challenges

More moving causalities…

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My older daughter is an artist.  For years, she sold her paintings at art festivals and the like.  These days, she’s focusing more on her online work.

Among the things we left for the movers to pack was her art.  We figured that professional movers would have access to the sorts of boxes and wrapping materials we couldn’t find at the local Home Depot.

As our stuff was being unloaded, I got my first warning that things were amiss when I picked up what I at first though was part of a dismantled piece of furniture, and it turned out to be a blank canvas.

Just the canvas.

It wasn’t wrapped in any way.  When I picked it up, I could see dirty fingermarks from any number of people who picked it up and moved it.

As the girls have been unpacking their boxes upstairs, my daughter found some of her watercolours…

painting.damage.1painting.damage.2painting.damage.3

There is another box of her stuff downstairs that we have to get at.  It’s been opened and her portfolio sleeve was folded up in it.

I’m afraid to look at see what else in there was damaged.

The Re-farmer

Casualty of the Move?

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Well, after many attempts, it looks like we have a confirmed casualty of the move.

My husband’s desktop computer.

It came with us in the van, in the same box as my own.  We hooked mine up to the TV because it is newer and could connect to the Bluetooth keyboard.  As my daughter moved her system upstairs, he borrowed her keyboard and tried his.

It won’t even start up. It turns on, then just spins. It never gets past the point where the logo first appears.

Several more attempts have been made.  We even found the box with the keyboards and monitor stands.

Nothing.

We are unsure of the cause.  It was working fine before we packed it.

This really sucks.

Meanwhile, I need to put a priority on setting up my office and inventory.  I need to print out a shipping label and mail off a purchase.

The Re-farmer

Insane

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The delivery of our stuff was simply insane.  I am not up to detailing it, so here are the highlights.

  • They had a hard time with finding us on a map, despite my directions. It’s actually very straightforward, but we are quite isolated.  I did tell them, we are in the bush.
  • They came with a full size semi trailer.  After stopping on the road and walking in, I told them they could go into the yard.  They would have broken tree branches, but I told them that was okay.  If they went into the yard, they potentially could have had a ramp right into our front door for an easy offload. They said they would look around and decide.
  • They decided to go in front of the yard, by the small people gate, and that’s where they started pulling up, with spotters.
  • While driving in, they hit the power line to the garage.  They broke the power pole by the garage, which is now leaning of the roof. The line got hung up on the truck.
  • The driver blamed me for not telling him about the power line.  It was dark, but we have a yard light. The light is on the main power pole, which means the lines to the garage and house were in the light.  By driving to the small gate instead of the yard, they drove under the lowest point of the line.
  • Unhooked, the only thing keeping the line off the ground was tree branches.
  • They got stuck in a few inches of snow.
  • The driver yelled at me because it way my fault, and he had been doing me a favour by coming out in the dark.
  • Later, he came in and talked at my husband, demanding we call a tow truck, on our dime. If we didn’t, he said he would leave with our stuff.  My husband refused.
  • After more than an hour, they started unloading. They called a tow truck. The driver ended up helping unload.
  • We called Hydro. A guy came and cut electricity to the line and took it down. The pole is not theirs, so it is up to our end to get it repaired.
  • Between the girls and I, the movers and the tow truck driver, there was 7 of us working on it.  The girls did much hauling of things upstairs.
  • They were finally done around 11pm. They got here at about 7pm.
  • The driver apologized.
  • It took them about another half hour to get out of our driveway.
  • The house is in chaos. But we slept on our own mattresses.

This is what the master bedroom looked like.  There was space on the floor for the mattress and that’s about it.

But our stuff is in.

Finally.

The Re-farmer

Timing

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My older daughter just shared this with me.

She and her sister were sitting on the bed, talking about how, with the movers coming and lots of work to do to prepare, there would be no time to heat enough water to take a bath.  It would be sponge baths again. My younger daughter was not too thrilled with the idea.

My older daughter then commented that at least, tonight, her sister would be sleeping in her own…

KA-KLUNK!!!!!

The bed collapsed under her.


The timing could not have been more perfect. If uncomfortable!

It looks like the box spring slipped off the frame.  Which was a problem I had with the bed when I came out for my father’s funeral, a year and a half ago.  It collapsed when I rolled over at about 2am.

Meanwhile, we have changed some plans.

After consulting with my brother about the noise the alternator is making, we do not want to risk a trip to The City today.  It’s one thing to be driving 15-20 minutes to the next town. Quite another to be on a highway for an hour.

So instead, they will be driving to town and transferring his file from the Costco pharmacy in The City.  We were not happy with them, and their confusion over my husband’s medications and insurance, as it was. It will be more expensive, but the trade off makes it more practical. And safer to drive.

After we get paid at the end of the month, we will get the alternator checked.  How much it will cost to fix will depend on if we can get used parts. We are not knowledgeable enough to go to the wreckers and find the parts ourselves. New, we are probably looking at anywhere from $260-$390.

That’s on top of paying my mom back the $300+ for the Hydro (electricity) bill.

The hot water tank will have to wait. I hope those replacement bands my brother ordered will work!

Damn. Does this mean we will have to cancel our Christmas dinner trip to The City next weekend?

The Re-farmer

Energy.

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So much work to do.  So little time to do it.  I am so close to finishing things in the master bedroom. Unfortunately, I’m at that stage where the only things left are weird sizes and shapes, and I don’t know how to pack them.  I am running out of energy so quickly, now, and there is no end in sight. First, there was weeks of sorting and packing our old place. Now, weeks of packing the stuff here. Then our own stuff will get here, and we will have to unpack that.

My energy levels are dropping fast.

Speaking of energy…

My mom never transferred the electric bill to us, so she got the bill for the month my husband and daughter were here (the meter readings go in mid-month). It went from over $60 to keep an empty house from freezing, to over $300.

With all four of us, the next bill will probably be higher. At least for the winter.

It’s transferred over to our name, now. We want to pay my mom back, of course. That might delay getting a new hot water tank, though. My brother found what may be the last two bands in the country, if not the continent, and ordered them.  Hopefully, replacing them will work. It will not be easy. The old bands will need to be slid out, then the new ones pushed around the inner tank, all through the panel openings.

Here’s hoping that does the trick.

Meanwhile, my husband has been looking up solar. It’s available through the power company, so it gets paid for with the energy bill.  It’s a grid tie in system, so excess energy produced in the summer, for example, goes back to the grid and we would credited for it. Theoretically, if we get a big enough system, and a sunny location (not the roof, as it slopes the wrong way), we would consistently generate more than we need, and our electricity bills would just be paying off the system, or slightly more.

The catch. It has to be done by the home owner.  Which is my mom. We would need het permission to do it.

But that is to look into more in the future.

Now I need to find the energy to get back to packing.

The Re-farmer

Unexpected problems

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The hard work the girls have done to pain the upstairs has hit an unexpected snag.

And it’s because of our lack of hot water.

At least partly.

This house was very, very dry.  Suck the moisture out of your flesh, skin cracking, dry.

Then the hot water tank died.

Continue reading →

The Saga of the Movers

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I have sort of set up my desktop right now.  It is hooked up to the TV for a monitor, and I am using the tiny Bluetooth keyboard.  It’s difficult to type on, compared to my lovely, ergonomic keyboard, but better than tapping on my phone, so I will finally attempt to pass on the ongoing debacle with our movers.

Why, you may ask, do I have this strange set up for my computer? Continue reading →

Stocked Up

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We managed to all make the trip into The City today.  Unfortunately, my husband misunderstood our breaker issues and didn’t realize it wasn’t on anymore. He showered. The water got so cold, it was painful.

Growing up in the house, I remember before the New Part was built, and we had no running water.  So I can at least appreciate we don’t have to haul water from the pump shack every day.  We can easily, if inconveniently, heat water for bathing.  Theoretically, we can go to my brother’s place. He has generously offered the use of his shower. None of us are quite ready to travel the quarter mile to infringe on him, though.  It would be too difficult for my husband, anyhow. Especially since he has not been able to fill one of his prescriptions for pain meds.  There has been a screw up on his insurance and until it gets fixed, we can’t afford it.  This makes any outing, like today’s, incredibly difficult.  But he got to see his dad.  So he was willing.  He just stayed in the van for the rest of the trip.

The girls bought their paint and supplies for the upstairs.  Some more hauling, patching and scrubbing the walls, and they are ready to go.

We got a Costco trip in, too, so we are stocked up for the next while.  I even got more filters for the fish tank. They will last long enough for our 90 gallon tank to get here.  During packing, a part of the big filter’s hose assembly broke, so we won’t be able to set it up completely until I find someplace that stocks the brand.

After discussion, we have decided we can be ready enough to have our stuff delivered by around the eighth.  Originally, we were thinking the eleventh or so.  However, we really need our stuff.  One pot cooking and having only one useable kitchen knife – barely – is getting a bit much. Plus, it will be nice to have the rest of our clothing. And our own beds!  I’ve been sleeping on the couch lately. My husband is spasming and twitching from pain so much in his sleep, he needs the whole bed.

Meanwhile, I just have to share another cat picture.  I fed the outside cars before we left, and they did this.

For some reason, they all crowded around the one bowl and ignored the other. Lol

Now that we have internet, I am going to try and share some video I took in another post. Uploads on satellite are notoriously slow, so if you don’t see the video post, that’s because it failed! 😅

The Re-farmer

This is getting ridiculous

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We had hot water today.  We did.  All day.

When I went to wash up before bed, it was ice cold. So I checked the new breaker.  It was tripped.

I went to flip it on again, there was a huge spark in the panel, and it immediately tripped again.

I left it.

Damn.

The Re-farmer

We have Internet!

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I am now posting this using our new internet connection!

The top speed is supposed to be 10mbps, but the guy says average is 6-8mbps. My husband has a speed tested on his phone.

He was getting 14.

Yay!

We still need to be careful, as our plan maxes out at 100g of data per month. So no World of Warcraft. But my daughter will be able to upload her art.

Now we can reduce the extremely expensive data plan on our phones that we were using to connect with (only my husband’s LG phone got a strong enough connection for the WiFi hot spot).

No more waving our phones around in the corner of the living room, trying to get a signal.

I’m so excited! Finally!!!

The Re-farmer