hiring movers was supposed to be better not worse

Uncovered

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We made our trip to the dump today; there wasn’t much but this time I remembered to bring along some electronics garbage.  A final goodbye to my husband’s dead computer!

With how warm it’s been and all the melt, our driveway is slowly being revealed.  At least where the snow had been cleared.  Which meant that some things are being uncovered.

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Like the marks left behind by the movers when they got stuck in our driveway.  Amazing how far into the ground they spun their tires, trying to get out.

I wonder if we’ll be able to get the old gravel pit uncovered again.  We could use some fresh gravel on that driveway, but I want to at least be able to repair the damage done.  Mind you, that would require having the equipment to dig up the gravel, load it and haul it, and I believe all that is at my younger brother’s place right now.

We’re going to need to pick up some rubber boots soon, so we can look farther around the outbuildings.  Not enough snow and too warm to warrant using the big snow boots, but too snowy and muddy for our usual runners.  I’ve seen some rubber boots in the basement, but no one is willing to use them.  No idea how long they’ve been there, or what’s living in them. :-D

It’s that messy time of year!

The Re-Farmer

Catching Up

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I spent almost no time at all at the desktop, so I only managed to upload the one video from my phone, yesterday.  Alas, I was only able to get a couple of cat pictures at our feeding station with the Nikon before it died again, but I did get some other photos on my phone.  I wasn’t able to process any until today, though.  So I’ll just catch up now. :-)

The big news is that the moving company paid up!  We are now DONE with them!  I’ve sent off an email to the electrician we got the quote from to start arrangements.  I don’t know how often he checks his email, though, so I’ll follow up with a phone call today.  Even if it can’t be done until the spring, we have the money for it now, which is SUCH a relief.

It was another thoroughly entertaining day at the feeding station again.  It started out with Hungry Girl and Barbecue enthusiastically running over, Hungry Girl in the lead.

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It makes me happy to see her increased energy.  I like to think that the food that we are leaving out, in a safe location, is helping her get healthier.  I still wonder about the relationship between her and Barbecue, and why they are pretty much always together, even when Barbecue keeps striking at her with his hooves to drive her off.  At least now, she mostly just moves to another pile of feed.  Another thing I’m glad we started to do – put the feed out in many small piles, instead of one big pile.  Hungry Girl seems to be more comfortable going to the ones closer to the house than Barbecue.

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The next time I saw major activity out there was when there where 5 cats in the feed!  Then I saw 3 of them were after a mouse and was able to get the video I posted yesterday.  There have been a few times when I’ve seen one of the cats bringing a tiny vole with it when I put their food out, or the remains of one by the food bowls outside, but this is the first time I’ve seen them go after something as big as that mouse.

Eventually, only The Hand kept after the mouse.  As I worked in my crochet corner, I could see her sitting there, then start batting at something in the snow.  Then I would see the mouse moving around a bit.  It seemed to figure out that if it didn’t move, The Hand would leave it alone longer.  At one point, I thought she was sitting right on it.  At another, I saw her suddenly leap into the air, clearly having been bit by the mouse.

Then Mama and the twins came by.

As you can see in the photo with the cats, there wasn’t much food left for them by then.  It took them quite a long time to get to it at all, though.

It was a standoff!

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(I look forward to when it’s warm enough to properly clean the windows on the outside!)

The Hand is the cat closest to the trees on the right.  I can’t tell if that’s Butterscotch or Beep Beep beside her.

The deer were all nervous about the cats, stamping their hooves into the ground and throwing their heads.

The cats?

Not the least bit intimidated.

Eventually, only The Hand was there, playing around with the poor mouse, completely ignoring the deer.  Mama and the twins eventually worked their way around to the feed, but it took them quite a long time.  They didn’t stay long.  After a while, The Hand got tired of the mouse and left, then Trüllbus took over, eventually finally eating the poor mouse.

It was quite the thing to watch while I worked.  I FINALLY finished off a double ended crochet potholder I was making.  The stitch I was using makes for a very thick fabric, but it also, unfortunately, stresses the hand and causes pain in the palm under the thumb.  I found I had to set it aside for days at a time.  I regularly do the recommended stretches and exercises to prevent injury (yes!  There is such a thing as crochet injuries!), but sometimes, the only thing that can be done is to put it away.

Among the other things that got accomplished yesterday was to drop our van off at my cousin’s, so he can work on it today.   I look forward to hearing from him soon!  It felt SO good to be driving my own van again, even with the noise the engine was making.

Then I found out my daughters were planning on going into the next town to see The Last Jedi.  The nearest town has a 1 screen theatre, and only 1 showing a night.  Most smaller towns that have movie theatres are basically second run, but this town is considered a resort town, so the owner (someone my husband and I graduated high school with) is able to pick first run movies.

I had wanted to see the new Star Wars movie, too, so I invited myself along.  Unfortunately, my husband’s pain levels were too high for him to join us, too. :-(

We left early, so we could take advantage of the trip into town and run some errands.  My younger daughter and I ran into the grocery store, where I ran into an old friend.  It was funny to hear her describe it to her sister.

“We were walking along when this guy reached out and touched Mom on the shoulder.  I thought it was weird, but then Mom hugged him, so I figured it was okay.” :-D

It was really good to see him again, and I finally got to meet his girlfriend in person, too.  Funny how you can be friends with someone on Facebook for years, without ever meeting them face to face.  Then, when you finally do, it doesn’t feel like meeting a stranger at all.

It turned out to be a really good thing I’d come along for the movie, though.  For all our searched online, we couldn’t find out what the admission cost was (turned out to be $10), but when we got to the ticket booth (with my old Math and Law teacher behind the glass!), we discovered they didn’t take debit.  Cash only!  Which, thankfully, I had, since I’d gotten cash to pay my cousin for the new water pump he’s going to install for me.

Somehow, I thought they wouldn’t have at least gotten a debit machine after all these years!

The movie was quite enjoyable.  It’s our first moving outing since well before the move.

A nice end to the day.

As for today, I’m mostly waiting on word from my cousin to pick up our van.  I should probably move my phone to someplace where I can get some signal, in case he chooses to text me again.

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Meanwhile, we’ve already had a very enthusiastic visit from Hungry Girl and Barbecue again.  We also got a visit from a woodpecker!  A “hairy woodpecker”, I believe the variety is called. No chance of a photo, though.  They’re not attracted to seeds, so it was quite a surprise to see one at one of the piles, even if it was for just a few seconds.

Hmm.  I wonder if Mama and the twins will be back again today?

The Re-Farmer

Old and New

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One of the areas I had on my list to tackle today was my desk.

Yes, the desk I’ve been using for a while now.

I’d emptied the drawers and packed away the contents that used to belong to my dad, but that was as far as it got.  Today, I was going to clean them out, so that I could start unpacking some things into them.

Oh, dear. Continue reading →

Estimate In

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I received the estimate, last night, for replacing our power pole and hooking electricity back up to the garage.

The total, including taxes, is $1500.25

Which is actually lower than my brother had expected. He thought the labour, alone, would cost about $1500.

It also includes delivery of the pole.  My SIL, who works for the electric company, had looked into getting it done through a contact she had.  It would have been a bit cheaper, except they would have had to pick the pole up and deliver it themselves (even if our van was repaired, we don’t have a trailer hitch, so we couldn’t do it ourselves).  And to do that, they would have had to go to a town about half an hour north of us.  So it would have been about two hours drive for them, just to get it.  Then they’d have had to load it up themselves, haul it here, unload it, then drive the 1 1/2 hours back home.

Paying to have it delivered is the much better choice!

Once I had the estimate, I responded to the movers.  With the cost being above their deductible, it means I will be dealing with their insurance company.  Which I hope will be more professional than the moving company.

I also sent an email to my lawyer, updating him.  If all goes well, that will be then end of that, with him.

My email to the movers also asked about the status of the $400 they said they’d pay me for our damaged belongings.

We shall see how that works out.

The Re-Farmer

The Continuing Stoooooorry…

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I finally have more progress on our saga with the movers.

A few days ago, I spent some time talking with a lawyer about our options.  One of the things he mentioned was that, usually one would start an insurance claim, then let the insurance companies duke it out.  The lawyer can send a letter to the moving company for me about it, if the moving company continues to give me grief about it.  How the company responds to that would determine our next move.

Hopefully, we will never have to find out.

Making a claim on my mother’s property insurance was not really preferable.  The deductible is a thousand dollars, so if the cost of replacing the pole is close to that, it’s almost not worth it.  However, my brother thought to contact our provincial vehicle insurance company, since the damage was done by a vehicle.  They said that yes, they do cover that sort of thing, so I called and started a claim. I spent some time talking to someone on the phone, then got an email address to send photos to.

As I prepared to send the email, I got an email from the moving company.  This after 10 days of nothing from them at all.

It was pretty short.  Basically, they wanted to know if I’d gotten an estimate on how much it would cost; if it was under $1000, they would cut me a check for it.  If it was over $1000 (the amount of their deductible), they would give me the information for their insurance company, and I would file a claim there.  (I’m paraphrasing a fair bit, since English is clearly not the first language of the person writing to me.)

Which really, the movers should be doing, not me.  Except I think I’d rather deal with the insurance company than with the movers.

No word on the money they said they would pay for our damaged goods a while back, which is a separate issue from property damage.

So I included their email with my email to the vehicle insurance company.  I was told it could take 2 or 3 days before I got a response, but I got one the next day.  Turns out that, because no vehicles registered in this province was involved, it’s out of their jurisdiction.  We would have to deal with the driver’s vehicle insurance company.  And I have no way of knowing who that is, since in the province we moved from, it’s private insurance companies, not one provincial insurance company.

So after I got that response, I got a phone number of a local electrician.  Someone I went to high school with, actually.  He’s a year or two younger than me, but we took the same bus to school for many years.  He has done work here on the farm for my brother before, and was highly recommended.  Since he works in the city, I was given his home phone number, and I left a message for him there.  Much to my surprise, not only did I get a call soon after (my timing was good, I guess; he came home from work shortly after my call), but he said he could come over right away!

He spent a fair bit of time checking things out, including making sure there was no damage to the cable itself.  I will get an estimate from him emailed to me, and I’m pretty sure it’ll be over $1000, so it looks like I’ll be dealing with the insurance company.

One of the things he mentioned was that he likely wouldn’t be able to install a new pole until spring.  The electric company has access to the machinery that can drill into frozen ground, but he doesn’t.  It’s unlikely the electric company would be willing to come out for a customer owned pole to begin with – and we’d have to prune those trees for them to get into the yard!

Pruning is something that’s going to have to be a bit of a priority, it looks like!  I’d like to get that done while the trees are still dormant, so February would be good.  By March, it might be too late.  Hard to know.  We might have a late spring.  Or an early one.

Anyhow, that’s where we are at now.  I will wait on the estimate, then go from there – and will ask about the coverage for damage to our goods in the process.  I’ll update my lawyer about how things are going, too.

What a long and convoluted process this is!

All because no one bothered to look up.

The Re-Farmer

A What?

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Earlier today, I noticed our piano bench still had the sticker from the movers on it.  So I got the number and looked it up on the sheets.

It was number 082: Char . Taibls

Or is it Chav . Taihls?

(hav . Taihls?

I remember looking at that and wondering what on earth it could be.  I would never have guessed it meant the piano bench.

The Re-Farmer

Trying to Decipher

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We’ve made a lot of progress with unpacking.  Yes, I still have stacks of boxes behind me as I type this, but just about everything else is unpacked, or at least partly unpacked.

I even managed to repair my dad’s bedside shelf, which I am now using.  This allowed me to move the large-ish end table I had on my side of the bed over to my husband’s side, so we could put his tiny fridge on it (for his medication), get his CPAP machine off the floor and have a place to tuck away his bottles of distilled water for the CPAP humidifier.

We still haven’t been able to find some of the girls’ things.  There was some stuff in their third floor bathroom that was in a bag we can’t find, and some movies that were on another floor, so they shouldn’t have ended up in the same box.  Also, we found other stuff from their  bathroom, so those items should have been there, too.

While my brother and I were at our van yesterday, checking on the engine, I remembered to go into the glove compartment and get the paperwork from the movers that was in there.  On moving day, I barely had time to skim over them as I signed them, and just shoved them into the glove compartment as we were leaving.

Today, I finally had a chance to sit down and look at them closely, to try and figure out what happened to the girls’ stuff.

I still have no clue.  The sheets tell me next to nothing useful.

This is so frustrating.

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As near as I can figure out, the above photo is mostly third floor stuff, but also second floor stuff.  Maybe.

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While this one is of second and third floor stuff.  The information I was looking for should have been on these two pages.  I can barely decipher it at all.

All over the place I see the word “mettals.”  I think it’s supposed to be “metal”.  But metal what?

“Matters”, I’ve figured out, means “mattress.”  “Pichers” are “pictures,” and likely refers to both pictures from the walls and my daughter’s paintings.  Then there are the shalfes, pellows, pillasstic taibls, hendels, wood and even anberallas.

I’m guessing shelves, pillows, plastic tables (I am guessing our collapsible tables, including the folding one they didn’t fold), handles (???), wood (my daughter’s easel?) and umbrella.

The other pages are no better.

There is 4 pages of this, each with two columns.  The first page was mostly
marked boxes and bins.  According to the sheets, including the piano, we had 234 items.  Some of those items were things like a bundle with our mop, broom, window cleaner and snow shovels, taped together.  The piano bench had its own number sticker, but I don’t see anything that even remotely looks like it could be “bench”.

When he brought the sheets for me to sign, he’d made a comment about how we had “a lot of stuff.”  You wouldn’t know it, from what’s on these sheets!  According to them, we just have a lot of mettal and shalfes.

In the end, though, there is no way of knowing what box they packed the girls’ stuff that’s missing into.  It looks like they not only marked the boxes and bins we packed ourselves as just “box” or “bin,” but also boxes they packed have no listing of their contents.

Which is something I was told they do, when I was arranging all this.

These sheets are useless.

As part of the contract, the client is supposed to use these sheets to make sure everything gets to its destination.  Given the circumstances of the delivery of our stuff, that was impossible.  Even if we’d managed to unpack everything with 10 days and could say for sure there was stuff missing, there would have been no way to say which item numbers weren’t accounted for.

What a mess.

Meanwhile, I still haven’t heard back about my claim, when I responded by saying I expected them to repair the damage their driver did, on top of the basic liability for items damaged.

The Re-Farmer

Legal Options

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Some time ago, I signed up with a program for access to legal assistance.  I think there are a few of these companies.  Basically, you pay a monthly fee for membership, and it gives you access to a law firm, where you can get certain services covered by the membership, while others services are provided at discounted rates.

This has come in handy over the years, as I’ve sought advice for when my family and I were being threatened and harassed by someone we had made the mistake of trying to help, and had to deal with restraining orders and courts.  It came in handy when the dealership screwed us over with our van, and I sought advice.  It came in handy when things were getting worse and worse at the co-op we lived in, when I started getting threats from our board at the time, and an employee.  The membership fee has more than paid for itself.

Now that we are in another province, we will have access to a firm in The City.  With the situation with the movers, and still no response in regards to them fixing the damage the driver did to our power pole, I called them this morning.  For an initial call, information is gathered, then passed on to a lawyer, then the lawyer calls back within 8 business hours.

The funny thing?

The moving company is based in the city we moved away from.  Which means the notes for my call will be sent to the firm in that city to discuss my concerns.

So even though I’m now in another province, I’ll be dealing with the same firm I dealt with before the move!

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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