Time to Pack Up and Hit the Road

     Well, it's that time of year in southeast Texas where the Snowbird migration is in full swing. The weather folks are predicting 90 degrees by Friday! So far it has been an early Spring. The grass has been being cut since April, the flowers have been out and blooming, and the various "seasons" of Texas bugs has come and gone (ladybugs, wasps, forest webworms, and love bugs). Usually the Magnolia trees are just beginning to bloom when we are packing up but this year they have been shooting out their fragrant blooms for weeks. (photo above) Every morning I have wandered out and found a bloom to inhale. The fragrance is light but very pleasant.

     With the addition of the golf cart, we were looking at covering it for the brutal Texas summer. The more we thought about it, the more we felt we needed something more substantial to protect our investment. With that in mind, we decided to upgrade our storage shed. We made a deal with our neighbor and we traded our shed to him in exchange for one of his deck boxes. This then freed up space for a larger more substantial shed. We shopped around and found a nice lofted barn style that could accommodate the golf cart yet still allow plenty of room to store the things we needed to. This building was custom made by Cook buildings and delivered (and set up) on our site. It arrived on the back of a flatbed trailer and was lowered to the ground. The delivery driver unloaded a "mule" which was a fancy mini-fork lift. He used the mule to then drag and align the shed in it's new location.

Off loading from the trailer 

Using the "Mule" to move into position

Big double doors for golf cart access

In place and set up

A perfect fit with room to spare!

     Prior to this, we had to empty the old shed and move it to our neighbors property. I really didn't want to disassemble it then re-assemble it again. I felt that it was sturdy enough that we could easily get it to its new home by setting up some PVC pipe and rolling it to its new home. I asked our property manager if I could borrow a few moments of time from his crew to make the move. Well, they showed up and just carried it to the new location!! I didn't think that it was that sturdy but it all worked out fine.

Moving the old shed

      Our next home improvement took me a bit out of my comfort zone. We have had moisture condensation along the inner peak of our Casita roof for some time. It just gets too hot and humid around here and the ventilation is poor along the roof. We have seen what is called a ridge vent in homes and buildings in this area and it seemed to be a good solution for our problem. It looked like an easy fix that could be done by a "do it yourself-er". After studying a few You Tube videos, we found a couple of four foot vents and some shingles to match the roof.

   

      The process involved climbing up on the roof and cutting the appropriate sized slot into the ridgeline (thus providing the attic air a place to exhaust). Then the vents were nailed down and the shingles secured to the top. Now the air could vent and the moisture had some place to go other than down the interior roof of the Casita! The ridge vent itself is neat, fits well along the roof line and is barely noticeable.

The finished product.

     We are now ready to pack up and head northwards. Keeping in mind the floods of last year, we have taken as many precautions as we can to reduce any damage should the floods decide to recur.