Turned Leaves and Closed Doors

Autumn is a lovely time of year and I enjoy the sheer beauty of the changing seasons. What I have yet to come to terms with is the necessity of winterizing “Roada” and closing her up for the winter.

Sadly, the time for this fall ritual is fast approaching. In order to spur me along this reluctant journey, I finally went ahead and made an appointment for winterizing on October 1st. Sigh.

First things first; I spent a full day cleaning and rearranging my bedroom (in the house). I admit, I’ve been using about half of it to store nose work supplies over the summer.

These supplies needed to be rehoused to the barn so I’ll have room in the bedroom to set my spinning corner up once again.

Hmm … I need to bring my comfortable canvas glider-rocker in from the RV. It’s proven perfect for spinning and conveniently folds up out of the way when not in use.

I’ve enjoyed having my spinning wheel, a portable Lendrum double-treadle, in the RV for a couple of summers now. I didn’t actually get as much spinning done this summer as I’d hoped, but what I managed was joyful and should make for good knitting this winter.

Spinning in the sunshine of a beachside campground in Ninilchik, or warm and toasty inside, while listening to rain on the RV roof in Seward, was peaceful beyond measure.

Now it’s time to come back in out of the rain (so to speak), so the wheel is upstairs, waiting to be used.

Another day disappeared; filled with moving all my toiletries from RV to upstairs bathroom, stripping the bed in the RV and changing sheets on the bed in the house. And knitting …

I’m going to try hard to limit the number of times I must traverse the staircase this winter. One thing I learned, somewhat to my dismay, is that my “bad knee” recovered to a good degree over the summer – it seems having everything on one level really does make a difference.

To this end; I’ve set up my RV coffee maker on the dresser for morning coffee, and cleared a drawer to store coffee supplies, biscotti, bottled water, snacks, etc.

Most of my winter hobbies are based upstairs anyway, so being comfortable there and not constantly running up and down should prove helpful.

Today was sunny, if chilly, so “Roada” was given one last thorough wash & wax to hold her over the winter. I ended up with slightly blue, cramped, cold fingers by the time I was done, in spite of heavy rubber gloves, but needs must.

Now that the big wash is done, I need to clean out (and clean) the frig, freezer and pantry. Nothing even slightly resembling food remains in the RV over the winter.

Tomorrow is designated for overall interior cleaning. It’ll be a long day and, for me anyway, a sad one.

I purely hate putting my beautiful toy away for the winter.

This coming Thursday is winterizing day. Technically, that doesn’t mean I can’t still use her, until snow drives me indoors for good … but with the water turned off and drained, it’s just not the same.

Tim to start dreaming of spring, and next year’s RV adventures.