Yep. We’ve been plugging away on here for 6 years now!
At this time six years ago, my husband, with our younger daughter as his mobility assistant, had flown out earlier than planned, as my FIL was suddenly hospitalized and we weren’t sure he would make it. They stayed here at the farm, with a car loaned to them so they could travel to the hospital in the city. The house had been empty for two years and it showed. Thankfully, my FIL recovered and is still with us.
Meanwhile, my older daughter and I were doing everything we could to sell, give away, donate or throw away as much as we could, while packing other things in preparation for the movers, and for our own drive out in the middle of November.
In the middle of all this, we decided to start this blog to document our adventures getting here, and living here. We had such plans!
A lot sure has changed in six years!
We still have plans, but things had to shift quite a bit. Some have pretty much fallen off the priority list entirely, while others that were intended for later had to be dealt with earlier.
For all the unexpected challenges we’ve faced, I’m still glad we were able to make the move. From what I hear, things were we used to live have only gotten much, much worse (don’t ever live in a housing co-op, unless, perhaps, if it’s managed by a separate, professional property management company!!). I’m also incredibly thankful we weren’t living in the city when the world went insane in 2020, and still hasn’t recovered from.
While cleaning up my parents’ stuff in the first couple of years, I found an old journal of mine, written “to” my husband. In it, I’d found long forgotten dreams and plans of being able to buy this farm from my parents (unrealistic dreams, since my parents intended the land to go to my brothers; girls didn’t get land!) and build as self sufficient a life as possible – what today would be considered homesteading and off grid living, but no one really used those terms that way, back then.
It’s taken over 30 years, and some very unexpected twists and turns in our lives, yet here we are. Getting old and rather broken, but with the help of our daughters and the excellent stewardship of my brother as our “landlord”, we’re actually starting to live that dream.
I have to keep reminding myself: I did in one trip what I used to have to do in two or three trips while using my mother’s car.
Still, this is the most we’ve ever spent at Costco in one trip, and… ouch.
I did things a bit differently this time, in that I had all the cat supplies put on one bill, then our own stuff was rung in separately. The total for both together came to $1061.97
*choke*
First, though, was the trip in with the new-to-us truck.
Road conditions were not very good. From our place to the town my mother lives in was packed snow and ice. There was blowing snow, but the visibility was still okay. I was quite okay with being behind vehicles doing only 80 or 90kph in a 100kph zone (100kph = about 62mph). Things started getting messier as I reached my mother’s town. I timed it so I could stop at the gas station to grab some fried chicken for brunch first. That gave me time to respond to some messages from the Cat Lady. She had a cat carrier and some kibble donations for us and we were trying to figure out when and where we could meet. She needed to go into the same area of the city as the Costco we go to, so we would be able to meet up today.
Once back on the road, the further south I went, the more the highway went from slush to water until about halfway to the city, when it all started going to ice and slush again. The truck handled it like it was nothing! In fact, I had to watch myself, because it was just too easy to start speeding before I even realized it. Normally, I’d have just set the cruise control, but with the conditions, I expected to be slowing down more often. I did, but it was usually because I found myself behind vehicles hauling trailers, or heavy equipment.
As I was leaving the city, I stopped at a gas station convenience store to pick up something to drink for the drive. At this point, conditions were deteriorating again, and visibility was getting poor. The further north I went, though, the better it got. I drove out of the snow, and the roads that had been slushy or icy before were now just a bit wet. It’ll be a problem once things freeze during the night, but at the time, it was good. It wasn’t until about 5 minutes from home that I started driving into falling snow again, but it wasn’t an issue at all.
As for the shopping, I forgot to get a photo of the flat cart before I started unloading into the truck, but that’s okay. I got pictures of how it fit into the truck, instead.
The Cat Lady caught up with me as I was starting to pack things into my reusable bags, and was able to pass on the cat carrier and some bags of kibble she had for us. She couldn’t stay long, though. I don’t know how she keeps up with everything she’s got going in her life! She’s amazing.
She is able to do couponing, so those bags of kibble probably cost next to nothing. The new carrier is a perfect kitten size! She’s told me she’s had to turn down donations of cat carriers in the past, because she had no space for them, but now she plans to accept them to pass on to us. We have 1 hard sized and 2 soft carriers, and the soft carriers can potentially be torn out of, so hard carriers are preferable. The wet cat food was part of our own purchase.
I’d remembered to grab a snow brush to keep in the truck and ended up using it to push the filled hard sided bags further in, so I could fit the kibble bags. The TP and puppy pads sitting on the tailgate went on top of the kibble. I didn’t even need to open the cover. In the cab, I had an insulated bag for the hot rotisserie chickens, and a bag for the rye bread. The only thing that didn’t go into the back of the cab were the eggs, which I put on the front seat, instead.
This is what we got for our money today.
Cat supplies: 12 bags, 9kg size, dry kibble @ $26.99 each, for a total of $323.88 canned cat food: $38.99 puppy pads: $24.99 Tax added another $46.54 to the bill, for a total of $434.40
We have got to get that bill down somehow. We’d have no problem at all with having a car payment right now, if we weren’t feeding so many cats! But we’re not going to let them go hungry, either. Hopefully, we’ll be able to adopt more out soon.
Also, I was intending to buy 14 bags of kibble, but the stack on the flat cart was getting a bit tall and less stable, and I still had lots of other things to fit on there.
Human supplies: Toilet paper, Kirkland brand: $22.99 4pk Pronamel toothpaste: $19.79 Coke Zero: $14.69, plus 32¢ enviro fee double flat of eggs (60 eggs): $18.89 AP flour, 10kg size: $9.99 (most places have bags this size at about $15 – on sale!) family size pack of fresh sausages, mild Italian: $20.11 whole chicken, 3 pack: $28.64 2 chubs of ground beef: $28.49 each 1 chub of ground pork: $19.99, minus $5 at the till pork blade roast: $20.87 4pk bacon: $24.99 pork loin: $29.15 Old Cheddar: $14.99 Mozzarella: $14.99 Whipping cream, two 1L cartons, $4.70 each double cream brie: $10.99 4pk Kirkland cream cheese: $9.49 5 pounds of butter: $5.49 each Two 2pks of rye bread: $5.99 each Two 2pks tortilla wraps: $9.99 each 9pk pasta, 3 varieties: $13.99 Mayo: $10.99 dehydrated mushrooms: $19.99 – I haven’t seen these in years!! We used to love getting these before we moved! Kirkland Olive Oil: $32.99 Avocado Oil: $16.99 popcorn: $10.79 hazelnuts: $11.49 Kirkland Basmati rice: $15.99 2kg size Peanut Butter: $10.39 2pk Butter chicken sauce: $9.99, minus $2 at the till 6pk Kirkland canned chicken: $18.99 2 rotisserie chickens, $7.99 each pork rinds: $10.99 (meant to be used in place of bread crumbs) Kirkland chocolate chips: $17.99
plus tax: $10.17 Total: $627.57
The alarming part was paying for this second bill. I’d already paid for the cat supplies, but when I tried to pay for the rest, it failed. Payment not authorized. ??? We tried again, and got the same response. I was asking her to suspend the order so I could check my bank account to see what the problem was when someone came by. Someone that turned out to be a supervisor.
It was the debit machine going down.
My order did get suspended and the receipt printed out. The supervisor took it and tried to process it on another till, but that one was down, too. She ended up taking me to their supervisor station over by the bathrooms, where they have a different type of debit machine.
I was not the only one trailing along! There were at least four other people gathering around, waiting their turn.
Thankfully, fourth time was the charm, and I was able to pay for our stuff!
I really ought to use cash, but I just don’t like carrying around that much cash. Especially when I’m not quite sure what the total will be, given how much the prices change.
On top of this, I did fill the gas tank before I even went in to shop. I was at half a tank by the time I got there, but the Costco gas price for regular was 141.9¢/L, instead of the 153.9/L at my mother’s town, or the 152.9/L in the town we usually go to. So it cost “only” $68 and change to fill the tank.
As painful as it was to spend so much in one day, the fact that we won’t have to go to Costco again just saved us another $50 – $60 or so, just in fuel. We do plan to go to the city again next week, but I’m wondering if we even need to make that trip. This would be the trip where we go to the international grocery store, a Walmart and a Canadian Tire, all in one trip. However, the only reason to go to Canadian Tire is for litter pellets, and we still have plenty of those, and to get a few more fire bricks for our outdoor kitchen build, which can wait a month or two. The Walmart is where I get the shredded wet cat food I use for the kittens (the Costco wet cat food is all paté), and maybe a couple more bags of cat food, which we don’t need to do right now. The only other thing we’d be getting is the fresh produce and non-bulk stuff, and we can do that at the closer Walmart or the local grocery store.
We’ll decide on that later. I’m just so happy that I was able to get all this in one trip, with zero issues with the drive!
A few days ago, we finally got a copy of an email confirming our financing FINALLY was approved, and our mechanic was finally going to get paid for the truck. Getting my husband’s full name added to the electric bill was finally good enough for the lender! After I got back from the city and everything was unloaded and put away (and the outside cats fed, to get them away from the truck so I could park it in the garage!), I made sure to send a thank you email to our mechanic and the lady at the finance company. They bent over backwards to get us this truck, and it’s made all the difference in the world.
Best of all, we can work on plans to get my husband into the city to see his family. He hasn’t seen his dad since late 2018, and hasn’t seen his sister at all since she moved back from out of province, a couple of years ago. We had to turn down a planned family gathering, but the seats in this truck support his back so well, he feels he can actually handle the trip!
Which makes having car payments again, completely worthwhile.
Yes!!! It is done! As of today, we are new truck owners.
We are so excited!
Yes, it’s a 2011, yes, it has some rust on it, but the interior is pristine, and everything works!!!
Just look at that clearance! We’ll be able to get through things that had us stuck at home over the past few years, including last year’s spring flooding, when the roads washed out. In fact, we’ll even be able to drive it to the gravel pit and load it with gravel to use around the house, garden and driveway. We’d have to do a walk through, first, and probably clear away some rocks and trees.
And yeah, we definitely need that step to get into it. My husband is going to love it! The seats have adjustments like our Grand Caravan had, plus lumbar support adjustment, which he will appreciate the most of all of us.
It took all day to actually get the truck. After doing the necessary transfers, my daughter and I were ready to head in, in the morning. We were also going to make a quick stop at the grocery store, then my daughter was going to treat us to Dairy Queen take out to bring home. A new Dairy Queen officially opened in town just yesterday, so everyone’s pretty excited about that.
Yeah. It doesn’t take much to get us excited. 😄 But it does mean that, on those days were we’re out all day running errands in the city, we can get take out on the way and it’ll still be hot when we get home.
The first catch:
I got an email from the financing lady, saying the lender had sent the paperwork back, and asking for my daughter’s name, phone number, plus my husband’s email address. I assumed this meant they wanted my daughter’s name on the paperwork as a co-signer, because I happened to mention she gave us funds for the down payment, and would help with the monthly payments. My daughter absolutely was not going to be on there are a co-signer!
Once I explained that, she corrected my misunderstanding. The lender wanted someone as an emergency contact, in case they couldn’t reach us. I told her, she lives with us and has the same number, so if they can’t reach us, they wouldn’t be able to reach her! So I gave them my brother’s land line number.
Meanwhile, I got a call from the garage, just as I was answering the email. He was texting with her as well and wanted to make sure we understand they were NOT looking for a co-signer on the loan or anything like that.
Once that was clarified, we waited for a while, but didn’t get a response right away. So we headed into town, anyhow.
Once we got there, I checked my email and found they still wanted my daughter’s name. I gave both their names. This way, if we weren’t home and my daughters answered the phone, they would be authorized to speak to the girls about our file.
I answered that right away, then went into the garage. He was still waiting for something from the finance lady, but I was able to make the down payment, then sign the various forms needed.
While he was making the copies he needed, and waiting on the response, he gave me the keys so we could go into the vehicle and even asked us to drive it closer to the garage. Which almost happened.
The truck had been sitting there long enough that the battery was almost dead! It wouldn’t start. Oops.
The first thing I had to figure out after that was, how to open the door from the inside! It took a while, but the lever is in a completely different location than in any other vehicle we’ve owned, and I couldn’t see it in the shadows. 😄
So I let him know, he came out with a charger, and we moved it over. Then my daughter and I spend the next while, reading the owners manual and figuring out the different things on the console, set the time and date, and so on.
After a while, with still no email response from the finance lady, I went inside. He just received a text from her and said she was waiting on a response from the lender. I told him we’d run some errands while we waited, then headed over to the grocery store across the street, where we’d parked the car anyway, to do a bit of shopping. Neither of us had had breakfast yet, though, and since it looked like picking up food to bring home would take a while, we got some food at the grocery store that we could eat in the car. Of course, I kept checking my email. Still nothing.
After a while, I walked back over. As we spoke, he suggested we may as well go home, because there was no way of knowing how long it would take the lender to get back to her. Not only that, but once the lender responded, she would be emailing documents to me for us to sign and send back. It could take minutes, or hours.
So my daughter and I headed home, stopping at the new DQ first. It was just into lunch time, so it was pretty busy, but the line went fast. After placing our order, we got our number and went to the side to fill our drinks and wait. My daughter ended up taking the drinks to the car, as the place filled up even more! They were absolutely inundated, including plenty of teens from the nearby high school, coming over for lunch.
I predict they will do very well here. Especially in the summer, during tourist season.
My daughter came back after putting the drinks in the car, then when our order was ready, she took the bag of food while I collected the Blizzards we also got. She then had the fun job of balancing trays of Blizzards and drinks on her legs during the drive home.
It is not a smooth ride, and a couple of the drinks were a bit over filled! Once we reached the gravel road, she asked me to pull over, so she could clean up a bit.
I drove much slower on the gravel road that we normally would! 😄
So we had our lunch, and then I spent the next while near the computer, checking my email regularly. We did get the documents after a couple of hours, which my husband could go over and sign digitally, then send back. Once I got a confirmation of receipt, I texted our mechanic to let him know.
After maybe another hour, I texted him again, asking if he’d received a confirmation from the finance lady yet.
Of course, I couldn’t be at my computer the whole time, but it was a bit of a surprise when I was back in my room, and our mechanic phoned me, asking if I’d received his text. I checked my phone, and there was no notification – but when I opened my text app, there it was – along with a couple other texts from elsewhere!
I’m so glad he called! Now that the this part was done, he needed us to bring him proof of insurance. It was past 4 by then and, as far as I knew, the insurance place closed at 5.
So we headed out again as quickly as we could, since it takes about 20-25 minutes to get there, depending on the traffic. Thankfully, we did not find ourselves stuck behind slow moving vehicles. Once there, I dashed in to get the paperwork, making sure to thank him for calling, since I did not receive any notifications for his text. He knows we’re in a cell phone dead zone, so he figured it was something like that. He also suggested a different insurance place to go to, that was open later, so that’s where we went.
That part went quickly. There was no one else there besides the staff, and it was all pretty straightforward. I got new license plates, because I didn’t think to bring the ones from the van. I was even given a choice of one set of plates or plates from a new box, in case there was a series that I found easier to remember. I didn’t care, so I got the last plates from an old box.
Everything was done quickly, and the lady that helped me was awesome. As she was inputting stuff into the computer, she was reading some things out loud and mentioned our mechanic’s name. When she did, I couldn’t help but say how awesome he’s been for us, and she quite enthusiastically agreed with me. She’s done quite a few vehicles sold by him, it turns out, and has found he has been really great for finding people just the vehicle they needed.
(As I was writing the above, I got a phone call from the finance lady – there’s still more to be done at her end!!! But I’ll get to that, later.)
So I got the insurance stuff done, then it was back to the garage. From there, he took the copies he needed but, before giving me the keys, he wanted to bring it into the garage. So my daughter took the car home while I waited. He had some other stuff to get done first and, as we chatted, mentioned in passing that normally, he wouldn’t release a vehicle until he got the money from the lender, but it was me, so he was okay with it.
!!!
What a sweetheart! In thanking him, I mentioned that my husband has a medical appointment tomorrow, so the timing of this is perfect, and so incredibly appreciated. He and the finance lady have gone so above and beyond!
Once the bay was clear, he drove it in, and they made sure all the tires were properly full, after sitting as long as it had on the lot, and cleaned the windows from removing the stickers, put on the new plates, etc.
And that was finally it! I could take the truck home!
Almost. The tank was at empty, so gas station first!
When I first started filling, the nozzle kept shutting itself off, like it does with my mother’s car. I’ve asked about it, and I’ve been told dust gets into a line and the sensor in the nozzle reads that the tank is full. It took a while, but eventually it started to fill without stopping. I wasn’t sure how much it would take to fill that tank, but when it stopped again at just under $80, I went ahead and finished there. It turned out to be just over half full. Another $60 probably would have filled it.
Ouch.
We try to never let our tanks get below half, though, so once it’s filled, I won’t be doing any $140 or more fills! I’ll probably top it up tomorrow, after my husband’s medical appointment, though it’s almost worth a trip to the city to fill at a Costco, with their prices usually at least 10¢/L cheaper.
We’ll consider that another time.
Finally, I could bring the truck home! It only took about 7 or 8 hours!
When I got home, the girls were waiting for me by the garage. It’s the first time my older daughter has seen it, other than the photos I took last month. They were all over that thing! It’s got cup holders and charging ports, everywhere. 😄 Then, my younger daughter drove it into the garage.
Mostly.
The back end was still sticking out the door.
Between her sister guiding her from the front, and me watching to see when the door was cleared, she was able to get it in. The truck just barely fits in the garage!!! There’s a counter at the back wall of the garage, and the bumper is just inches from it, and the door just barely misses the back bumper to close it! There is no getting around the vehicle from the inside, once the door is closed!
Not a problem I expected to have. I new it was longer than the van, but not that it was that much longer! We’re going to have to put some sort of bumper or marker so we can see how closer we’re getting to that counter.
So all is settled and fine, right?
Of course not.
As I mentioned, I got a call from the finance lady. She was asking if my husband had any other photo ID, or even an old passport. Well, he did have an old passport, but that was from his days in the military. Which makes it quite old (I just thought about it, and it’s at least 30 years old). We still have it; but it wouldn’t be much good. So she asked me about some other things. Part of the problem is that his Metis ID is hand written. I mentioned his old driver’s license from the province we lived in before moving here, which she got all excited about. She also talked about the “voided check” having only his name on it. Which confused me, because the photo I’d sent them had both our names on it. It turned out she was looking at the digital form from the bank we’d recently had to send, because the banking information had only my name on what is a joint account, since I was the one logged in to get it for them. I’d also sent photos of his old driver’s license, but she apparently never saw it.
Which is when I found out that a number of images I sent her came in a form she could not open. The files were too big, so they were automatically loaded to Google Drive, but when she clicked on them, it wanted permission to access them, which apparently she didn’t get. Which isn’t how it’s supposed to work, but the end result was, she couldn’t open them.
Once I realized that, she emailed me a list of all the files she couldn’t open. I resized them, then sent them back. That worked out, except for his birth certificate. When my husband was in his teens, he had it in his pocket for some reason, and it went through the wash. It was in rough shape, so it’s been in a folding plastic case that was meant to hold a bank book (hands up, how many reading this had a bank book!) to protect it. She asked it if was possible to take it out of the plastic for a clearer photo. I said I would try, but explained why it was in the plastic. Thankfully, in the time it took for me to find my husband’s wallet (I first tried looking in his pack on his walker in the sun room; it wasn’t there, but I did chase four massive racoons out of the sun room!), I saw her response saying not to risk damaging it, and if I could just get clearer pictures of the front and back.
Which I was able to do, then resized them and sent them to her. As I was writing the above, I got a confirmation from her that they were good!
Finally!!!
So now, everything should be straight with the lender.
I hope.
If not… well.. I guess we have the loan of a truck for a few days, until my husband can get new photo ID. Which would take a while, because the province’s public insurance provider that does all that is still on strike.
Which reminds me.
When I brought the plates and insurance papers back to the garage, I mentioned that it was the last plate before they went into a new box. He heard the “last plate” part, and said they must be really worried! It turns out that, with the strike, no new plates are going out. So while private insurance companies can process things like vehicle insurance, if they run out of plates, they’re stuck. They could contact other companies to acquire extra, but they’re all running out, too. Thankfully, this place did still have another box, but if this strike goes on for much longer, people who need new plates won’t be able to insure their vehicles at all. It’s like with getting a new photo ID, a new driver’s license, or having to renew a driver’s licence photo. They can do everything locally, except actually give out the card. Only a temporary paper version that’s good for 2 or 4 weeks. Just enough time for the public insurance company to process the paperwork and issue the official government ID, and for it to go through the mail.
Once the strike is over, the backlog is going to be incredible.
So that’s where we’re at now. As I finish writing this, I have not received any other email from the finance lady, which means that – so far, at least – there is no problem with the resized and resent images.
I must say, I do appreciate that we can do all this digitally. Can you imagine if we had to go in, in person, during office hours? Even if they could fax stuff over, it would probably take days just for this little bit of stuff right here. And since this loan is under my husband’s name as the primary borrower, that would mean him having to be driven into town multiple times to sign things, which he would not be up to. Unless I were allowed to bring paperwork home for him to sign, which I have been able to do for some things in the past.
I am just to thankful for all the effort our mechanic and the finance lady have gone through to make it so we could get that truck, in our budget. It was not easy. Especially when, even with the price being dropped so much, we had another $1200 in taxes added on. I made sure to tell her how much we appreciated it, and that if I could, I’d give her a hug! (yes; I did give our mechanic a hug!!) She told me that just hearing that made it worthwhile. I know she probably deals with a lot of difficult cases like ours, and probably worse, but I don’t know that she gets a lot of appreciation shown for her efforts!
Well, I made sure to tell them, because my goodness, not having a winter worthy vehicle with snow likely in a few weeks was a major concern! Thank God!!! What a sense of relief, to that that truck sitting in our garage right now!!
I managed to get a dump run today, then kept on going to town to pick up a few things at the grocery store. Particularly recycling bags, having just run out. Of course, I’m not going to drive all that way for just one thing.
This is what $142.86 looks like.
Okay, so I did splurge a little.
The clear recycling bags, XL size, were $12.99 I got a 4pk of energy drinks for $10.99 – saving a whole 30¢ by buying a case. The enviro fee was 4¢ I also got a case of Coke Zero for $7.49, plus 12¢ enviro fee. Tea – Early Grey Creme: $5.49 Butterscotch chips, 2 packages on sale for $4.99 each (which also earned me extra loyalty points) Ketchup: $3.99 (house brands; I just realized I accidentally bought low sodium. Ah, well.) Popcorn seasoning, White Cheddar flavour, on sale: $3.99 Popping corn, two 1kg size packages, $3.79 each (I need to do a test pop of our own popcorn again, so see if the kernels have dried enough) Whipping cream: $6.79 Ice cream, house brand, on sale: $3.99 – we have all those little melons, and my daughters want to make melon bowls with ice cream 😊 Whoops. I really should read the labels better. The receipt says ice milk, not ice cream. 😕 mandarin oranges, sale price: $8.99 bananas: $2.01 Marble rye bread, 2 loaves, plus multi-grain, 2 loaves, all on sale for $2.49 each. Vitamins, all half price. The receipt lists them differently from other sales. B12, regular price $19.49, minus $9.75, Zinc, regular price $16.28, minus $8.14 and D3, regular price $9.99, minus $5.
Last of all was my “big” splurge, while I was waiting in line near the floral department.
I got a coffee plant. A “premium” coffee plant, no less. 😄 On sale for $16.99 That’s for the girls. It would be cool if we actually got coffee beans, eventually, but at least it’ll be a pretty house plant!
I also got a $10 lotto Classic pack (1 Lotto 6/49, 1 Lotto Max, 1 Extra), using a $10 win I got from a ticket I got from a free play win. So the win from a free ticket paid for the new tickets. 😄
Sub total: $134.27, plus $3.58 GST and $5.01 PST
As I was slowly going through the aisles, looking for things I might have forgotten to include on my list, I went past a woman looking at the pasta. I’d given the section a quick look myself, and even the ones that were on sale were ridiculously expensive. Walking past her I leaned over and asked, “remember when pasta used to be cheap?”
Oh, boy, did that get a reaction! She looked at me with a slightly stunned expression and said, “I’m an American!”
Yeah. I got it. Instantly. Food prices in the US are so much cheaper than here! When I commented on that, she told me about shopping in this store for the first time after moving here, and how shocked she was by the prices. Even taking into account the exchange rate. Yeah, that would have been quite the culture shock. She wasn’t just seeing higher Canadian prices. She was seeing small town prices. She showed me a package of spaghetti that was over $3. That same package where she was from sells for under a dollar. Our KD (Kraft Dinner) is getting close to $2 a box. They’re 75¢ where she’s from (I didn’t think to ask where that was). Boxed cereal was another one she saw a really big difference.
We had an interesting chat about it, and how it really doesn’t make any sense for our prices to be so much higher. A lot of the current increases are directly related to our federal government adding tax after tax to things like fuel, making the cost of just getting food to people so much higher but, even before our current dictatorship went nuts, Canadian food prices were a lot higher than in the US. There isn’t much reason for that, overall. Lord knows, the farmers sure aren’t’ getting much of it. It’s all in those layers between farm and store. That’s without even touching on specifics, like government price controls on things like dairy and eggs.
I think she really, really appreciated being able to actually talk about it with someone, even if for just a few minutes! She was really nice, and I quite enjoyed talking to her, too.
Anyhow.
This is was my small, but expensive, grocery top up.
Hopefully, one of those tickets I got will be a winner of something substantial!
My daughters pulled an all nighter last night. Aside from my older daughter working on her commissions, they did the usual cooking and cleaning, and my younger daughter baked an amazing zucchini cake with cream cheese icing. She’d baked one while house sitting, using zucchini from my brother’s garden, but we had to buy zucchini for this one, since our summer squash barely survived the slugs and didn’t produce much this year. Oh, she also did laundry and ended up spending two HOURS taking care if this…
This happened while I was clearing bush to access the tree I needed to debranch and cut to size. These are tiny burrs from a weed that has the prettiest, daintiest flowers that become these horrible things. I’ve been pulling them up every time I see them, but once the flowers are done blooming, they’re really hard to see.
Turns out I missed quite a lot of them.
I’d tried to rub out as many as I could before putting them through the wash. Once through the drier, the tiny burrs are a bit easier to rub out, but I ended up putting them back in the washing machine, to be included in the next load. Which turned out to be my daughter’s bedding. She didn’t realize what was on them until she moved things to the drier. Rather than risk burs ending up all over her bedding, she instead started picking them out, mostly one burr at a time!!
I would never have had that patience!
They’ll need to be washed again to hopefully remove the last little bits.
Then, since they were both up anyhow, they let me sleep in a bit and took care of feeding the outside cats for me, and I could do my rounds a bit later. I had to change the batteries on the trail cams today, including the solar powered one. I’ve had to change batteries on that one only once since we got it, and that was because I accidentally left it on “setting”, which meant it spent and entire day and night draining power while waiting for buttons to be pushed. The solar panel would have kept it going during the day, but once it was dark and the batteries were being used, they were completely drained.
As for me, I was glad to have that extra sleep and, to be honest, I’m fighting the urge to go back to bed. It’s gorgeous out there and there is lots of work to do, but I’m feeling quite drained.
With yesterday’s chill, I was planning on getting some crochet done after having a late lunch. I was just settling in to eat in the cat free zone (the living room) when the phone rang. Of course, the living room handset wasn’t in the living room at the time, and I didn’t get to it before it went to machine. It was my mother, and telling me to call her back, and she did not sound good at all.
So I called her back right away and found out why.
Our vandal had just showed up at her place, out of the blue, and he was in a full rage, apparently, He was yelling at her at her door, so the entire building could hear, going on about how she “gave” me the farm. Where he got that notion, I have no idea, because the property was signed over to my brother, not me. This was directly because of our vandal harassing her to change the will and give it to him. With the farm off the will entirely, he would not be able to contest it. In some messages he’d more recently left on her machine, he went on about “squatters rights” and how the property now belongs to me, but Canadian law no longer recognizes squatter’s rights, and hasn’t for a very long time. Not that we’re squatters in the first place. We have an informal arrangement, but an arrangement nonetheless. I don’t know who got it in his head that the property now belongs to me (and just me; apparently, the rest of my family doesn’t exist), but that’s his current thing.
To my mother’s credit, she told him outright, it’s none of his business. He already managed to get what would have been his inheritance more than 20 years ago, but he wants more. He started going on about how he worked on the farm, too (as if my siblings and I didn’t??). He is absolutely convinced he’s somehow entitled to the property, and seems to believe my mother can somehow still give it to him? It makes no sense, but we’re not dealing with a rational person, here.
Also to my mother’s credit, she finally told him to never come back. Previously, she’s sabotaged our efforts to protect her from him by actually phoning him and inviting him for tea or to go out for lunch or something. There seems to be a huge guilt factor motivating her efforts to make peace with someone who used to be so close, but has become completely irrational. I think feelings of guilt are behind his behaviour as well. My late brother’s death really destroyed him. I think a part of him recognises how much he’d taken advantage of my late brother, and that they weren’t anywhere near as close as he’s invented in his mind since the accident. He’s been taking it out on my mother, in particular, and since my father passed, has been using both of their deaths to cruelly abuse and manipulate my mother. That he has failed just seems to eat at him and is causing him to double down. A newer manipulation he’s using on her is that he’s apparently dying of cancer one day, or can’t walk anymore on another (as he stands at the door, having walked into her building…). He likely does need hip surgery again, but how is that my mother’s fault? Oh, right. He’s blaming his hip damage on all the work he supposedly did at the farm. Back when we were still close, I was the one that advised him to keep at the doctors about how much pain he was in, after working aircraft maintenance, on concrete floors and crawling around inside the craziest of places, looking for hairline cracks. The doctors didn’t want to do it because he was “too young” and it would need to be redone every 10 years. Well, it’s been a lot more than 10 years, so he’s likely in a lot of pain right now. And now he’s rewritten his own memory as to the cause and using it against my mother for… what? What does he expect her to do for him? Probably give him what’s left of her money, instead of the land. Though he has vowed to use every penny, even to the point of homelessness, to sue my brother and I. For what, I’m not entirely sure.
My mother is the weak link and the soft target. He hasn’t been going after me anymore. Our restraining order is expired, but he knows that I am willing to go to such efforts to stop him, which seems to be enough to keep him from going back to his past behaviour. Mind you, we did have a trail cam stolen, as well as the old sign with my father’s name on it, while the restraining order was in effect, but he technically did not have to go onto the property to do it, and we have no actual evidence that it was him. Still, when I mentioned it in court during mediation while trying to get the restraining order (he was not present for that), his lawyer and the judge were both nodding along going, “yeah, it would have been him.” There’s simply no one else that would have done it. So far, I’ve only seen him on the trail cams driving by. He no longer gives the finger to the cameras, nor comes up to the gate to shout down our driveway, while clearly drunk again.
Anyhow.
My mother hadn’t actually wanted to talk to me about it. She wanted to talk to my sister about it, as my sister still has some civil contact with our vandal. Well. Her husband does, anyhow. She couldn’t get through to my sister by phone, so I promised I’d send her an email, which I did immediately after getting off the phone.
Then I messaged my brother to update him, and we ended up chatting for quite some time. There isn’t a lot we can do about it, but we need to be aware, in case this is a sign that our vandal is losing it again and might decide to cause us problems here on the farm again. As for my sister, she did get through to my mother, then sent our vandal a message that probably didn’t do any good at all, but I guess it was worth a shot.
By the time all that was done, my food was cold and my tea was tepid. I also had to move on to other things and never got to my crochet at all.
I still feel completely drained and have no desire to go outside and get work done. The chances of him harassing me from the road are next to nil, so that’s not the issue. I’m just tired. Mentally and psychologically tired.
Of all the struggles we have found ourselves dealing with since the move, our vandal turning from friend to foe is the one that is the most unfortunate and difficult. That he goes after my mother like that… Ugh. My mother may be pretty abusive and cruel herself, but that doesn’t justify his abusive behaviour towards her. Especially over something that is none of his business. Blaming the actions from both of them on mental illness – as accurate as that may be – cannot be an excuse to accept the behaviour.
So… that’s where I’m at now. I really need to get outside and get some work done, while the weather is good, but I have zero motivation and zero energy. I’m simply out of spoons.
I’m going to pay for today, tomorrow! It’s a good thing it’s Thanksgiving, so I’ll have a break to recover.
My goal was to get the felled tree that was stuck for so long, cleared and cut to size and, hopefully, start clearing access to the other tree my brother cut down for me that is almost completely hidden by the underbrush.
The first task was to clear away a small spruce tree I had to cut to allow the felled tree to drop. It was such a perfectly straight little tree, I ended up debranching in and setting it aside for future use. There were a couple of other dead trees plus underbrush to clear before I could reach the broken tree top that was laying across the trunk. The tree it was from had lost its top at some point, so a pair of branches grew upwards to create a double top. The whole thing was too big and heavy to bother taking out completely. Instead, I cleared away some of the branches, then cut it away from either side of the trunk I was after, giving myself enough space to work. I was able to use the mini-chainsaw for this, so once it was clear, I kept cutting away branches from the trunk I now had access to, until the battery died. I was already on my second battery, and the first one hadn’t had time to recharge yet, so I switched to the loppers. This part of the tree extended outside the north “wall” of the spruce grove, and I was able to use the loppers to clear all the way to the end.
The next step was clearing access to the bottom of the trunk. Between a machete and the loppers – our weed trimmer isn’t heavy duty enough for what was grown back since we were last able to work in this area – I was able to make a path. There was still the top of a dead tree I’d harvested before, laying on the undergrowth, that I dragged out. It’s straight enough, we might be able to use parts of it. Then I had to clear the trunk itself, which not only meant clearing underbrush around and branches on the trunk I was after, but even some low hanging dead branches from the spruces the trunk was wedged in between.
Once everything was finally clear, I measured off and marked 10′ from the base of the trunk, then the next 18′. The 18′ length will be for the next trellis bed. There’s still at least another 18′ of trunk left, but the closer we get to the top, the less straight the trunk is, and the more full of branch stubs it is. It will likely still be used; just not for the side walls of the next trellis bed.
Once everything was accessible and de-branched, I was finally able to cut the 10′ length.
Then I had to drag it out.
Good grief, that log was heavy!
As I’ve done with most of the logs, I dragged it out by a rope tied to one end. Getting it out of the spruce grove was quite a challenge. I even tried wrapping a plastic bag around the far end to help it slide better across the ground, but this time, it made no difference. I ended up taking it off again, as it seemed to actually make things worse.
Once it was out of the spruce grove, I left it and went into the barn. I found some scrap pieces of wood that were used as spacers between some old salvaged lumber we’ve been scavenging for various projects. The pile used to be a log bigger, before we got here, so there were quite a few of these scrap bits.
I decided to store the 10′ lengths beside the garage and lay the pieces on the ground to keep the log from direct contact with the soil. Then it was back to the log!
It wasn’t long before I gave up trying to drag it. It was not at all co-operative! I ended up simply rolling it the rest of the way.
Here it is!
The very first 10′ length of what will be the vertical supports for the roof of our future outdoor kitchen.
Only 9 more to go.
I wonder how much that thing weighs? I just tried looking at some log weight calculators, but they either require information I don’t have (oven dried weight and bark??), or they don’t have black spruce in their species list. I’ve tried a couple of species of spruce, but they don’t grow here. I also tried tamarack, which does grow here, but I think tamarack is a denser wood. The results ranged from just over 140 pounds to over 200 pounds. That’s a huge range! Plus, this tree has been dead for a very long time, so it’s very dry. If I had to guess, after looking at the calculators, I’d put it at maybe 150-170 pounds. Which isn’t really a lot. I’m definitely not as strong as I used to be! 😥
The other felled tree that I need to access looks like another big one. I have no idea how tall that one is, but I’m hoping I’ll get another 10′ length, and 18′ length again.
Anyhow.
Once the 10′ length was cleared, I went back and measured out the 18′ again, then started cutting it. With the top of the tree still hovering above ground, I was expecting its weight to drop at the top, which would have made for an easy cut.
Of course, it didn’t go easy.
Instead of the top dropping, the entire trunk slid down a couple of inches, pinching the chain saw’s bar. The chain was still free and could spin, but the bar couldn’t move any further to finish the cut. It could only just rotate in place. In the end, I had to take the bar off the chainsaw. I was then able to get the bar out, but the chain was still stuck. I had to find something large enough and strong enough to lift the log – a steel pipe my brother had found and used when the tree first got stuck on him! – high enough to open the cut enough that my daughter to pull the chain free.
At which point, I was done for the day! It was starting to get dark, anyhow.
So I almost got the tree cut to size!
I’m not actually sure how I’m going to get the rest of it out, though. The top of the tree, once free, will be easy to drag clear. This 18′ section, though, is right in between three other trees. They’re dead, too, and slated to be cut down, but they don’t have clear paths to fall. There are other dead trees that need to be cleared out, first.
I never imagined that one dead tree would be so difficult to harvest! It’ll get easier as we clear away more of the dead trees, but these first few just don’t have a lot of space around them. There’s still more than a dozen more dead spruces to cut down, and some of them are quite a bit bigger. These ones that my brother cut down for me were specifically chosen because they were smaller and more suitable for the trellis beds!
So… yeah. I’m pretty tired now! 😄 I also forgot to take painkillers before I started this. I’ve taken some since then, but by the end of it, it was getting hard to move! My daughter had to take over removing the sheets we’re using to cover the peppers from the clothes line, because I was having such a hard time of it – then did to covering of peppers for me, too!
And now it’s almost midnight, already! Where did the time go? Time to try and get some sleep. Tomorrow, we feast!
One of the things I tend to do every time I drive my mother’s car is give it a walkaround and check the tires.
I’m paranoid about tires.
With reason.
The front driver’s side tire bothers me. When I drive, it feels like it shudders. I’ve had it checked, but they couldn’t find anything wrong with it. When I took my husband to his medical appointment about 3 weeks ago, it was looking low, so I checked the pressure. It was down to 15 psi, so we stopped at a gas station and I topped it up. For the past few days, I’ve been eyeballing it, and today I checked the pressure. It was just under 20 psi! I used a hand pump to top it up, because it has a pressure gauge on it, rather than the compressor, then brought it in.
While dropping off the keys, I told the mechanic about the tire and asked if they could check it, too. Then I went walking. There isn’t much to do around town. Especially if you don’t have a budget for casual shopping, but by the time I came back, they were done changing the spark plugs, and the tire was off.
The passenger side tire!
I talked to the guy that was working on it and told him it was the other tire that was leaking! Turns out they took the tire off and were checking it for leaks for about 20 minutes, while changing the spark plugs, and not finding anything.
So I waited in the office while he switched tires. After a while, I came out to talk to the guy. He had it on the machine they use to remove tires from their rims, to hold it steady and spin is as needed, while spraying it with their soap stuff.
No sign of a leak.
He flipped the tire over and tried again.
Still no sign of a leak.
He checked the pressure and it was what I’d pumped it to this morning still. Low for the tire, but I wasn’t sure what the pressure was supposed to be (32 psi is good, I have since been informed) and didn’t want to over fill if it there was, say, something stuck in the tire.
He filled the tire to the correct psi, in case that would help find the leak.
Still no leak.
They asked a number of questions about when I had to fill it last time, what kind of driving condition we have, etc. In the end, they just put the tire back on. I’ll have to keep an eye on it. At some point, wherever that leak it, until it gets big enough they can actually find it, there’s nothing that can be done.
So I paid for the spark plug work, then headed into the city.
Today was a small Costco trip. Mostly, I wanted to get more dry cat food. We’ve got Thanksgiving weekend coming up, so they were insanely busy for a Thursday afternoon! So I got what I absolutely had to, then left as soon as I could!
This is what $291.43 looks like.
I decided to go with the 11.6kg bags of kibble, instead of the usual 9kg bags. They are more expensive, but that extra 2.6 kg per bag can mean one less trip needed at the end of the month. We already got four 9kg bags, were gifted with four 9.1kg bags, and now we have four 11.6kg bags, for a total of 118.8kg. Last month, we got twelve 9kg bags, and had to buy two more 10kg bags, for a total of 128kg. Hhmm… We’ll need at least 10kg more for the month, which means anything more than that, just to be on the safe side. Well, we still need to do a Walmart and Canadian Tire trip before our stock up shopping is done, so we can do that.
Anyhow.
Here’s the price break down.
Dry cat food: $37.99 each Butter: 5 pounds at $5.49 each bar soap: $15.49 Red Lobster biscuit mix: regular $11.49, but on sale for $8.99 That’s a treat for our Thanksgiving dinner! 2 loaf bag of rye bread: $5.99 Pizza pops: case of 30 for $21.99 Mozza: $14.99 Old Cheddar: $14.99 cream cheese, 4pk: $9.49
Subtotal: $271.34, plus $20.09 in tax
We still don’t have hot water, so doing dishes is not an easy thing right now. I made a point of picking up things we could use to make food with as little dirtying of dishes as possible, so that’s what the bread (for sandwiches) and Pizza Pops are for. The girls also dug out the disposable plates we kept when we were clearing out the cupboards when we first moved here. Handy, those!
We didn’t get a call from the plumber while I was gone. Once everything was put away and settled, I called again and left another message. If we don’t hear from him soon, I’ll start calling other companies.
The predicted rain reached us by the time I was driving home, which made things interesting in places! I remembered to stop at the post office and found a package waiting for us. It included, among other things, some food grade desiccant packets, for our dry food storage. Especially if we’re going to do things like dehydrate tomatoes more often. I believe my husband ordered oxygen absorbers, too.
Once I got home and the car was unloaded, I made sure to put food out for the outside cats. Aside from being out of kibble, it ensures no cats are under the car, when I go to put it in the garage.
Driver is still here. He was very vocal in asking for food! I didn’t see him this morning, so he probably never got anything from the morning feed. When the girls and I came out to walk around later, they noticed Colin was back. I’ll admit, I never noticed he was gone. There is another cat that looks very similar to him; just not with the “receding hairline” pattern on his forehead. Nosencrantz was around, too. After I’d parked the car, I checked a few things and saw she was at the kibble under the shrine – with Shop Towel directly behind her! Clearly, she didn’t know he was there, or she would have gone up the willow again. He was just sitting there, waiting his turn, but I still went over to “chase” him away. Basically, as soon as he sees me coming, he leaves. We’ve gotten to the point that all I need to do, sometimes, is say “I see you!”, and off he goes!
The main thing is, Nosencrantz got a chance to eat. I saw Shop Towel back at the shrine kibble bowl again later, but no other cats were around there by then, so I let him be.
Oh, good grief.
Let’s see… we just had to get work done on my mother’s car.
We’re trying to come up with the funds for a better down payment on a replacement vehicle.
The hot water tank just died and we need to bring in a plumber…
And now my husband just informed us that his computer is fried. It refuses to boot.
*sigh*
I hope he can get it going! With his inability to do much, physically, he uses his computer a LOT.
His is the newest computer in the household, too. His computer died in the move and had to be replaced. Our other computers all predate our move, and are all more than 10 years old.
This would be a really good time to win the lottery or something.
We knew it was coming. It was just a matter of time. In fact, it took a lot longer to happen than I thought it would! There were hints, though, that the limit had been reached, and today, it finally happened.
Our hot water tank died.
While my daughter was showering, of course.
The original tank (I found the original 1963 warranty while cleaning up in the basement and my parents got it second hand in the 1970’s!) died shortly after we moved here. My brother tried valiantly to keep it going, but a few months later, in 2018, we got it replaced with a new tank.
The replacement tank only lasted a year? Two? before it started leaking out the bottom.
It’s a good thing I take pictures of all this stuff, and document it here on the blog!
The first replacement tank started having problems in August of 2019, so about a year and a half before problems started. Water was leaking somewhere and filling the bottom of the tank.
The plumber tried different things, but in the end, it got replaced under warranty in January of 2020.
This is what started happening just over a year later.
Once again, water was leaking and filling the bottom of the tank.
I called the company and got it replaced under warranty again – but this was the last time I could do that. There’s only so many times you can replace a tank under warranty before they start assuming there’s something dishonest going on. Which is understandable.
So in January of 2021, I got a second warranty replacement tank. However, once we got it into the basement, I noticed the leaving the panel off had provided enough air circulation that the bottom of the tank was dry again.
So, we left it. We still had hot water, and we knew by now that our hard well water would likely just kill the new tank in a year. We decided to see how long we could last on what we had.
Amazingly, it lasted until now!
My first hint that something was wrong came when I was checking the old basement and found the concrete under the hot water tank was wet. I took the blower fan that we use to help dry out the basement when it gets wet in the spring, set it to blow directly at the hot water tank, then left it. A couple of days later, it was completely dry.
Then, last night, while doing dishes before bed, I found the hot water was getting way too hot. Warning sign number two!
This morning, I switched out the blower fan for a pedestal fan that uses less power. The concrete under the tank was starting to look damp again. Warning sign number three!. This fan could be set up closer, and I thought it might be enough.
I don’t know if it was. I haven’t gone down to check since then (the stairs are difficult for me to navigate). Later today, though, we simply lost hot water.
We called a plumber and left a message. Since we have the warranty replacement tank, still in the box, it just needs to be swapped out. That shouldn’t cost very much at all. Which is good, because every spare penny we have is being set aside to try and build up a larger down payment for a replacement vehicle.
Meanwhile, I’m bringing my mother’s car back to the garage tomorrow morning to get the spark plugs replaced. Then I will be going into the city for our second Costco shop.
Oh, and the septic guy was able to come by today – the ground was solid enough, even after yesterday’s downpours.
*sigh*
It’s like everything is popping up to make it impossible for us to set funds aside for a vehicle!
Oh, I also got word from the ranch we’re buying a quarter beef from. We’ve been paying $100 a month towards that since March, with the expectation that it would be ready in December. Well, it turns out it’ll be ready in 2 weeks, and what cuts did we want this time? !!!
Also, the weight for a quarter beef is higher this year, too. All together, we were going to be over $400 short!
I explained our situation, and they are going to hold our order off until January, which will make it even easier on the budget. So awesome of them! Once that’s paid for, that’s $100 a month that will be diverted to car payments.
The plumber hasn’t called back yet, but hopefully we will hear back tomorrow. If he hasn’t called by the time I’m back from the city, I’ll try again.
Aside from all that, it was a nice enough day that, once the septic guy was gone and I was no longer on kitten watch, to make sure none went anywhere near the open tank, I was able to get some work done outside. We don’t have high winds today, so my daughter was able to get a burn going, doing our paper garbage and some of the branches that we were starting to accumulate again that can’t fit into our wood chipper.
She’s still out there as I write this!
As for me, I need to try and get to bed early, because I’ve got a long day of running around tomorrow.
Just before 8am, the sky opened, the thunder roared, and down it came!
In short order, we had water pooling in all the usual places – except it usually takes a lot longer to get to this point!
Funny. I only counted about 22 cats when I put food out this morning. 😁 I didn’t put any on the cat house roof this time. They are all willing to crowd into the sun room, the kibble house and under the water bowl shelter.
The septic guy was supposed to come this morning. I called him and suggested tomorrow, since it’s supposed to be raining off and on all day. He agreed, though he will call first to ask how wet the ground is. It doesn’t take much for a truck that heavy to start sinking!
The rain was lighter when I fed the cats, so I did my morning rounds, including switching out the trail cam memory cards. I made sure to bring some tissue this time. There has been condensation inside the door of the solar camera, accumulating on the window in front of some lights. On the inside, the little window is recessed to fit the 3 LED lights it covers, so there was no way to just wipe it off. The lights are for settings, not for active recording, so it’s not essential to have them clear, but it gave me a chance to get rid of the moisture.
While it was raining…
Baseball cap visors are handy things!
So it will be a mostly indoor day. It’s election day, While I voted already, my daughter hasn’t (only the 2 of us have valid photo ID). The polling station is in our little hamlet, but I plan to go into town after, and get those medical files dropped off.
I’m back from getting my mother’s car checked and partially worked on.
My first stop was the clinic to drop off the thumb drive with my husband’s medical files, only to find everything but the emergency was closed (the clinic is in the same building as the hospital). Saturday was “Truth and Reconciliation Day”, so they were treating today, Monday, like a statutory holiday.
Thankfully, the pharmacy was not closed. I went there to update my husband’s file with his new doctor’s name and mentioned it was closed. The pharmacist said they thought it might be, because it had been so quiet for them today! The new doctor still can’t refill my husband’s painkillers, though. They are opioids, which means he’s going to need to get a new, hand written prescription in triplicate to bring in. Which his new doctor can’t give him until she gets his medical records.
When I mentioned the doctor’s name, the pharmacist knew exactly who it was, since this person is now her own doctor, too!
After I was done at the pharmacy, I took the car through a car wash, then dropped it off at the garage. I was more than an hour early, which was fine.
I was just getting out of the car when my phone started ringing. Which always surprised me, because I almost never use my phone as a phone! It came up as “suspected spam”, but I tried answering anyway. I think I got hung up on or disconnected somehow. Our mechanic was outside and started walking over to talk to me. He had just talked with the lady and the financing company, and the call would have been from her!
She had called him about that truck we tried for. While my husband has no current photo ID, we did sent two older ones; his old driver’s license and his Metis card for this province (when we moved away, the Metis Federation in our new province wouldn’t recognise him as Metis unless he paid them to do another genealogy, so we didn’t bother). The finance lady suddenly realized what that second ID was and thought she’d be able to take the taxes off the purchase. That would have made the monthly payments at the maximum we could afford, but we could have done it!
Alas, it was not to be. My husband not Status Indian. He doesn’t have the number needed to be tax free. I just double checked. Metis and Inuit are not eligible for tax exemptions. Which is ridiculous, since there are people with no First Nations blood in them at all that are Status, through marriage or adoption.
Ah, well. It would have been nice. I really appreciate that they are trying so hard to get us a vehicle in our budget!!!
After dropping off the keys, I went for lunch at the nearby Chinese restaurant. We don’t normally go there, as it’s inside a hotel, and we tend to forget it exists. They have an awesome dim sum menu, though. This time, I had a combo that included steamed pork buns. They were the lightest, fluffiest, pillow-iest pork buns I’ve ever had!
When I was done, it was still early, but I saw the car was in one of the bays and no one was around, so I went inside. They were all eating lunch, and were going to look at it next, so I popped over to the grocery store for a bit, then just sat outside at one of their picnic tables with a drink. By the time I got to the garage, the car was done.
The air filter has been changed. My brother and I had no idea when it had been changed last, so I had to ask how it looked. He said that it looked really clean – until he knocked against it and clouds of gravel dust came off of it! The final bill on that was just under $65, which isn’t too bad.
The spark plugs, however, need to be replaced and those had to be ordered in. They’ll arrive tomorrow, but I won’t bring the car in again until Thursday. That will be just under $175
Apparently, Canadian money doesn’t exist in Word Press’ free image library.
Which is a bit over the budget I’d allotted for this, but not by much. It could have been much worse, to be sure! Things were quiet at the time, so we even had a chance to chat a bit.
As I was leaving, though, I turned around and came back. The brakes were screaming! Or, more accurately, the rear end started screaming when I hit the brakes. I noticed this as I was pulling out of the car wash. I told him this and he said to just drive it; it was probably just moisture had gotten into the brake pads. Intellectually, I did know that was likely it, but I am so paranoid about tires in particular! By the time I got home, though, the noise was gone, so that was a relief.
Well now! As I was writing the above, the phone rang. It was the financing lady. We talked about how there is no tax exemption for Metis. She was so disappointed to hear that! As we talked, she even looked through some of the other inventory our mechanic has right now, but that truck was the only one that could have worked out in our budget. I told her our mechanic is still looking; he knows our specific needs, and if anyone can find something, he can. It did give her a chance to ask for a couple of things. She’s got pre-approval for us from a couple of banks, but they have different requirements. One of them is to get our bank records/income statements with his name on it. I sent in pdfs of bill payments/deposits from the last 90 days, but because I logged in to do it, it only shows my name on it, and doesn’t even show that it’s a joint account. It’s messing them up! 😄
Oh, another call from her. There’s a way around having to send another pdf without our banking activity for the past 90 days. We can send a digital void check with his name on it, instead.
The other thing the bank needs is a letter of income from Sun Life. We get those once a year; my husband gets the form at the end of the year to say “yes, I’m still disabled and under the care of a doctor” and around February, we get a letter saying “yup, you’re still disabled; this is how much you’ll be getting every month this year”. The amount changes slightly every year, just as the CPP Disability does.
She is trying so hard to get us a vehicle in our budget! I really appreciate it. Our limitations do not make it easy, that’s for sure. While we were on the phone, she kept trying different things, but in the end, it just didn’t work out with current inventory options.
We were so close…
Ah, well. What will be, will be!
Until then, we have to baby my mother’s car as much as possible, because there is no back up vehicle anymore!
The Re-Farmer 