dealing with vehicles

More new deer?

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Today was a chilly day, with very high winds.  There had been freezing rain the night before, so it was pretty slippery driving out to get the van’s safety inspection, with winds buffeting all the way.  Even when parked!  After they were done with the van, I sat in it for a while, updating my husband with Skype (we used to text each other all the time, but Skype uses internet, so it’ll actually get through).  The wind was rocking the van hard enough that, as I was focusing on tapping out my message, I was actually feeling some vertigo!

With the unpleasant conditions, it was no surprise that no deer came over, and for a while I thought we wouldn’t see any at all.

Then a whole bunch showed up, all at once!

At first, three came running in, with a little one in the lead.  A slightly larger one followed, while and even larger third deer hung back at the tree line.

The slightly larger one kept trying to drive away the little one, who kept coming back.  Then the bigger one by the trees went at the middle sized one.

While watching their antics, I suddenly realized I was seeing two more deer coming through the spruces, and one of them drove off the two bigger ones.

I didn’t recognize the two that got driven off.  It looks like we got some more new ones, but they didn’t have any distinguishing marks that would allow me be sure. The little one turned out to be one of the twins, and the two coming out of the spruces was Mama and the other twin.  The twins have distinctive black on their ears.

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Mama and the twins.  She’s the one with the heart shape on her forehead.

Not long after, we spotted the other two through the dining room window!  These two had cut through the spruce grove to come around a pile of pallets and whatnot that’s sitting at the edge of the trees.  Deer rarely come from that direction.  They tried to come back to the feeding station, but Mama and the twins weren’t about to let them!

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One of the twins.

Deer.  They’re so dramatic! :-D

While all that was going on, my husband and I decided we needed to get the van work done to pass safety.  We’re going to have to go into the money for the broken power pole, but what choice do we have?  Getting the new pole will just have to be pushed back.  The vehicle is the priority right now.

That decided, I called the garage to tell them to go ahead and order the parts.  Turns out that I’d called early enough that the order would go out today, and the parts should come in tomorrow.  They were able to book me for the afternoon, though I was asked to phone at noon, first, to check if the parts were in.  No point in getting any of the work done, if there is a delay in any of the parts.

It had been my intention to bake the Easter bread tomorrow.  Since I’m most likely going to be spending quite a bit of time at the garage, I decided to do it today.  This bread has such a completely different texture than our usual bread.  It’s all that eggs, butter and milk!  Then, I tried a new rye bread recipe, modified to use our rye sourdough starter.

Both came out looking awesome!

I’ll be posting the recipes separately.

We’ve also dug out our Easter baskets, and will have to use the biggest one this year.  The braided loaf I made is too long for the round one we usually use!  Even with the bigger basket, we’ll have to find some way to support it from underneath, so it doesn’t break apart.

Now that’s the kind of problem I would much rather have, instead of vehicle problems! :-D

The Re-Farmer

That’s going to hurt…

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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

Sunday Adventures in Vehicles and Bugs

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We are still on the lookout for a church in the next town, so this morning I headed out to visit a new one I’d never been to before.  I almost didn’t make it, having been up until 3 am this morning (actually 2am, but then daylight savings time happened), but it worked out.

This time I went to an evangelical “free” church.  In all my years growing up here, I had no idea it even existed, as it’s in a residential part of town I’d never gone to before.  The only reason I knew where it was was because my daughter and I had found it while playing Pokemon Go a month or so ago, and all churches are Pokestops.

I honestly don’t know what to think of it.  The church itself has no online presence, but I was able to look up what an evangelical church is, and it’s a solidly grounded non-denominational church.  Like most churches in the area, there was a small core of regular congregants.  This being a resort town, the population basically doubles in the summer, and all the churches get fuller.  People were friendly in welcoming.  They have a pastoral couple, rather than just a pastor, which was not something I’ve encountered before, though I was aware of such things.  The sermon was good, though there were a few things about the service that I found a bit strange; little throwaway comments that were intended to be humorous, but were inadvertently sexist.

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Happy Valentine’s Day!

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Hello, all, and Happy Valentine’s Day!  I hope those of you who take part in it had a wonderful day. :-)

This year, today also happens to be the first day of Lent, which we each observe in different ways.  My “fast” will be the same as the last couple of years; I am giving up Facebook for Lent.  I spend way too much time on there!  I’ve already caught myself almost going onto it when I sat at the computer (I removed the shortcut on my phone), just out of habit.  I only went on this morning to post my usual note letting people know that if they wanted to reach me, they’d have to use something other than Facebook for the next while.  And wish people Happy Valentine’s day at the same time.

We’ve never been big on Valentine’s Day.  I suppose I could always be cheesy and say that we don’t need to, because every day is Valentine’s day, but the truth is, we’re just not particularly romantic.  :-D  Very early in our relationship, I told my (future) husband that, while I enjoy things like flowers, I’m more of a kitchen appliance kind of woman. :-D  Since then, it’s expended to things like yarn and tools.  Nothing like a sweet, sweet skein of gorgeous yarn, or a set of calipers, to make my heart go pitter patter!  Still, we basically just wish each other Happy Valentine’s day, then get on with our day.  After almost 30 years of marriage, we’re pretty laid back about such things. :-D

Unfortunately, yesterday was hard on my husband, so he had to deal with the fallout from that, today. :-(

My morning still started out with some aggressive cuddles, though.

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“You weren’t planning to get up, where you?”

Our mama cat was all over me this morning, draping herself over whatever limb she could get at, and trapping me!

Her boy does the same to my daughters.

I honestly don’t know why she likes me so much.  Even when she isn’t cuddling hard, she still tries to be near me all the time.

Not that I mind, except that we haven’t been able to trim her claws for quite a long time.

It was a warm day today – about -7C when I went to feed the outside cats.  Which made it a relatively rare day when all 7 of them were out at the same time.

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My daughters were kind enough to lay out a new piece of cardboard for me yesterday, while we were gone for so long.  The first time I laid the cardboard out, the cats weren’t sure about going on it for a while, but this time, I think they were quite happy to have something a bit warmer on their toes!

It was warm enough that I stayed out after putting the deer feed and bird seed out and dug out the ice chipper.  The packed snow was starting to encroach in spots.  One of the areas I cleared was a side section of the concrete steps.  Strangely, the cats loved it.  After I moved on to the sidewalk, I looked back to see Rolando Moon rolling ecstatically on the freshly cleared concrete.  Then Beep Beep and Nasty Crime Boy took turns, all in that same section of step!  I have no idea what was attracting them to that one spot.

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“You may touch the royal paw.”

Rolando even let me pet her a bit.

A bit.

Meanwhile, my husband was able to call in some prescription refills today.  Being warmer today than it will be for a while, I was going to take advantage of it and install those new headlight bulbs before my daughter and I headed into town.

Now, I’ve changed automotive light bulbs before, but not on this vehicle.  We’ve had it for less than a year.  Our previous van was pretty straightforward.  You could just look at it and figure out how to open things up.

Not so much, this one.  After looking around and not seeing how to open up the casing, we decided to do it later.

I did get out the new gas cap and put it on, leaving the tethered old gas cap in place while I turned on the engine to see if the “check gas cap” alert still came on.

It did.

*sigh*

So it’s likely a faulty sensor.

I put the old gas cap back for now, since I want to make sure I can remove the tether without having to cut it.  I’m sure I can, but just haven’t had the time to fiddle with it.

While we drove to town, my daughter dug out the instruction manual and found the section for replacing the bulbs.  Turns out there was a pin somewhere in there that needs to be pulled out, first.  I never noticed a pin anywhere when I was looking.

She also looked up the “check gas cap” alert.  It says that when it comes on, it means that gas cap is off, so go put it back on.  (*duh!)

The gas cap is on just fine, so that’s not the problem, but it confirmed what I already thought.  I was just hoping for a bit more information for, say, why the alert would continue after ensuring the cap was on.

Once we were back from town, I started working on the headlights while my daughter took our stuff in, then shoveled her way back.  It had started to snow by then, so she shoveled the path to the burn barrel, too.  It was finally a warm, wind free enough day for a burn to be done.  It’s been quite a while since we’ve been able to do one!

While she got her workout in outside, I was able to hang up a light and see what I was doing under the hood, thanks to the 200ft of extension cords from the house to the garage.  (That was so sweet of my brother to buy those for us!)  I found the pin, which was nowhere near where I expected to be, and managed to get it out.  Then I had to loosen a bolt.

To do that, I needed a wrench.

I found a couple of very old tools hanging about, but it turns out there are pretty much no tools left in the garage at all.  There’s lot of other weird stuff, but no tools.

I’m told there used to be lots of tools, not only in the garage, but in the basement of the house, too.

Not sure what happened to them all.

Thankfully, we have our own tool kits.

After much fin-angling, I finally got the casing off and the burnt out bulb out.  That thing did NOT want to come out!  But I got it done.  The second one went much smoother!  Only partly because I knew what I was doing this time. :-D

So we now have new, brighter headlight bulbs.

I’m kinda looking forward to our next night drive after dark, now. :-)

One more thing to tick off the “to do” list.

Later on, after I got supper in the oven and the girls were outside doing the burn, I heard a loud bang.  It seemed like something hit the house!  I even felt the floor shake.  I popped my head outside to look and asked the girls about it, but they heard and saw nothing.

I still don’t know what caused the noise.  Perhaps something in the basement fell?  I don’t know.

Looking out the dining room window, though, I saw this…

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A grouse, under the bushes.

Looking at the tracks, I kinda wondered if maybe the grouse flew into the house, fell into the snow, then tucked itself under the bush to recover.

Or it’s just sitting there, taking shelter from the snow.

I’m pretty sure a grouse isn’t big enough to have made that noise, though.  I’m still wondering what it could have been.

Also, my phone camera takes terrible zoomed in shots.  At least I had one decent shot I could drop down.

Interestingly, for all the animals I saw today, including the usual birds and squirrels at the feeding station, I haven’t see a single deer.  It’s possible I just missed them, but my husband said he hadn’t seen any, either.

I won’t be surprised to find the now-buried-in-snow feed is all dug up and eaten by morning, though.

It was good to get a break from the cold, today.  We had a high of -2C by this evening.  By midnight, we’re supposed to his -21C, with a windchill of -32C.

Tomorrow, by 8am, it is supposed to be -25C, with a windchill of -39C.

Talk about a severe drop!

Tomorrow’s high of the day is supposed to be -19C, with a windchill of -28C.  We need to go into town again for doctor’s appointments in that. :-(  That’s the coldest it’s supposed to be over the next few days, at least, but we won’t see temperatures in the single digits again for another week.

I think we’re going to be staying home as much as possible for the next while!

The Re-Farmer

 

 

 

Watching Over Us

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Today was a day when we could really tell that Someone is watching over us!

This morning, my husband had an appointment to get a CT scan.  For this, we had to go to a small city that is an hour’s drive away.  The hospital is at the edge of town, though, so we didn’t have any extra driving beyond that.

He had to be there for 11:30, but with the winds the way they were, we decided to head out early, just in case.  Our route took us though another town where we stopped to fill the gas tank, then we continued on.

Through this.

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When we tell people we live in the middle of nowhere, sometimes they think we are exaggerating.

The actual temperature today was quite mild – we warmed up to about -9C at home, and even warmer (-6C) in the city we went to.  The wind chills made it feel in the -26C range, making it potentially dangerous to be out in it for two long.

There isn’t a lot of snow, yet at times the road was almost completely obliterated, except for what I could see right in front of me.  I could always tell I was in the correct lane, for example.  The wind made it more of a challenge to stay on the road than the visibility did.

But the drive went well and even with our stop for gas, we got there early.  My husband got registered into their system and sent to the appropriate area of the hospital to wait for his test.

Unfortunately, an emergency came up and all the scheduled appointments got delayed.  He got in about 45 minutes late.  I could see he was really struggling, and by the time he was called in, his shirt was wet and his face beaded with sweat from the pain. pain.scale

I saw an “improved pain scale” being shared on Facebook lately.  I liked it, but decided to make up one of my own.  It’s annoying to be asked to rate your pain on a scale of 1-10, when pain is so relative and subjective – something his previous doctor admitted was a problem.  Most pain scales I see are just smiley to sad faces, which doesn’t work.

So I came up with this version.

I’d say my husband lives in the 8-9 zone.  Seven, on a good day.  When my husband was asked to rate himself on the pain scale, my husband answered relative to how much pain he was in before, and put himself at a 5.

With the delay, I knew we would need to get some food before we headed home.  Seeing his obvious (to me, anyhow) discomfort, I did a quick search for a rare treat while he was being scanned; McDonald’s.  Yes.  It’s a treat.  It falls under the “comfort food” area.  Thankfully, there was one nearby.

When he was done, that’s where we headed.  It turned out to be inside a Walmart.  We would have preferred a drive through, but oh, well.

I tried to find a disabled parking spot for us.  This place has probably 18 of them, and they were all full!  As I was driving around to find I spot that was at least close, I ended up having a vehicle riding my bumper, enough to interfere with my ability to try and turn into any spots I found.

So I figured I’d just get away from the tailgater and go around.

Just as I accelerated, it started.

A sort of smacking/clapping noise from the engine.  Something was loose in there!

We quickly parked, shut off the engine and popped the hood, but I couldn’t see anything unusual.  Leaving it, we went inside to eat.  Once back in the van, I started it and…

… the noise was still there.

Leaving it running, I popped the hood again.  This time, I could see something at the belt smacking a hose.  Shutting off the engine, I could see a strip with a frayed end.

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I took a picture of it, then we went back into the Walmart and their garage.  Showing the picture to the guy behind the counter, he said it looked like the fan belt, and that they couldn’t do that kind of work.  There was, however, a Canadian Tire across the road, and they could do it.

Just in case, I phoned up my cousin for his advice.

One option we had was to simply cut the loose piece, then drive home and hope the rest of the belt didn’t snap along the way.

Not an option we preferred!

The other option was to drive it across the street and, hopefully, get it fixed right away.

We took option number two.

He also mentioned that he had looked at the belt when he worked on our van, and it had looked fine. :-(

At this point, we had two things going for us.  One was that it happened while we were still in town.  If we had started to drive home, rather than stopping to eat, it would have happened while we were on the highway.  Instead, it happened right near a garage.

The other thing we had going for us was funds.  We had nothing in the budget for this, but the money we got from the moving company to pay for replacing our electric pole was there.  We could use that, and replace what we used at the end of the month.  If we hadn’t got that money when we did, we would have been hooped.  Big time.

So, off to Canadian Tire we went!

Once inside, I showed the picture to the guy and talked about getting it fixed.  Unfortunately, he only had two mechanics in that day; lots of people have been calling in sick lately.  However, he had a customer to call with info about a part.  Depending on what the customer decided, they might be able to fit us in, instead of working on that person’s car.

In the end, the decision was made for the customer.  The part needed couldn’t be delivered until tomorrow morning.

Which meant they could work on our van, instead!

That was the third thing going for us.

Once in, the first thing they needed to do was a diagnostic (about $70), to make sure the belt was the only thing that needed replacing.  Depending on what caused it to break, the serpentine belt might also be at risk.

It turned out to only be the belt.

It took maybe half an hour (labour rate posted: $112 an hour) to get fixed!  Altogether, it cost quite a bit less than we were afraid it would.

The guy talked to us afterward, saying that there was a leak in there; either oil or power steering fluid.  I told him it was the power steering, but that several people have looked at it already, and couldn’t find where it was leaking.  He told us we would have to find it, because it was getting right on the belt, which corrodes it.  It’ll happen again.  Which we knew.  I’ve got to get the van saftied, anyhow, so I’m hoping the leak will finally be found.  He said that one way it could be found is if someone puts a dye into the fluid.  They would then be able to spot the leak using a blacklight.

Interesting.

Since we were there anyhow, and the fix cost less than we thought it might, we took advantage of the situation.  I needed a new headline bulb, so we got a pair of bulbs, slightly brighter than what we already had.  I didn’t want to go to the brightest, as I have no desire to blind oncoming traffic while driving at night.  I’ve had that happen to me too often, and I would never want to inflict that on anyone else.

We also picked up a new gas cap.  Just a couple of days ago, my onboard computer started showing “check gas cap” warning.  That was another thing on my list of items to replace.  I’m guessing the seal on the cap finally degraded too much.  The cold certainly isn’t helping.  If changing it doesn’t fix the problem, it’ll be another thing on the list of stuff to get it to pass safety inspection.

I just have to figure out how to remove the old gas cap, which has a tether.  The new one doesn’t.

Changing the bulbs will wait a day or two, when it warms up a bit more.

That done, we drove the hour home.

All together, we ended up being gone 6 hours, when we expected to be gone maybe 3 hours.

I made sure to drive right up to the house to drop off my husband, and he went straight to lying down. :-(

What a day.

Then, this evening, I heard a knock at the door.

Which was very disorienting.  We never get casual knocks at the door out here!

It was the electrician.  He had intended to come out this weekend to check how frozen the ground is, but never made it.  He made it today, stopping on his way home from the city.  He’d tested his drill out, and the ground is just too solid.

We’ll have to wait until things start to thaw out, then contact him again to get it done.

Which is actually kind of good, since we would not have been able to replace what we used of the funds for another two weeks.

Yet another thing that worked out in our favour.

Yes, Someone is indeed watching out for us!

The Re-Farmer

 

Today’s pictures

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I happened to be around when the deer came to visit this morning.

Hungry Girl and Barbecue showed up first.

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Then Mama and the twins came by.

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I do miss our DSLR.  Zooming in with my phone’s camera just isn’t anywhere near as good!

It’s great for indoor shots that don’t need zoom, though!

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He is such a silly boy!

I love how his little front paws are tucked into his chest.

While in town earlier, my daughter and I took advantage of the trip to swing by the grocery store.  In a parking lot full of “winter parking” (where no one even tries to park in the lines, because you can’t see them!), I actually managed to park in a legitimate parking spot.  I could see just enough of the lines though the snow.  It was farther from the store, and there was plenty of room around me.

Or so I thought.

We came out to find this.

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That’s our van to the right.

Now, being a woman of generous proportions, it’s still rare for me to not even be able to get to my door.

I also wonder how the driver of the white truck got out of their vehicle, because there is no way that door opened even half way.  My mirror would have blocked it.

My daughter had to squeeze between the vehicles, open our door, and jam herself in.

So she ended up driving home.  An opportunity to practice for her road test.

The sad thing is, the only reason the vehicle was so tightly parked was because they pulled forward from the other side.  Which means they drove through an empty parking spot, and placed themselves right next to my door.

With our previous vehicle, a Grand Caravan, we’ve had this happen a couple of times.  I was able to just go through the other door and clamber across to the driver’s seat.

With this van, the only keyhole is in the driver’s door.  We don’t have one of those keys that locks/unlocks the vehicle remotely.  The ONLY way into the van when it’s locked is through the door that got blocked.

Why do people do that?

Has this happened to you, too?

The Re-Farmer

 

Must. Hold. The Kitty!

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I have my van back!  Yay!

It was all I could do not to take a drive to the city, just because we can.

My cousin did a wonderful job.  Not only did he replace the water pump for me, but he noticed the power steering was sounding wrong, so he checked it out, too.  After topping it up (it was low again, yet he could find no sign of a leak.  I checked our garage after the van was gone and saw no signs of power steering fluid leaking, either) he got some air out of the system, which is something that might have been causing the noise it was making.

Since he had to take the belt off to work on the water pump, that’s on nice and tight now, too, so it shouldn’t be making noises anymore, either.

My engine.  She purrs.

Speaking of purrs…

My daughter and I drove my brother’s van back to his place.  He wasn’t home, so we stayed to visit his dog (who wouldn’t even sniff my hand, but did let my daughter skritch him a bit) and the outside cats that came to check us out.

Including one I’ve never seen before.

The others weren’t friendly at all, but this guy?

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All. Over. Us!

What a sweetie!

Also, apparently, out hands taste very good, because he sure liked licking them!

The Re-Farmer

 

Mundane Things

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So a few things have moved along in just the past couple of days.

I got a response from the movers, after I emailed the estimate to repair their property damage in, then asked about the $400 they said they’d send for the damage to our belongings.  The first one I read said that the claims department had already sent the money by etransfer, then let me know that my estimate was being passed on to the insurance company.

I didn’t have an etransfer, so I went checking through my spam folder to see if it was there.  It was only after I sent a response saying I didn’t get it, that it came in.

So that part is taken care of as of yesterday evening.  They’ve paid up for the damage they did to our stuff during the move.  That lets us breath a bit easier for getting our van fixed.

Which leads me to the next bit of progress.

I got a call this morning, from my brother who lives next door.  I’d called a cousin everyone has been recommending to me to fix our van.  He’s retired and said he’d come out when he was in the area – he lives in the city, but has property out here, where his shop is.  He had stopped at my brother’s for coffee and they would be popping by together to look at our van.

So when I went out to do the cats stuff, I also went to open the garage, pop the hood, plug in and hang a light, left the keys on the seat, then opened the gate.  Then I went inside and had my tea in my crochet corner, so I could see them when they drove over.

Then there was a knock at the door, and they came in to tell me the status of the van. Since I had everything already set up, they pulled over at the garage and checked the van first, and I never saw them!

It’s confirmed that the noise is from the bearings in the water pump.  My cousin says he can fix it for me – and he can even get a new pump at wholesale cost for me!  We talked for a bit and I mentioned the first noise being made by a belt in temperatures colder than -20C, but that when the other noise started, I stopped driving the van.  I’d only started the engine a couple of times.  I think he appreciated that I didn’t drive the van with that noise.  It would have worked for a while, but could have caused some much more expensive damage, eventually.  On hearing about the belt, though, they decided to go back and check it, in case it needed to be replaced.  He’ll have to take the belt off when replacing the water pump, anyhow, so that would have been the time to replace it, if it was needed.  It turns out my belt is fine, so that’s good.  When he puts it back on, he’ll be sure to make sure it isn’t loose anywhere.

So he’s going to order the part for me and will come and pick up the van to fix it, probably around Friday.

Which is SUCH good news!

It’s also going to be much cheaper.  I’d gotten the cost of the water pump, if ordered directly from GM.  Depending on how much his price turns out to be, getting him to fix the van for me will cost about as much as it would have cost me to just buy the part from GM!  Not that I would have done it that way, if I had had to buy the part myself.  I would have gone elsewhere.

Meanwhile, my brother told me to keep using his van.  That is so sweet of him!

useage.details.before.Jan.resetAnother thing on the list of things to do today; reset the data usage for my computer.  Our internet account rolled over today, so I will monitor it over the next 30 days and see if all the stuff I turned off made the difference.

I noticed, however, that my total system usage over the past 30 days had gone down.

That means that, between 30 and 38 days ago, my computer’s system alone used up about 3 gigs of data.

I will be checking my data usage often, to see if there are any sudden jumps.

The next thing on my to-do list was to call the phone company.  I had been able to use their automated system to find out what our bill was, and it told me they’d mailed it out on Jan. 15.  I never received it, and needed to call back during business hours to find out why.  I asked to have it emailed to me, and for future bills to be emailed as well.  Then I got myself transferred to the sales department, so I could pick a long distance plan.

The pdf of the bill arrived in my email before I finished the call.

I found out why I didn’t get the bill.

Despite having given them my name and mailing address, they had my name, but my mother’s mailing address.

So that explains why my mother called me a while back, thinking she was going to be charged with my phone bill!  She must have opened it, not even noticing it had my name on it, instead of hers.

So that is now fixed; confirming my mailing address was one of the things done when I called.

As the hours passed, the winds and snow continued.  We had intended to go into the city to do our big, monthly shopping trip with our own vehicle, but since that won’t happen until the weekend, my daughter and I decided to go to the next town and get some groceries to tide us over; we’re still okay, but at that stage where we’re running out of enough things to be inconvenient.  Which would have been fine if we were going to the city tomorrow, when the pay comes in, but not so fine for several more days.

I also wanted to get it done while the roads were still clear enough to drive on.

The drive was certainly interesting!  The open road between our little hamlet and the next down over runs East/West.  The wind was coming from the south.  There are a few places where there is nothing to cut the wind at all.  It wasn’t too bad, but we definitely got buffeted a fair bit!

But it was done, and we’re good for a while, even if for some reason the van ends up taking longer to get fixed.

The wind can blow and the snow can fall.  We are safe and warm and well supplied.

I must admit, though, I can hardly wait to be able to drive our van again.  We avoided using my brother’s van as much as possible.  Once our own wheels are up and running again, we will be making quite a few more outings.  Especially to the city, so my husband can visit his father.  And with the money from the movers, I’ll be able to get the vehicle registration and our licenses transferred faster, too!

It’s going to be good.

The Re-Farmer

People Visit

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We get lots of critter visitors.  Yesterday, we got a people visit!

My oldest brother came by briefly.  Being the sweetheart that he is, he brought along his mechanics stethoscope, and we checked out our van.  The first thing we did was check the coolant.  This was not an easy job, as the radiator cap on our vehicle is off to the side and under a hose.

We also discovered that I am very low on coolant.

I had the vehicle serviced before we drove out here.  I should not have been low on coolant.  Which means I likely have a leak somewhere.  I have never seen signs of a leak under the vehicle, but it’s possible that any leak was happening only while I was driving, after the engine was warm enough for the coolant to expand into the overflow chamber.

He got as much as he could into the tester, and as best as we can make out, our coolant has enough anti-freeze to handle temperatures down to about -22C to -25C.  Without being able to fill the tester fully, however, we can’t say that definitively.

We’ve been hitting temperatures of lower than -30C.  Wind chills brought us to the -40C, but we didn’t drive in that, and the van was in the garage, so it was protected from the elements, at least.

Then we fired it up and waited until the noise started, which took about a minute.  Using his stethoscope, we were able to pinpoint the source as the water pump.  Likely a bearing.  And yes, the cold could have caused this damage, with our coolant as low as it was.

On the plus side, if the water pump needs to be replaced, the part itself is not that expensive.  Labour, on the other hand, could easily be much more.  It all depends on how hard it is to get into there.  It could cost anywhere from $300-$400 to fix.

Also on the plus side, when funds come in, we should actually have room in the budget for that.  It’s do-able.  As long as it doesn’t end up costing  more. :-(  Meanwhile, we will continue to NOT use our van, because driving it would likely cause more damage.

It’s a good thing we don’t need to go anywhere.  And my other brother has told us to just leave his van at our place for now.

That done, my older brother’s next task was to salvage the parts he’d put into the old hot water tank.  He’d spent quite a bit of money on that thing, and the parts are still good, so anything that can be salvaged will be useful.

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The first thing he did was take out the bottom thermostat and remove the new heating band he’d installed at the bottom.

This photo shows that heating band.  It had been in pristine condition when he put it in, but in the short time it was there, it got this corroded!

You can see an the bottom of the photo, what he’d used to McGyver the band in place, when it turned out to be too short.

That was one heck of a job.  And it did work, for a short time.  It was the last thing to try.  Once that failed, there was nothing left to do.

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In the next picture, you can see the top thermometer he’s about to remove.

The tank itself got dented up (you can see that a bit at the top left of the second photo) when the plumber dropped it down to drain into the sump pump reservoir.  There were more dents all in a line.  The bottom of the tank had started to rust quite a bit in one patch.  It was weakened enough that the entire bottom had started to come loose!

That thing was way overdue for replacement.

Getting it out of the basement is going to be one heck of a job!

The visit also gave us the opportunity to talk about the house in general, and some of the work he’d done over the years, from what he had to do to get the pump to the septic tank working a few years back (you can see part of it in the background of the top photo), to fixing doors and the like.  He even brought printouts of the historical data for the electric bills for this place!  This will help me with budgeting a bit.  Our usage is, of course, going to be higher, since the house was empty during the time period in the printouts.  However, this was before the new windows were installed, so it would have been bleeding heat in the winter like crazy.  I’d hate to think how much our current bill would have been if the old windows were still in!  Hopefully, over the next while, we’ll be able to continue improvements to make the house more energy efficient.

Little by little, we’ll figure it out.

The Re-Farmer

Some updates

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So, in between unpacking and rearranging, cooking with sourdough, feeding the critters outside and taking pictures of our deer visitor, other things have been going on.

First update: I did get an email back about our claim to the moving company.

Actually, I got two.

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