challenges

Good thing we have two driveways

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We have ourselves another scorcher today.  I had hoped to mow the inner yard today, but I don’t want to risk the riding mower’s motor overheating in these temperatures.  So it will wait.  I was also thinking of doing the last bit of the clean up I had started doing around the storage house yesterday, stopping when it got just too hot to be working outside, but nope.  Not gonna happen in this heat!

Despite the heat, both cats are very cuddly.  DaBoy spends his nights upstairs, taking over the bottom of one of the girls’ beds.  You’d think, with his fur coat, the last thing he’d want to do is be in the hottest part of the house, snuggling up to warm feet, but he does.

At least his mom is doing it in the coolest room in the house; the master bedroom.

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She was using my ankle and foot as a pillow.

Being the suck that I am, I was “trapped” for some time by the adorable fur ball.

My husband has been having a very bad pain day today, so he asked me to go into town to pick up something to help.

It’s a good thing he did.  Otherwise, we would not have known until we were heading out for his medical appointment tomorrow, that we were locked in.

My younger daughter came along with me, and when the girls are along for the ride, they typically go ahead to the gate to unlock and open it while I get the van and drive through, then they lock it up again.  This time, I drive up to the gate, and she’s still struggling with the gate.

The lock is a combination lock; the only thing we had handy at the time my mother asked us to start locking the gate.  Of the 4 tumblers, three weren’t turning.

We tried using tools.  We tried oiling it.  Nothing.  Those tumblers would not move.

Thankfully, we have another driveway, and that gate has a key lock on it.

This other driveway is not normally used.  I’ve mowed a path to it, because we still need to rebuild the barbed wire gate and just haven’t gotten around to it.  Right now, the lock and chain are the only thing keeping it upright and closed.  It’s a rough drive to the gate, the the driveway itself is overgrown.  I knew the path to the gate was clear, because I’d just mowed it, but we double checked the driveway itself to make sure there was nothing that would blow a tire on us or something.  It was good.

So when we got to town, our first stop was at a hardware store.  I picked up a new key lock, plus heavier duty bolt cutters.  It was funny as we went to pay for them.  The cashier joked about using the bolt cutters to cut a lock, then replacing it with a new one.  We told her that yes, that’s exactly what we were doing!  Then we explained that our lock was a combination lock, and the tumblers weren’t turning.  I added in, “Either the weather got to it, or someone tampered with it.”

Her response was, someone probably tampered with it.  When I commented that we live in the middle of nowhere, she just nodded and said, yeah; that’s where it’s most likely.  Then she told us about her brother, who has a trailer out in the sticks, and someone had broken into his locked gate and stole a quad.

An unfortunately reality of living in the sticks.  You’d think it would be safer, but people know that chances of getting caught are much lower, and the police are at least half and hour away.

I couldn’t see any sign of tampering on our lock, but unfortunately, I can’t rule it out.  For it to suddenly stop working like this, it actually seems more likely to be the cause than weather.

After getting the new lock and bolt cutters, we finished our errands, then did a bit of quick Pokemon Go.  We paused to battle a gym at the beach, sitting outside at a picnic table as we played.  Oh, what a lovely breeze off the water!

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The temperatures were 28C, with the humidex putting it at 32C, but the lake it still quite cool, and it made for such a pleasant time outside.

We didn’t stay for long, though.  Once at home, we cut the broken lock off and put on the new one.  I’m going to have to cut copies of the key, so we all have one, plus an extra in the house.  I’ve kept the old lock and will see if I can find a way to open it up and see why it stopped working.

We did stop at the post office on the way home, and found a nice little surprise.  We got our reimbursement for our vehicle registration in our previous province.  It was enough to cover the cost of the bolt cutters, at least. :-)

For now, we keep cool inside.  Looking around in the basement, I found an oscillating fan that actually works, though it needs a major cleaning.  That’s what I’ll be working on, next.

While having lunch with my brother and his wife on the weekend, I found out about something I had been wondering.  In the old part basement, at the window that we used to throw wood through, is a platform.  I had no idea why it was there.  It turns out my brother built it to hold a fan.  There is a screen to replace the window that’s there now, and the fan was used for air circulation to help keep the house cool.  The basement doors would be left open to help cool the house down, but we can’t do that until we’ve cleaned up the new part basement so it’s safe if the cats get down there.  We talked about getting a cheap screen door in the short term, to keep the cats out until we can do that.  The door is a standard size, so we could actually do that.  Something to keep in mind!

My brother described the fan he had on the platform, and none of us could remember seeing it, so I went looking around today.  Which is why I found the oscillating fan.

No sign of the fan he’d built the platform for.  Like so many other things, it has gone missing.  Another thing that came up in conversation, since I’d mentioned my search for a pitchfork in the past, is that there had been about 6 or 8 pitchforks stored in the barn.  There is no sign of them, now.

It’s a good thing we are living here now.  Too many things disappeared while this place was empty. :-(

The Re-Farmer

Repair – Updated

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I got the mower in to the shop this morning, to fix the broken belt.

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Because I had to drive in from out of town and was going to wait, they worked on my mower first thing after they did their parts run.

It was the drive belt that broke, which controls the cutting blades.  The entire section had to be unhooked for the new belt to be installed.  They got me a high end Kevlar belt, so it should last many years!

But…

There just has to be a but, doesn’t there?

When I was leaving home, as I braked to take a turn turn, I felt what I thought was the ramps sliding forward to hit my seat.  Nope; it was the mower rolling forward, then pushing the cooler into my seat.  I commented on it when I got there, and the guy reminded me that there is a parking brake.  I didn’t even think of it, partly because I was already driving when it happened.

So when they loaded it into the van after the repair (not an easy job, because once the wheels clear the “lip” of the van, the whole thing drops, then the outside half – the rear, which has the full weight of the engine – needs to be lifted to get it the rest of the way in or out), the guy that guided it from the inside of the van set the parking break for me.

On the way home, however, it still rolled forward.

When my younger daughter and I unloaded it, I did confirm that the parking brake was still on.

After it was unloaded, I took advantage of my daughter being there and showed her everything to check on it and how to work it, then got her to start it and drive it around.

Which is when we discovered, the brake doesn’t work.  Not only that, but it will keep rolling even when the drive pedal is NOT engaged.  It should come to a stop when the drive pedal is disengaged, even without the brake being used.

I think something broke when it was being loaded back into the van.

I’ve sent them an email, copying my brother who bought it for us, describing what it’s doing.  My husband has a medical appointment tomorrow, so the earliest we can take it back is the day after.

Damn.

At least it’s still under labour warranty.

Before I try loading it back into the van, I will have to find something a few inches thick to lay down on the floor of the back, to keep the mower from dropping.

The Re-Farmer

UPDATE: I checked the van and discovered some of the foam insulation that was used around the house during the winter was thick enough to match the height of the “lip” at the back of the van.  Not only that, but after checking the space, I discovered that we wouldn’t even have to take the seats out again to fit the mower.  I phoned the shop and they were unsure what it might be.  I had time enough for my daughter and I to load up the van and drive it over (a 40 minute drive), about an hour and a half before they closed.  They unloaded the mower – using their own ramp, this time – then the guy that worked on it before started it up and tested it out.  Sure enough, as soon as he put it in gear, it started moving and the brake didn’t work.  In fact, he ended up getting hung up on a corner of the ramp, because he couldn’t stop it.  He had to shut it off!

So he pushed it into the shop and checked it out.  The brake mechanism was working fine.  He thought a belt might be loose, but that was also fine.  So he went even further under the mower.  It turns out there are two bolts that were too far forward, as if they were too tight.  It’s possible, he tightened them too much when he reassembled it earlier, or it’s possible that when it did the drop as it was being loaded into the van and the front tires passed the point of no return, and the deck bed hit the ramp/edge of the van opening, it got jammed forward.  No way to know for sure.  He adjusted them, though, then tested it out.  Forward and reverse, driving it out of the shop, and doing a loop before driving to the back of our van.  It was working fine!

Unloading, testing, fixing, testing again, then reloading: about 15 minutes.

I just got back from mowing the lawn. :-D

I did as much as I intend to in the outer yard; the grass it just too thick to do all of what I’d wanted to do.  It’s not just the new growing grass, but the thatch from last year’s grass underneath, that it making it so hard on the mower.  I’ll just have to make sure to keep up with maintaining the parts I have done, so they don’t get overgrown again.  As long as we can access, the barn, storage shed and burn barrel.

Then I mowed the south yards by the house.  Because I could! :-D

Outer yard mowing – a sadness!

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Today, I broke out the riding mower to work on the outer yard.

Although I don’t intend to focus on any clean up out there, we do still need to keep parts of it mowed.

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I started by “framing” out the areas I wanted to mow, mostly for access.  You can see how tall it is, plus there is last year’s grass under it, too.  So I was extra slow and careful while going through the thickest parts, and keeping a very sharp eye out for anything I didn’t want to mow over.  I did have to get off a couple of times to move away sticks or old wooden shingles.

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Next, I started working on sections, beginning with the driveway.

The area to the left of the driveway in the photo had lots of horse droppings.  Just that side.  The other side didn’t.  Which is weird.

My parents didn’t have horses.

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The next section I focused on was in front of the shed we’re storing my parents’ stuff in, so we can get in and out of it more easily as we add more to the shed.

I had to go over this section twice.

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I had not originally intended to do this, but decided to mow a pathway to the other gate.  We still need to fix the barb wire gate, and this way, we can get to it without having to fight our way though tall, tick infested, grass.

I was REALLY careful doing this section, because I remember there were all sorts of random piles of stuff.  Basically, I just followed old tire tracks.

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Next, I started working on a section between my dad’s old car, and the burn barrel.

I had just got around by the car, when this happened.

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Yeah.  I broke a belt.

On my new mower.

Sadness.

Woe.

Thankfully, belts are not expensive, but I will have to enlist the help of my older brother to fix it, I think.

I guess I just pushed it too hard. :-(

I wasn’t about to let all that wonderful cut grass go to waste, though.  After putting away the mower, I got out the rake and a wheelbarrow, and started hauling grass to the flower garden.  Amazingly, I had to actually start scrounging for grass clippings to finish it!  I not only raked in front of the storage shed, but also to the barn, then back to the driveway.

Which is when this happened.

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It finally gave out.

And this was the good fan rake!

We do have one other one, though I expect that one to break soon, too.  I only needed one more load of grass clippings to finish, though.  I had to go to the path I mowed to the back get to get enough!

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But it is finally gone!  The entire flower garden is now covered with a thick later of straw, leaves and grass clippings.  I’ve even started adding the contents of our compost bucket.

It is now being thoroughly soaked down.

The next step we plan to take (aside from continuing to add any grass clippings, etc. that we can, over the summer) is to pick up a couple of bales of peat moss and add that as another layer.  I really want to build it up, to kill off the invasive plants and cover any little remaining stumps from stuff I’d trimmed away completely.  Especially at the old fence line at the end of the garden, where things had gotten pretty wild.

Over by the fire pit, my mother’s lilies are now in full bloom.

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They are doing really, really well.  I think, once we have the flower garden built up, I’ll transplant these into it.

While I was taking pictures, I felt something rubbing against my leg…

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It was a Butterscotch!

She looks ticked off. :-D

She was seen earlier today, carrying a kitten.  My daughter barely saw more than little legs and a tail, and couldn’t even tell what colour it was.  It seems she had moved her kitten(s?) to the garden shed.  I’d gone into it yesterday, looking for something, and she came out from under stuff in the back and began hissing at me.  Even though I didn’t go much past the doorway, I guess it was still too much for her, and she found another place for her kitten(s?).

So we are back to not having a mower, until I can replace that belt.  I won’t be able to phone the shop my brother got it from until Monday.

*sigh*

Ah, well.  It’s not like there isn’t plenty of other work to be done!

The Re-Farmer

Maple Grove Clearing – a big, rotten mess!

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In this photo from my last post, you can see part of the mess I also cleaned up today.

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That round thing of rotting wood is the top of a giant spool that was used for electrical cable.  It was likely used as an outdoor table or something, at some point – that was a popular thing for a while. This top part, I was able to tilt up and roll away to the back of the shed.

But not before I had a very close call.

There’s a reason I stopped to clear the area around the chimney blocks instead of focusing on the trees.  As I stepped towards one of the trees behind the mess, to clear away branches that had already fallen, I felt something go through the sole of my shoe.

I immediately pulled back, put away what I’d been working on, then went back to dig through the dead leaves and old grass.

I found this.

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This area became a priority clean up!

This rotten wood turned out to be part of the remains of an old pallet.

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The above photo was taken after I’d cleared away the old pallet, and even removed a bundle of wooden stakes.

There’s a tire rim under there.

Because of course there is.  There are tire rims fekkin’ everywhere around here! :-D

I’d already moved some sort of basin that was screwed onto a metal base.  I have no idea what it was used for since, unlike the other basins I’ve found around the yard, it wasn’t used as a planter.

I used it to hold the rotten, some nail filled, wood I was finding.

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Then, when that was full, I used the blue … barrel? … you can see in the previous picture to hold the pieces of wood I found under the top of the wire spool.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

After moving out a whole bunch of rotten and rotting wood, I tried to move the wagon that was leaning against the chimney bricks.

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It promptly disintegrated.

The top half wasn’t as bad, but when I moved the bottom half, even one of the wheels just sloughed off.

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I wonder how many years it sat there?

After I moved it, I found something that brought a smile to my face.

My stone “ostrich egg” !!

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My late bother and I found this in a field somewhere, when I was a kid, and brought it home.  The size and shape made us think of an ostrich egg, so that’s what we called it.  It actually turned out to be quite handy.  My mother used to make sauerkraut in a big clay crock (which I believe we still have in the basement!).  After layering the cabbage, she put an upside down plate on it to keep the cabbage in the liquid.  This rock (after being cleaned thoroughly, of course) was put on top of the plate to weigh it down.

I’m so happy to see my rock is still around. :-D

Then I moved on to the mess under the top of the wire spool.

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The base of the wire spool itself was completely rotten, falling apart as I pulled it up.

Then I raked up the decaying leaves and whatnot that was under it.

Whoever put the spool there took enough care to place it on bricks.

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With enough time, not even that was enough to keep it from rotting.

I did find another mystery, though.  Can you see it?  Just above the brick at the bottom, right.

Seashells.

There was a pair of seashells under there.

I just… accept mysteries like this, now. :-D

I took out the bricks, cleared away around the chimney bricks – found some more small bricks, and raked around it.  Here is how it looks, now.

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The little stools had been leaning against the chimney bricks.  They really should be tossed, as they’re old to the point of unstable, but they can stay here for now.

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I forget what the long clay “pipes” are for.

All cleared!

And – most importantly! – no more rotting wood with nails sticking up.

Back to clearing the trees!

The Re-Farmer

Hmmm… foood!

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A quick post, before another storm moves in and I shut down the computer…

view of clinic

Photo by Daniel Frank on Pexels.com

It’s almost 6pm, and I have finally ingested my first meal of the day.

I’m not counting the meal replacement shake, because… no.

As soon as the earliest dental clinic in the next town was open, I called to see if they could fit me in – after checking to see if they did direct billing with our insurance company.  Which they did, and they could.  I got an appointment for the afternoon.  Yay!

I then spent the next while, doing work on the computer, and trying to figure out what we had that I could safely eat.  It wasn’t just needing soft food.  Even soft food getting in there could cause more of the tooth to break up.

Before I finally decided (I was leaning towards egg flower soup), I got a call back from them.  Could I be there by 11:15?  It was 10:53.  I could leave right then and there!

By the time I parked and walked in the door, it was just a few minutes past 11:15.  After the paperwork was done, I barely had time to sit down when I was being called to come in.

The hygienist got started on me with getting an Xray, as I told her about the history of the tooth, and the troubles the dentist who did the root canal had had with it, because of a bent root.  She got me to bite on the thing to get the Xray, but had to do it twice, just to get it far back enough.  The screen for the Xray was facing me, so we could both see the problem root.

Then, just before the dentist came in, I pulled out another piece of tooth.  Just getting the Xray taken broke off more.

I’d already told the hygienist that I was more interested in just having it pulled, but it turned out to not be a choice.  There wasn’t enough of it left to do anything else.  The dentist even had to break it apart to take each root out, individually.

As I knew would happen, because apparently I have some pretty massive bone density (this is not the first tooth I’ve lost), this took quite a bit of effort.

But that was okay.  I got to lie in a massage chair and watch You Gotta Eat Here on the TV in the ceiling.

Though requesting it be put on The Food Network was probably not the best of ideas, considering how hungry I was.  :-D

However, it was done, and because it was just a pull and not any major work, it actually cost much less than I feared.  Which is good, because I then had to go to the grocery store and buy more pain killers for when the freezing wore off, and food that I could safely eat.

I had to wait 4-6 hours before trying to eat, though I could drink water.  I have a gauze to bite on that needs to be changed every hour.  Starting tomorrow, I need to swish with salt water after eating anything.

I am, however, good to go for the big family dinner on Sunday, even if I won’t be able to eat certain foods.  I just have to bring my bottle of salt water with me.

So that is done!

On the home front, it was an indoor day. The girls kindly made supper, though I could only eat the perogies they made.  Very, very carefully.  Oh, I was so hungry by then!

It was too hot to safely do any yard work today, anyhow, and while it’s cooler now (a mere 26C *L*), it has quickly gotten very dark, and I can hear thunder and see flashes of lightning in the distance.  We’ll see if we get the sort of downpours we got yesterday or not.  Until then, I think I’ll just shut down the desktop computer, just to be safe!

The Re-Farmer

In the Storm, and … really??

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Last night, we did indeed get an all out thunderstorm with pouring rain!

It was fantastic!

At one point, I was hearing things hit the window that sounded like hail.  Our van was in the yard, to make it more accessible for my husband to get to his appointment, but he ended up rescheduling the appointment, so there it stayed.  I figured, if there was going to be hail, I’d better get it to the garage.

It was less than 20 feet to the driver’s door, and I was SOAKED!  As I started it, I saw a shadow at the passenger window (closer to the house) and it was one of my daughters warning me that they’d seen a cat sheltering under the van.  She was out for mere seconds, and that was all it took for her to get drenched.  I couldn’t see out the windshield, other than shadows, even with the wipers going full blast.  Thankfully, I know our yard well enough that it was all I needed, so after revving the engine a few times to scare off any possible sheltering cats, I got the van into the garage.

Then I got some pictures from the main door.

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The camera picked up more than I could actually see.

The ground inside the garage (it’s just a dirt floor) was dry when I drove in, but by the time I parked and walked to the door to take a few pictures, then open the side door on the van to get an umbrella, there was water spilling in under my feet.  My dash to the house involved leaping puddles.

Nice to know I can still do that sort of jumping around, when needed. LOL

My grandpa slippers were full of water, regardless of any leaping of puddles. :-D

It wasn’t long before we were also shutting down computers and closing up windows.  Then we lost our internet for a while, so even our cell phones became useless (and I was in the middle of a Skype conversation. :-D ).

The storm quickly passed, though a much smaller one swept through later, and we continued to see lightning to the northeast of us for some time.

Best of all, the rain continued for quite a while.

This morning, everything looks so much greener, already!

My plans for the day, however, have changed.  Because something rather ridiculous happened last night.

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See this?

That fell out of one of my teeth, last night.

Yup.  It’s a filling.

All I could think was, really???  I do NOT need this right now!

I now have a big, gaping hole in the back of my mouth.  The remains of an old root canal, done at least 15 years ago.

Which means that I have to be very, very careful what I can eat or drink for the next while.

Thankfully, because the tooth is already dead, there is no pain.  The remaining pieces of tooth, however, would be rather fragile, I’m sure.

I phoned a dental clinic in town this morning and, thank God!, they do direct billing AND have an opening they can put me in this afternoon.

It means juggling the budget again, but at least I won’t have to wait until next week, when pay comes in.

And maybe, just maybe, when we go into the city on Sunday for a sort of a family reunion dinner with my husband’s family in the city, I’ll even be able to eat with everyone else!

Speaking of eating, I’ve not had breakfast yet, and I can’t think of anything we’ve got right now that would be safe for me to eat.  I might have to whip up a quick soup or something.

Time to get creative!

The Re-Farmer

That Circle of Life thing… and I hate shopping

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For the past while, we’ve had a huge drop in deer visits.  I didn’t see any yesterday, until quite late, when one showed up, then ran off when it saw me in the window.  Pretty sure it was a new one, since our regulars are no longer bothered by seeing us.

We are certainly getting plenty of birds, though, including this new one that I’ve been trying to identify.

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There were two or three of them among the dark eyed juncos and the male redpolls that were also in the feeding station.  Looking through my bird book, its body looks similar to a Brown Thrasher, but the eye and beak are totally different.  Another closer match is the Fox Sparrow, but according to the book, we’re not really in their territory.  They might be passing through during migration, if that’s what they are.

If anyone reading this knows what they are, please let me know in the comments!  Thanks. :-)

As I was taking pictures of the new birds, there was a sudden whoosh of movement and all the birds flew off.

Well, almost all.

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What a beautiful hawk!  I barely managed to tilt the tripod over to snap a few quick pictures before it flew off, with its meal, into the trees.  Much to my surprise, the pictures all turned out, but only a couple caught the hawk’s face as it looked over before flying off.

This is one of the things we have to consider, if we do get chickens.

Later on, I went to tell my older daughter, who was upstairs, about the hawk.  She hadn’t seen the hawk, but she did see the fallout, as panicked birds suddenly flew up, including one that smacked right into the window near her.

She went out onto the roof and moved it, so it could fly off when it regained consciousness.

Except, it didn’t.  It hit the window hard enough to kill itself.  It looked like one of the new birds, too. :-(

Wow.

This all happened in the mid morning or so.  Shortly before noon, my younger daughter and I headed out to the city – our first trip to the city since all that work was done on the van – for a much needed Costco trip.

Just to jump ahead a bit, the van ran beautifully.  Also, I didn’t get a call back from the garage about those parts they’d ordered for me.  I’m not sure how I would have handled such a call, now that the work they wanted to do turns out to not be needed at all.  Aside from not bringing the van in, of course.

I had hoped, even though it’s a Friday, going to Costco in the early afternoon would mean missing out on the crowds.

Maybe we did, but it was still insanely busy.

We didn’t go to the closer one, which is smaller, has a ridiculously horrible parking situation, and where the pharmacy staff were such a problem.  Instead, we went to one that was not only larger, but also near a whole lot of other shopping.

Along with our usual bulk grocery shopping, I had one goal in mind.  To get more undies for my husband.  We’re in the city.  That shouldn’t be a problem, right?

Well, it turns out that Costco didn’t carry any in his size.  They do in clothing, just not in underwear.  Which makes no sense.

So after we finished at Costco, with all its joyous moments (seriously; what is it about people who saunter to a stop, blocking the entire isle, and just stand there, staring into space?  This happened several times, all different people!), we figured we’d just go to that mall up the block.  They had a Marshals there.  Marshals has clothes, right?

We’ve never actually been to a Marshals before.

It turned out to be kinda like a crappy Winners.  We found the teeny, tiny men’s underwear section, half of which was shirts, and it was such a disaster, I could barely find anything at all, never mind the size and style I wanted.  There was only one brand, too – an expensive one, of course.

But we’re in a mall, right?  There’s lots of other stores we can try, right?

I found a map and… it wasn’t very encouraging.  Still, there were several possibilities among the athletic stores.

We went to about 4 or 5 different shops.  Any that did have men’s underwear had hardly anything at all, none in the style I was looking for, and certainly not the size.

What the heck?

As we were leaving the mall, my daughter pointed out that there was a Winners across the road.  So that’s where we tried next.

It was better than the Marshals, at least.  The shelves were better organized, but again, there was only one tiny display for the men’s section, and nothing in the size we were after.

I checked on my phone and found the nearest Walmart.  I figured that would be our last stop.  Even if we didn’t find the style I was after, if I could only find the size, that would be great.

Walmart, at least, has a nice, big section for men’s underclothes – but still a tiny clothing section.

Men, you guys are really short changed in the clothing department!  Sheesh!

We found several brands in the style we wanted.  Yay, right?

Nope.

There was a lot out of stock, so my daughter and I kept hunting for the right size, somewhere.  After a while, I stopped looking at what was there and started looking at the labels in front of the hooks.

It turned out they weren’t just out of stock.  They didn’t even CARRY the size we needed.  In any brand, or any style!

What the heck???  He wears a common size.  Why don’t they have it?

This was supposed to be our last stop, but we had noticed further down the parking lot, a Marks.

One more try…

Sure enough, we actually found both the style and size we were after!!!  Finally!  So I bought as many packages as I could afford without messing up our budget.

When we got to the counter, me looking a little wild eyed by now, the cashier asked us if we’d found everything we were looking for.

I told her that yes, we did, and that they were the ONLY ones to have what we were looking for.  She looked completely surprised.  Not even Walmart, she asked?  Nope.  Nothing in this size.  That is so strange, she tells me.

It’s their most popular size.

Which doesn’t surprise me in the least.  So why don’t other places even HAVE the size at all?

Who know buying underwear would be so difficult?

By the time that was done, we were both exhausted and more than ready to go home.

I really, really dislike shopping.

After we got home and unloaded, it occurred to me that none of us had the energy to cook supper.  My older daughter is sick, my younger daughter is also getting sick, and just unloading the van was more than enough to remind me that I’m certainly not yet recovered from this stupid cold.

Since my daughter can now legally drive, I asked if she was up to a trip into town, so we could get some take-out.  Thankfully, she was.  So off we went to the van and…

20180427handle

When she tried to open the garage door, the handle came off.

Talking to my oldest brother not long ago, I mentioned this.  He told me that thing has needed replacing for probably 15 years.  It just never got done.  It was on our list of things to fix sooner rather than later.  Well, it just got bumped up higher on the list.  :-D

My daughter had to go into the garage from the back door (which is used so rarely, it has self-seeded trees growing in front of it) and open it from the inside.  The bar that runs through the hole to the handle is still there, and I couldn’t find any pieces that fell off onto the ground, so I’m actually not sure why the handle hadn’t fallen off sooner! :-D

I was just informed that we had deer outside our living room window again.  A group of four.  It’s almost completely dark at the moment, but still enough light for us to see them.  And for them to see us.  And hear us.  Even the creaking of the floor had their ears going in all directions, and they could hear my daughter cough!  As I was at the window, one was watching me until I shifted slightly, and off it ran, startling the others away.

So we will stay away from the window for a while, in hopes they come back.

Looks like we’ll be going into town again tomorrow, even if it’s just to pick up a new handle for the garage door! :-D

The Re-Farmer

One more thing, off the list

/ Re-Farmer / 1 Comment

This morning, I took my younger daughter for her knowledge test to transfer her driver’s license to this province.

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Butterscotch, in command of the deer feeding station.

To recap: she did not have a full license; just the learner’s license.  She never had a chance to take her road test.  When she tried to transfer her license, once they saw it was a learners, she was told she had to take the written test to get a new license for this province.  Then, because we are past the 90 day grace period, they kept her license, because she cannot legally drive in this province with it.

After doing the online practice tests, my daughter was quite worried about this.  So many of the questions were unrelated to the rules of the road, or phrased so badly and without context, it was difficult to understand what was actually being asked.

We ended up leaving more than an hour early – and she was still worried about being late!  Ah, a daughter after my own heart. :-D  On the way, we stopped in the town my mother lives in to fill the gas tank.  This is the gas station we’d stopped at when we were bleeding coolant, and one of our regular gas jockeys had crawled under and found the broken pipe.  Well, he was there this morning.  When he saw us, he came over and asked how things went, so I entertained him with the story.  Turns out he was all worried about us, and was so happy to find out everything turned out okay!

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One, lone dark eyed junco, just chillin’

I really like this gas station.  They have such great people working there.    Plus, they have this section of home baked goodies that no one else has, because they’re baked by one of the gas jockeys! :-D  It’s become a bit of a ritual, that when we stop there for gas, I pick up some cookies (they are sold in twos) or a piece of Nanaimo bar as a special treat.

The city we went to is roughly an hour’s drive, and we’d left so early that, even with the stop for gas, we were an hour early.  Which worked out, because neither of us had had breakfast, plus it gave us the chance to find the place, first.  Which turned out to be incredibly easy to find.  We were told to arrive about 15 minutes early, so that’s what we did.

When my daughter got called up, she had all her paperwork from the broker that started her file for her, ready to go.  The lady helping her just had to look up the file and continue the process.  She was really great about explaining the exam process, and how my daughter needed to get a minimum of 24 out of 30 questions correct, and so on.  Then she took my daughter to the testing computer.  The questions turned out to be MUCH more realistic than in the online practice tests.  They actually made sense, and were about the rules of the road.

She did 24 questions, then the test shut down, because she’d got them all correct.  So she got 100% on her knowledge test.  Awesome!

Then she had to do the eye test, were we discovered that she does NOT need her glasses to drive.  She will use them, because she prefers to (she gets headaches from eye strain if she doesn’t), but there will be no restriction on her license.  Cool!

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The Mothman makes an appearance!

When the final processing for her license was started, we hit a problem.

The system was asking for her to turn over her current license.

Which had already been taken.

It turns out, they shouldn’t have done that.  While my daughter could not legally drive here with it, it was still a valid license.  She could still use it in our previous province, plus it was her valid photo ID, until 2022.

Not only that, but when her license was scanned, they only scanned one side.  So even though the person helping us could find the scanned image on file, she had only the front information, not the back.

Now, the only reason this was an issue was a matter of credit for time driving.  If they could use her current license, she could go for her road test at any time, because she’s been driving on her learner’s license for more than 5 years.  If, however, they couldn’t use it, she would not be able to take her road test for at least 9 months.

The woman helping us called the broker where we’d started the process, to find out if they still had the license, but the person who started the file wasn’t available.  After some discussion, they figured it got sent away already to the department all returned licenses go to.  So she phoned there.

The license had arrived there, just yesterday!

Which meant they could scan both sides of the old license for the file.  The woman helping us, meanwhile, used a copy of the scanned front of the license already on file, just to be extra sure – and my daughter got a copy for her own files, too, just as I did with mine.

Because of when her birthday is, though, when she gets her plastic copy, it’ll only be valid until the end of August.  Which meant it cost less to process her license, since they only charged for the shorter time.

Cool.

As we were doing this, I told the woman helping us that I had some ID related questions for after it was all done.  I had shared some of the issues I’d had with getting my license during conversation.  When my daughter got her temporary license, I told the woman helping us about my husband’s attempt to get his license.

As soon as I said that his ID didn’t match his birth certificate, she knew exactly what was coming; he was told to get a legal name change.

Yup.

I brought up how this didn’t make any sense.  He’s already using his legal name.  It’s on his birth certificate.  Everything he’s got – save his old license in this province, for some reason – has the name he uses.  Even the Department of National Defense and the Government of Canada is good with the name he uses.

As we were talking, a guy came over and asked if he could join in, and he was able to give us more information.  What it comes down to is, it’s up to the Identity Unit.  Whatever they say, everyone else’s hands are tied, and they are basically the overseers of identity in this province.  We talked about the issues of identity theft and security, which I totally get, but it still doesn’t make sense to demand that my husband change his legal name to… his legal name.

At one point, he asked why my husband wasn’t interesting in doing the legal name change, and my response was basically, why should he have to go through all that process, when he’s already using his legal name.  In the conversation, I used as an example how it’s not like my sister, whose legal name is one thing, but the name she uses is completely different.  It’s not entirely even an English version of her birth name, since there really isn’t any English equivalent.  This is his legal name that is on his birth certificate.  Every other place has been fine with using his second name.  He has always used this name.  Sure, they can understandably change things now, but why should he essentially be retroactively held to these requirements?  It’s still his legal name.

Well, it turns out this guy completely understood not wanting to go the legal name change route.  He’s newly married, and his wife is in the process of legally changing to her married name.  The whole thing costs about $200, there are many hoops to jump, and one of those hoops is to go to the RCMP and get fingerprinted.

With the amount of pain my husband is in, that kind of running around is asking way too much.

In the end, he suggested we try calling the Ombudsman, explaining the situation, and asking for an exemption.  We even got the name and phone number.

I really, really hope this works out, because this whole thing is completely ridiculous.

They were both extremely helpful and awesome, and I’m so glad I asked them about it.

Before we left, we paused to use the bathroom before I left.  When I came out and my daughter took her turn, the woman that had been helping us asked, was my sister in law’s last name XXX?  Why yes, it is, except she’s my sister, not my sister in law.

When I had used my sister’s names as an example, and she started talking about the names issue with a co-worker, it occurred to her that she knew someone by that name – and it’s a very uncommon name.  So she figured she’s ask me when I came out of the washroom.  It turns out that, not only does she know my sister, but they are cousins, by marriage!

That was so funny!  I ended up staying and chatting with her for a while, with my daughter joining us as I told her about our move back to the farm and all the “fun” it’s been, dealing with my parents’ things, the state of the house, and all the interesting things we’ve been discovering.  That led us to talking about how, especially in our parents’ generation, there was such an insistence of doing everything themselves, instead of paying someone else to do it, even when in the long term, it would be cheaper to pay someone else to do it!  Or to buy new instead of second hand, etc.  She knew first hand what it was like! :-D

It wasn’t until we were walking to the van and my daughter asked about it that I realized she’s missed the part about how this woman was related to her aunt.  Ah, what a small world it is!

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Trüllbus the Crime Eater, coming through!

After we finished there, my daughter and I headed to the nearby Walmart.  Our monthly shopping plans have had to change, with my husband’s newest medical appointment, so we did most of our non-Costco monthly shopping today.  Normally, we’d wait until the last business day of the month, when his disability payment comes in, but today is when the much smaller CPP Disability comes in.  It’s enough to do the monthly grocery shopping, at least.  Plus, I really wanted to finally pick up some new underwear for him, what with either not being able to find his size in the style he wanted, or only being able to find them at $15 for a single pair, with only one lower end brand available.

Amazingly, not even the Walmart had his style in his size.  There were 4 or 5 different brands, and NONE of them had it.  In fact, they only seemed to have them in two sizes; small and medium.  What the heck?  Is there some sort of embargo on briefs going on I don’t know about?  I finally got a package of 4 in the closest to the style he wanted I could find (at least the price was good!), but I can’t believe I still couldn’t even find what he wanted at a WALMART, in a city!  Yeah, it’s a small city, but still…  Sheesh!

Since we were there anyways, we paused to look at some of the summer stuff that’s out now.  It occurred to me that I have yet to see a garden hose anywhere around here.  I still want to check the garden shed, but there is no way my dad didn’t have garden hoses!  If they’re not in the garden shed, then they found some legs and walked away.  Along with too many other things around here. :-(

We’re also interested in getting a weed whacker – preferably an electric one – so we priced those out, too.  Pretty reasonable.  We are also looking to get a battery operated chain saw, though not at Walmart.  We’ve got at least 4 chain saws in the garage and, as far as I know, none of them work.  One could probably be considered an antique!  I have no interest in hauling around jerry cans of fuel anymore, and the modern electric tools are just as powerful as the ones that run on fuel.

So we got the small grocery shopping done, including stocking up on distilled water for my husband’s CPAP.  That done, we had one more stop to make; back to the town closest to home to pick up some prescription refills.  As my older daughter has caught my cold (I’m still coughing myself, but at least I’m feeling better) and was feeling really awful today, we also made sure to pick up some “medication” for her.  At the liquor store, in the form of a nice, spiced whiskey.  :-D  We rarely drink, so when we do, it’s at least a decent quality! :-D

Hopefully, we’ll all be healthy again soon, and can start manhandling the last of my parents’ stuff we need to move to the shed.  The snow is gone and the ground it dry.  It’s just that 2 out of 3 of us are too sick to do the physical labour. :-(

While in town, we took the time to play a bit of Pokemon Go, and at one point we were parked next to an arts and crafts store, which is also part of a used book store.  I haven’t been there since we last lived in this province, so we decided to take a look.

I don’t know why they advertise as an arts and crafts store.  They had basically nothing.

But we did come out with a whole pile of Brother Cadfael books. :-D

After all the running around, we were so glad to finally get home.  Now that my daughter has her license, that’s one more thing to strike off the list!  Next up is for my older daughter to get her ID transferred.

Little by little, it’s getting done.

The Re-Farmer

Can this end now?

/ Re-Farmer / 9 Comments

The plan for today was to go into the city to do our monthly Costco shopping.  This was after our adventures yesterday that found us in the garage, getting our thermostat changed in the van.

Everything did seem to be working, though I did have to top up the coolant after we got home, so I was really hoping we could go into the city to stock up.

Then my mother phoned.

Could I drive her into town so she could visit her sister in the nursing home?

After some back and forth-ing about when she wanted to visit, and if I could do the shopping first, then take her later, I decided to postpone the shopping.  I’d take my mother to visit her sister in the morning, and do the shopping tomorrow.

However, shortly before it was time to go, my older daughter had an idea.  She had intended to go into the city with me, and she suggested she still come along, then we could go to the city after bringing my mother home after her visit.  After all, the town she lives in is 1/3rd of the way to to the city, anyhow.

So that’s what we decided to do.

Off we went for the 20 minute drive to my mother’s.  After what happened yesterday, I was keeping a close eye on my temperature gauge.

Which was going up.  Then down.  Then up again.

We also had no heat.

By the time we got to my mother’s the temperature gauge was almost at the level that would trigger the alarm.

What on earth?

We were early, so rather than going right in, we popped the hood.

The coolant was low again.

I checked where the leak was, and it was damp, but it didn’t seem that we could have lost so much coolant there.  There was no signs of where it went.

Then I hear my mother’s voice.  She had gotten ready early and had come out when we pulled over, and was wondering what was going on.

We topped up the coolant, helped my mother into the vehicle, and started on our way to see her sister; a half hour drive from my mother’s.

As we drove, sometimes we had heat, sometimes we didn’t, and the temperature kept creeping up.  We had explained to my mother a bit of what was going on, and while we were driving, she just started praying quietly!

Since we were passing them anyways, I stopped at the garage.  Seeing me, the guy at the counter had a quote ready for me.  He had talked to the mechanic about the leaking pipe, so he’d looked up the part and worked it out.  I had thought that was what I’d already had a quote for, but he said that was for the water pump, which is loose.  I told him the leak was why I was there, and described what was happening.  The part I need for this leak would be shipped from another province and would take two days to arrive.  I gave the go ahead to order the part.  I also asked, was it possible that the thermostat was not the problem yesterday, after all, but this leak was?  It’s hard to say for sure.  It’s possible. *sigh*

He said he would call me when the part came in, and we were on our way.

By the time we got to the nursing home, the temperature was high again.  My mother went in to visit her sister while my daughter and I topped up the coolant again.  Where was it going??  We couldn’t tell.  That done, we went to a coffee shop and got my daughter some breakfast and caffeine, then went to the nursing home lobby to wait for my mother.  As we waited, my daughter and I decided we wouldn’t go to the city at all.  Instead, after dropping my mother off, we would just buy enough necessities to last us the rest of the week at the grocery store by my Mom’s, then come home.

When she rejoined us, my mother offered to take us out for lunch, but we declined and explained why.

On the way to her town, the temperature gauge kept going up and up, until I finally pulled over, just in time for the alarm to start going off.  We topped up the coolant again.  We drove for a bit, but I guess we’d started too soon, and had to pull over again, this time waiting longer.

We managed to get to my mother’s place without having to pull over again.  I went in with her while my daughter topped up the coolant again.  By this point, we were almost out of coolant!  (Thank goodness we keep bottled water in the van, which we used for the mix.)

We then drove around the block to the grocery store and picked up a few things.

As we walked back to the vehicle, which was facing away from us in the parking lot, my daughter noticed the trail of drops leading to the van – and a puddle under the rear, driver’s side.

What on earth was there to be leaking like that?

Groceries in, we drove to the gas station, a few blocks away, and picked up more coolant.  Pre-mixed, this time.

As we were adding more coolant, we could see a new puddle had formed under the back.  What’s going on?

We are regulars at this gas station, and a guy that normally fills our tank saw us and came over.  I told him what was happening and pointed out the puddle.  Sweetheart that he is, he got down on the ground to take a look.

We had a broken pipe.

What?

I got down on the ground myself (which was much less painful than I expected, but then I was a bit distracted…) and took a look.

This is what we saw.

20180403_broken

I didn’t even think that there would be coolant hoses to the back.  But of course there would be.  This vehicle has heaters in the back.  I’d never had a vehicle with heaters in the back before.

So now what?  Clearly, any fluid we were putting in would be pouring right out this hose once we started driving.  Could we make it home?

We were going to give it a try.

We got just a few minutes out of town then the temperature got too high again and I pulled over.  There was no point in adding more coolant.  We weren’t going to make it home.

I called the garage, told them what was going on, and said I was going to use roadside assistance to tow the van over.

Then I called roadside assistance.

Now, usually we have CAA, but it expired and we couldn’t afford to pay for another year.  When my husband saw that our Bell cell phone account had roadside assistance available, with monthly payments of only $5, he signed my number up for it; it’s tied to my cell phone number so I have coverage with any vehicle, as long as I have my phone.

The call was a disaster.

First, English was not the guy’s native language, so he had a hard time hearing and understanding me.  I had to repeat my phone number.  Then he tried to get my name.

First, he couldn’t spell my extremely simple first name, but that’s actually not unusual.  People are always trying to change it to something else or drop what few letters it already has.  My hyphenated name, however, was a different issue completely.

When he asked for it, I told him I would spell it.  I got through the first half, then said “hyphen” and continued into the second half when he stopped me, in confusion.  I said my name out loud, saying it was a hyphenated name, then asked him how far he got on the spelling.  He had lots of letters, he told me.  Lots of them.  Then he started reading them out.

He got to the end of the first half of my name, then said “H”.  And stopped.

I tried again, this time using a lot of “B as in Bravo, D as in Delta” as I went along.  I had to tell him there was a dash in the name, because he didn’t understand hyphen.

Then he asked for my phone number.

I just gave you my phone number, I say.

I don’t have a number, he tells me.

I had to give him my cell phone number again.

Now, even before all this started, he had asked me why I needed a tow, and I told him it was because I was on the side of a highway in the middle of nowhere, bleeding coolant, and I can’t drive without killing my engine.

So at the very least, I already told him I was on a highway in the middle of nowhere.

Which made his asking what city I was in, very strange.  I told him “north of…” my mother’s town.  Which I had to spell.  Then respell, using Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, etc.

It’s a good thing I remember these from when my husband was in the military.  Because he got it totally wrong.

Then he asked if I was in a driveway or parking spot.

No.  On the side of the highway, in the middle of nowhere.

On the left or right shoulder?

What?

Which side of the road am I on?  Right or left?

That depends on what direction you’re coming from!  I’m on the East side.

I don’t know East.

?!?!?!?!?

I finally said, if you’re coming from the south, on the right.  Then I told him what highway I was on (he never asked), and between which two roads (which I had to get off of my maps app, because we weren’t actually near enough to any roads to see what the road numbers were).

During this call, I honestly wondered if he even knew what province we were in.  After we moved, we never changed our numbers.  My number has the prefix of our previous province.

Eventually, he got to the point of telling me the system said it would be an hour and a half for a tow truck to find us.

I lost it at that point, told him we’d figure something else out, and hung up.

I’m going to have a talk with Bell’s roadside assistance people.

I called the garage back.  Told them the roadside assistance was a bust.  What did they suggest?

They have their own tow truck, with an appointment at 2pm, but he could come get us right after.  It was about 1:35 at the time.  It would get to us around 3.

It would still take almost 1 1/2 hours, but at least we knew the driver would find us!  So that’s what we did.

I really appreciated that my daughter was with me.  It made the wait much more fun.

The tow truck got to us at almost exactly 3.  Then we crammed into the cab with him (the middle seat was really more for a console) and off we went to the garage.

They got the van in almost right away.  As it was being brought in, I talked to the guy at the counter, and he was telling me that they couldn’t do much, because the part still wouldn’t be in for 2 days.

No, I told him.  That’s not where the leak is.  It’s in the back.  That’s when the mechanic that had worked on our van came in and concurred; the pipe leaking in the engine was just a drip.  I showed them one of the pictures I’d taken, as the van was being driven onto the lift.  It was not at all what they were expecting to see!

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The broken pipe took less than 5 minutes to fix.

Here is the culprit.

20180403_cropped

This piece is from inside the hose, joining two lengths together.  It has clearly been corroding for some time.  It could have been something as simple as a rock hitting it for it to finally break completely.

Which means it may have been leaking slowly for quite a while, but not enough to be noticed.  Then it got worse, until it finally broke entirely, some time while we were driving today.

Just think.

This could have happened while we were on the way to the city.

Though the fix was quick, getting it going again took quite a bit longer.  Once more coolant was added, they had to get the air out of the system.

And there was a LOT of air in the system.

When the mechanic saw me watching at the door, he invited me to come over (customers are not usually allowed in the work area) and we talked as he worked, with him explaining what he was doing, as well as general conversation.

They put a funnel on an extension in place of the cap, filling it with more coolant.  With the engine running, you could see air bubbles coming up through the coolant.  As the air went out, coolant would go in, and more would be added to the funnel.  This got repeated quite a few times.

After a while, it seemed the air bubbles had stopped, but we still had no heat.  There was still air locked somewhere in the system.  Every now and then, he’d sit in the van and rev the engine for a while, and a few bubbles would come out, but still, no heat.  He would go back to the engine, then back to the cab, back and forth.

Then, while he was revving the engine, I happened to catch it; huge bubbles coming up the funnel, to the point the coolant looked like it was boiling!  Then the coolant drained into the reservoir until there was hardly any left in the funnel.

Suddenly, there was heat in the van, too.

It was done!

As they were closing things up and putting things away, they gave me one of the gallon jugs of coolant they had premixed for my van.

When it came time to pay the bill, it was just under $250 – with most of that being the cost of the tow!  They didn’t charge me for all the time spent getting the air out of the system.

As I was paying for it, I told the guy at the counter that when the parts came in, they would have to wait until the end of the month.  I’m done.  He understood.

So the status of the van is, I do still have a leak on the engine that needs to be fixed, but it’s just a drip.  I’m not going to be doing any long drives to the city, and will avoid using the van for the next while, but it’s drive-able.

No bulk grocery trip in the city this month.

Meanwhile, I’m going to have to contact my cousin.  They’re saying the water pump is loose – but that’s what my cousin replaced for me, a couple of months ago.

I knew we’d have to do a lot of work on this van.  Just not one right after the other like this!!

All of this would have happened at one point or another, even if we hadn’t moved and were still in the city.  The big difference is, if we were living in the city, we’d still be paying housing charges at the Co-op.  We would not have had the funds to do any of this work, and would have ended up without a vehicle at all.

I’m really trying to see any sort of positive in the middle of all this. :-D

Well, I guess this is going to be a very quiet – and even more frugal that usual – month for us.

Plans?  What are those?

The Re-Farmer

 

 

 

 

That’s going to hurt…

/ Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

automotive-defect-broken-car-wreck-78793.jpegWell, I’ve taken the van in this morning to get the safety inspection.

This is a bare bones inspection required in order for me to be able to transfer our license and registration to this province.  Whatever else they find, as long as I can get it fixed within 30 days, they can sign off on it as a pass.

It failed.

When the mechanic came in, his first question to me was “were you planning on keeping this vehicle?”

There are a lot of little things wrong with it.  Whoever owned it before us didn’t maintain it well.

Here we thought that buying from a dealership would save us from this hassle.  I never thought that the dealership would be the one to screw us over.  I would have been better off buying a vehicle off of LetGo.

Ah, hindsight.  It’s always perfect.

To be fair, the engine itself is sound.  If it weren’t, it wouldn’t be worth fixing.

The mechanic did find where our power steering was leaking.  Apparently, it wasn’t spotted because it’s leaking into something, and not just onto the ground.  It’s not a safety issue, though, so that can wait.

At my request, he also checked my driver’s side door to see why it’s dropping.  The bushings are worn out.  Again, not something that affects the safety inspection.

There were only two things to cause the failure.

One, is the brake light at the rear of the van.  The one that’s above the lift gate.  If it had just been a bulb, it would have been a quick fix, right then and there.

Turns out, it uses an LED light bar.  Which they didn’t have in any of their parts vehicles in stock.  Which can only be purchased new, directly from GM.  Which makes it considerably more expensive.  Also, it would need to be ordered in.

The other failure was with the ABS indicator.  The light has always been on since I’ve owned it, and the onboard computer always has a “service ABS system” warning.  So I figured there would be something, there.

It turns out the problem was with what WASN’T there.

A connector.

It turns out the connector for the relevant wiring was gone, and the wires themselves were tied off.

I had to ask.  Why would someone do something like that?

His best guess is that it had come loose and was dragging on the ground.  Rather than replace it, the person who did it just cut it off and tied off the wires, so they wouldn’t be dragging on the ground anymore.

He also mentioned in passing that he’s not impressed with these systems.  The ABS warning light is on on all his own vehicles, and it’s a common problem.

They did a quick check, and it turned out they did have a connector in stock that should fit.  I gave the go ahead to do both the light (which is when they found out it wasn’t just a bulb and couldn’t do it) and install the connector.

It didn’t work.

The connector was the right kind, all right, but the indicator lights continued to show.  He even drove it around a bit to see if it would turn off.  When they tested it, it kept coming up as erratic readings.

They found where the problems where.

On their own, the cost to get everything fixed really isn’t that bad.  All together, though, it’s going to be almost $650.

The only way we can afford that is if we go into the money set aside to fix the broken power pole.

Granted, the pole can’t be fixed until the ground thaws.  Which means sometime in May.  If we use this money, we likely won’t be able to replace it all of it until the end of May, which means the pole won’t get replaced until June.  My brother was going to get the power restored to the barn at the same time (they plan to paint it this year, and will need power for the equipment).

We don’t really have a choice.  We have to get the work done and the registration transferred.  We’re already behind on that.

*sigh*

Moving out here was supposed to be a help to our financial situation.  All these extra expenses are making it harder for us just to get caught up on extra expenses related to the move.  So it’s extra expenses on top of extra expenses.

It’ll work out in the end.  It’s just going to be a painful ride for a longer time.  Being the cynic realist that I am, all I can think of, what will happen next?  Because there’s always something, isn’t there?

Still, we have a roof over our heads, food on the table, and our basic bills are being paid.  For that, at least, I am thankful.

The Re-Farmer