Getting ready for the summer
From Montreal, we headed to my parent’s cottage for a couple of weeks. This is where the Rosie (the trailer) had spent the winter. We had to de-winterize it, make some changes to get it ready for the summer, and give it a good wash.
De-winterizing the trailer involves flushing the antifreeze out of the water lines and then sterilizing them by letting water (with a small amount of bleach in it) sit in the lines, and then flushing that out.
One of the changes we wanted to make, was to swap out the two AGM batteries (AGM stands for Absorbent Glass Mat and is an type of lead acid battery) and replace them with a Lithium Ion Battery. This new battery can store more energy and will charge faster from our solar panels. This will give us “more” power for our devices when we are at a site where we are not able to plug into an electrical source. To do this we had to take apart the plywood battery compartment in order to disconnect the existing batteries and remove their plastic housing. Lead-acid batteries need to vent because hydrogen gas can build up, so there was a vent from the plastic housing to an outlet on the exterior of the trailer. This venting is not required for Lithium Ion batteries, so we plugged the hole with steel wool and dropped in the new Lithium Ion battery.
We were able to reconnect everything without electrocuting ourselves and without shorting out the electrical system in the trailer, so we closed up the compartment and patted ourselves on the back.
While at the cottage we were also able to do some of the annual open-for-the-summer tasks like putting in the dock. We were able to do this without any leaks in the chest waders or breaching the top of the waders, so it was a success!
It was lovely to be at the cottage in the spring, to hear the loons calling, and see the herons flying around. The flowers were also in bloom, from my dad’s daffodils, to the trilliums blooming in the woods.
Our neighbours at the cottage have a new puppy “Norman”, who was more than eager to assist in anything that we were doing, but was especially keen to help out whenever I was cooking something on the barbecue. This post would not be complete without including a photo of him, and yes, it’s a bit blurry because he is continuously in motion.
My parents’ cottage was built by my mother’s parents in the 1950’s, so I have been going there since I was born. The closest small town is Athens, Ontario. For as long as I can remember, the walls in the town have been covered and re-covered with various murals. I was happy to see some new ones going up this year. While there is always an ebb and flow of businesses coming and going, it was nice to have a new bakery open and see a line-up out its door on the Saturday morning we left. During our couple of weeks there, we would occasionally get a coffee at Luke’s (who opens at 6am during the week), our bread and treats from the new Big Waters Bakery, our trailer supplies from Athens Hardware, and as many groceries as we could from Wendy’s Country Market. We hit the road on Saturday, May 18th, because we had our first reservation that night in Sudbury, but that’s for another post.