A beautiful, though somewhat cool, day here in mid Florida. The temperature is hovering around 60 this afternoon, but the sun is shining brightly and the wind is light, so it feels pretty good to be outside today. I spent a quite morning at the trailer doing some minor fixit's here and there. I had bought some 'Gorilla Glue' brand duct tape yesterday and spent some time reinforcing the fiberglass window cover over the front window. It has several cracks in it and should probably be replaced at some point, but I think it is now reinforced enough now to make it through the next few weeks at least. By the way; this duct tape seems to be a lot stronger and a lot stickier than other brands I have used. It will be interesting to see how it holds up in the light of all the sunshine down here.
   I also took some time to get the ladder out and climb up to measure the refrigerator vent on top of the roof, as I was going to make a run down to Winter Green Florida to a Camping World store that is there and see if they had a replacement for it. It was less than 20 miles to the store so it didn't take long to drive on down there. I knew it was pretty unlikely that they would have a vent that would fit in stock, but it was at least worth a try. As it turns out they did have a part in stock. In fact it was even better because the part was actually only a replacement cover for the vent, the part of the existing vent that is broken. So now instead of having to scrape the whole vent body off, along with it's waterproof seal and everything that goes with it, I will just have to drill 4 holes and screw the new cover onto the old vent body.
   Of course I found other things I just couldn't live without, because I'm kind of crazy when I get into a store like that. So in addition to the vent cover I picked up a set of 10 leveling blocks, and a spare tire cover.
    Even with all of that I was in and out of the store in less than 20 minutes. From there it was off to return an ice tea container I had bought a couple of days ago and which ended up being to large for my little bitty refrigerator. I did managed to find a nice plastic gallon container which should work out well for me to make my ice tea in.
    From there it was off to Discount Tires to get the truck tires rotated. Looks like my tires are still doing well with plenty of tread left on them all. Since it seemed to be a slow afternoon it only took about 30 minutes to get all of that done.
    Will finish up here at Micky D's in another 30-45 minutes and then head back to the trailer. Tomorrow I am back on the road again and I would like to get a head start on stowing stuff away. After a week of being in one place, as well as doing odd jobs around the place there are lots of little bits and pieces that are spread all about.
   It is off to De Soto Island tomorrow which is located on the coast just south of St Petersburg. Looking forward to being on the water again for a few days. I'm also looking forward to another weekend contra dance this weekend. 'Snow Ball' is always one of the best dances I attend and this years dance should be as good as any in the past.


Contra Dance Week in Ely England - April 7 to 16 - Part VIII

One of the most unique school buildings was once a 'Tithing Barn' for the Cathedral and Abbey. Since there wasn't much money in the hands of the peasants hundreds of years ago, all of the taxes were paid in goods and services. Many free days of toil were expected from each person in the area every year, and goods in the way of grain, fruit and vegetables or farm animals, could be brought here and stored away.

The barn is now used as the dining hall for the school with the kitchens and prep areas on the lower level and the dining area on the upper level. The barn, like many of the buildings on site, is of post and beam construction with stone exterior walls. As a barn it wasn't expected to be perfectly constructed out of straight and finely finished wooden beams. Indeed it appears that pretty much any wooden piece that was large enough would be cut into some beam or rafter or support knee. Some of them are pretty twisted which is just wonderful to look at.  

Some of the beams and rafters.

Just showing how some of the posts came down and sit on stone lintels that cantilever out from the thick stone exterior walls.

Some of the roof rafters and collar ties supporting the roof.

Just wanted to show how they took a large, crooked log, which many people wouldn't use without cutting out the crook, and fitted it in and made it work.

The bottom end of the roof rafters and the knee supports that hold up the roof. Everything is supported by the thick stone exterior walls.

brk*