Wednesday, May 30, 2012

A Little Accident

It’s nice to look outside and see the sun shining again.  We had two days with very little sun and lots of rain.  Of course we still have the heat and humidity.

We had a little accident here last night.  I was standing by the cabinet opening a couple cans of kitty food.  Baxter was getting very excited.  I’m not sure exactly what happened.  He was standing on his back legs with his front feet resting against the cabinet.  All of a sudden he started screaming like he was in terrible pain.  I think the claw on his left front foot had gotten stuck in the opening of the cabinet door.  It happened so quick, but I remembered wondering if I had accidently shut the door on his foot…but decided I hadn’t.   I reached down to grab him and lift his foot out, but he was in panic mode and felt he needed to defend himself.

His first reaction was to bite at what he thought was hurting him.  Unfortunately, it was my hand.   He chomped down on it hard,  I released him and he ran off scared to death.  As soon as I got over to him, he  was fine.   Me, on the other hand…not so fine.  I had 4 teeth marks in my hand and it hurt like crazy….  he really chomped down.

I didn’t punish him, he was just “defending” himself.   We examined him and found no blood or damage to his foot, thankfully.    I think his nail must have gotten caught in the crack between the cabinet door and the frame.   So….after doctoring my wound with some alcohol, I decided I would live too.

After the rain stopped yesterday, we decided to disinfect the fresh water tank.  It was something we have been intending to do since we bought this coach. You should do it every few months, or when you buy a new or used rig.    When the coach was back and forth in the service bays at Lazy Days, they would fill the fresh water up with the regular hoses they had laying around in the service bays. They were not the sanitary white fresh water hoses like we use and they had nothing to keep insects from crawling into the hoses.   I kept noticing that and how nasty the hoses were.  We figured our fresh tank was crawling with germs, but we just never got around to flushing it.  Until yesterday.  It didn’t kill us though, so I guess there weren’t any real bad germs.

We are very careful with our fresh water tank and hoses.  The fresh water hose ends are kept screwed together when not in use.  I don’t want bugs, frogs or lizard's crawling into them.  On this coach we have  a fresh water fill valve right on the coach, so we don’t have to fill the water with a separate hose, but in the old coach it was always filled only with our clean white fresh water hose.  

We followed the directions and added 1/4 cup chlorine per every 15 gallons of fresh water.  Our fresh water tank holds 100 gallons.  We ran the chlorine water through all the faucets via the water pump, and let them stay overnight.  We turned the water pump off and this morning flushed the chlorine from the hoses and faucets.  We thought!   Apparently we didn’t rinse the hoses and faucets enough because that first sip of coffee was nasty!   We had to dump the entire pot of coffee and start over.

Oh well, at least our fresh water tank is finally  sanitized.  We don’t use it often, only on travel days.

The next step is to flush the water heater tank.

I think Al checked all the engine fluids yesterday, and we’ll check the tire pressures with the TST tire pressure monitoring system, before we leave.  Then we’ll be ready to head out of here!     knock on wood!  Boy are we ready to leave!

15 comments:

  1. Be careful to watch your hand for any signs of infection - cats have very potent bacteria in their mouths. I was bitten by my cat(also not his fault)when I thought he was choking on something and stuck my fingers in his mouth. When he continued to act like he couldn't breathe we rushed him to the vet(it turned out it was a heart attack and he died)but when the vet saw my hand they immediately made me scrub with soap they use to prepare for surgery. By then my hand was really swollen and hurting and I was told to immediately go the hospital. I spent the night there with IV antibiotics and it was about a week before all the swelling left. To top things off,the hospital reported it to the health department and they had to take his body to culture for rabies even though he was an inside cat and up to date with all of his shots !

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    1. Thanks Bonnie. I'm sorry about your kitty and your wound too! I cleaned my hand with alcohol right away. It's sore this morning, but not red or swollen, but I'll keep an eye on it.

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  2. Sorry to hear about Baxter and your accident. Hope you don't swell up like Bonnie.

    I guess we don't disinfect either our fresh tank or water heater often enough. Whenever we have, it takes ages and ages of wasted water to get that chlorine taste and smell out. Or it seemed that way to me. Looks like some serious disinfecting is coming into our life though so I'll do it then.

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  3. I've had similar things happen in the past with the kitties of my life so I know how quickly things like that can happen! Poor Baxter and you! Hope your hand doesn't give you too much bother and heals up quickly!

    We've never done that to our fresh water tank but we do treat out hose the same as you. But, we also don't drink the water from it. Yes, sadly, we are those people who make that long world wrap-around chain of plastic bottles. We also have 6 gallon refillables that we take along and refill at stations where we find them. Usually groceries or Wmart.

    Hoping you get to head out!!!

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    1. We don't usually drink or make coffee with water from the fresh tank, but we do brush our teeth and shower with it when necessary. Otherwise, we use the campground water from the spigot....after it goes through our filters.

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  4. You had better watch that bite area very closely. I was bitten by my daughter in law's little one and it got infected and took forever to heal.

    Hope you get to leave soon. Safe travels when you do.

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  5. Be very watchful with that kitty bite. A friend of mine ended up in the hospital for several days after her cat bit her in a similar type situation.

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  6. We were just talking about sanitizing our fresh water tank, thanks for the reminder. I'm pushing to do it on our next move.

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  7. Oh hope your hand heals and your kitty forgives you for "making him hurt" in his kitty mind.

    We also make sure to run the water from a faucet for a bit before hooking on our hoses, especially in a rustic campground. Not only does it flush out any rust or corrosion in the pipe leading to the faucet, but also rinses out any spiders, bugs, slugs, or even a tiny toad someone we camped by found blocking inside their hose that must have come from the spigot! ewwwwww

    ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
    Karen and Steve
    (Our Blog) RVing: Small House... BIG Backyard
    http://kareninthewoods-kareninthewoods.blogspot.com

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  8. It's always good to drink some alcohol after a cat bite :)

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  9. Disinfecting the water tank...boy, do we need to do that! Thanks for the reminder!

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  10. poor kitty! do you clip him nails?

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  11. Been reading your blogg for a frew months now and really enjoying it. Me and my wife hope to full time one day .we enjoy kayaking alot among outher things and that's what frist sparked my interest and I've enjoyed it ever since. Our Blogg is(The Berrys RV travels )I hope your kitty wounds heal quick. I did 'nt signe in because I don't know how yet (just learning how )thanks.

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