.

When the NRA announced the American Rifleman digital edition, I signed up immediately. That was a few years ago.

Since that time, the digital edition has been improving. At first, it was just a magazine that I could read on the screen. Today, it has evolved into a regular interactive multimedia experience.

Clickable image - American Rifleman Digital Screenshot with pop-up video activated.

I spent a couple of hours looking through the April issue today. You see all the static text and images, just like the print version, but there are hot links, pop-up video clips, QR codes and a variety of embedded video features. It’s way more than just a magazine these days.

I discontinued getting the printed magazine altogether. If I need to refer to a past issue, they are permanently archived on-line.

Too bad more of them don’t realize what they’ve done to the country and to themselves. Photo credit unknown. Hat tip to my buddy Frank N.

We continued preparing for the “maiden voyage” in our new RV today. We found a dealer in town where we could purchase a few accessories. We bought a sewer hose and a couple of connectors for it, a dual bubble level for adjusting the leveling jacks and a tire-locking wheel chock to keep the trailer from rolling when parked.

To use the chock (clickable image above), you place it between the tandem tires on one side and turn the crank to apply pressure to the tires. When its firmly in contact with both tires, the trailer can’t roll. The device also has a feature where you can padlock it to discourage thievery - a perfect application for the otherwise useless gun locks that S&W ships with guns sold in anti-gun Nannyfornia. Pretty keen, eh?

We also picked up one of these to use as a night light in the new trailer.

Seen outside a restaurant near Pittsburgh, PA . . .

Since The Better Half and I both have some Irish heritage, we seldom fail to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with a traditional Irish-style corned beef and cabbage dinner. TBH makes a delicious horseradish sauce to compliment the meat. We didn’t have any Irish beer, so I enjoyed my meal with a Samuel Adams Alpine Spring beer.

Clickable image.

Today, I hitched up the new RV trailer to the deluxe equalizing hitch and towed it out of the temporary parking area. I took it down to the road, turned it around and towed it back to the optimum spot on the RV drive.

It turned out that because of where the water, sewage and electrical hookups are located on the trailer and the house, respectively, the left side of the trailer had to be positioned such that the cables and hoses reached their hookups. I initially had it in the RV drive backwards.

I don’t mind telling you that I had some trepidation about today’s operation because the RV drive is a little bit tight for the 27-footer we bought. I sweated having the top of the trailer colliding with the back porch rain gutter or something. As it turned out, my fears were unfounded. With a lot of help from The Better Half guiding from the outside of the truck and coach, we managed to negotiate the transition with no incidents.

Clickable image above: RV with it’s awning deployed and all hooked up to the facilities.

On Monday, The Better Half usually does the laundry. I can’t be of much help to her with that, so today, I decided to do some of the chores that have been piling up here.

I started out by taking the garden rake down to the road where the landscape rocks meet the unimproved terrain. The rocks get scattered into the road when we use the RV drive and our driveway. I squared up the line by raking the scattered rocks back onto the landscape boundary.

Next, I hauled the garden hose down to another area in the river rocks on the slope in front of our house and courtyard. Some neighborhood critters had burrowed under some the rocks and left them covered with the sandy soil we have here. I directed a high pressure stream of water to wash the soil back down under the rocks.

Finally, I assembled The Better Half’s miniature greenhouse (clickable image above), a project that has been pending since before last summer. Now that it’s done and sitting in the courtyard, she will populate it with stuff that needs the warmth and protection from the little rabbits and squirrels that delight in destroying her bulbs, herbs, beans and fruit. By this weekend, I’m sure she will have filled it to capacity with this spring’s crop.