Pulling the ripcord. Major life change

Hello, Oscar!

Nice puppy.

What's the wildfire situation and smoke like where you are?  Doesn't seem to be a problem from your pics.  

In reply to Scotty Con Queso :

We've had smoke blow in a few times but otherwise it's been fine. No fires here.

Super impressed with Oscar.

I took him with me to check the garden and he stayed by my side the whole time without a leash. So I decided to take him around the yard site and show him where I wanted him to stop.

Took him down to meet the horses. He grumbled at them a little but stopped when I told him "no".

He and the mini sniffed each other until they scared themselves.

He's tired now after such a big morning. 

Sorry for no updates, life has been crazy busy.

Oscar is growing fast and turning out to be a very smart dog who is very eager to please.

The garden has been doing well, sold out of peas, beans and carrots. Zucchini, cucumbers, tomatillos and tomatoes are selling well now. We have another crop of beans, peas and carrots on the way. Corn is almost ready.

Radishes, cabbage, broccoli and brussels sprouts are a lost cause because of bugs. Any brassica family plant is doing horrible because of them. Not much I can do about it either.

Lettuce and spinach are a waste of time out here, nobody buys salad.

Garlic has done very poorly because I couldn't get the ground tilled well enough last year but we will be able to harvest enough to plant again next year.

Water line to the barn is nearly done. I've trenched it all the way to the building, just need to trench inside now.

Chickens are big now, the hens should start laying in the next couple of months.

I'm changing plans for my shop. I'm going to finish and insulate the 24 x 24 shop that was built inside the quonset and put a proper set of doors on it so I can heat it to just above zero in winter to keep my tools from rusting. I'm going to buy a set of quickjacks so I can maintenance my own vehicles in there and do a bit of side work. No big jobs that will half kill me anymore.

The long hours and stress have been letting my depression come back a bit, been fighting with the wife over stupid crap. Need to get my head straight.

That's all for now.

In reply to ShawnG :

Glad to see this back up at the top.

In reply to Stampie :

Thanks!

Roasted Yukon Gold potatoes, fresh from the garden.

Oscar, napping after a busy day being a greeter at the farmer's market.

Good to hear you're having success with some of the crops. You're learning so much this year, about what to grow as well as how to grow it. you'll certainly have greater success next year. Sorry to hear about the personal stuff. Hopefully you're learning there as well, and better times are just around the corner.

Glad to see this back on the top! 

Glad to see this back on top and that y'all are having good luck at the farmers markets. I'm not sure what your insecticide policy is but I've struggled with brassicas in the past too and finally having success this year with a couple of organic insecticides. I've been using BT and Spinasad in either a mixture or a rotation for the cabbage worms and other pests. We finally have kale without worm holes and just harvested our first head of broccoli in the 3 years we've been trying to grow it. 

In reply to RacetruckRon :

We're trying to avoid insecticide as much as possible but BT might be OK. I'm also worried about collateral damage for our bees.

We're going to double down on potatoes, carrots, beets, peas, beans, tomatoes and cucumbers next year as those have been what people seem to want the most.

Probably going to build some low tunnels to add a couple weeks on each end of our season too.

In reply to ShawnG :

Completely understand avoiding that stuff for the bees. My understanding is the BT is  ingested by the cabbage butterfly caterpillars when they eat leaves that have been sprayed and kills them that way and generally safe to the other insects. I only spray the spinasad at dusk on calm nights to limit damage to our local pollinators. 

In reply to RacetruckRon :

I thought so too.

Our brassica problem is from flea beetles and from what I understand, BT only works on caterpillars. 

The flea beetles destroy the foliage. They love canola, which is a relative of mustard, which is a brassica. When the farmers spray their canola, the bugs move here.

We've got enough demand for all the other veg that the added cost of pest control isn't worth it when it comes to brassica.

Given how fast I sold out, I could probably earn a living from carrots out here.

Been a crazy busy month so not much time to update, sorry.

The garden has pretty much shut down now. I have to bring the last of the pumpkins in this week and I still have some beets and carrots to come out.

I can't sell purple skinned potatoes, no matter how good they taste.

Our corn sold out in two days and I've had people asking for more so I broke ground on another half acre plot so we can put in more corn. Not to toot my own horn but we grew the sweetest corn I've ever eaten. 

I've planted more garlic this year, about 750 cloves. We're using a plastic mulch to keep the weeds down this time.

We planted more tulips and daffodils as well. All our bulbs froze last winter because I put them in raised beds so the cold got at them from all sides. This time they're in the ground and will be mulched heavily.

Neighbors found out what we were doing and sold us a bunch of greenhouse and irrigation equipment for pennies on the dollar.

We planted some windbreak trees along the driveway to help keep control the snow a bit. Going to be about 10 years before they do any good though.

The property came with an old chisel plow in the back 40. It's about 12' wide and has 16 shanks on it. The hydraulics were missing from it so I used my farm jack in place of the cylinder, ratcheted it up out of the ground and dragged it to the yard.

I've been told it takes about 10hp per shank to pull this thing and the old-timers used a D9 Caterpillar to pull them. I've figured out that I can put three-point mounts on it, remove the wheels, cut it down to about 6' wide, take some shanks off, swap the chisel points out for cultivator sweeps and turn it into a row cultivator to weed between the rows in the garden. With only 4-6 shanks on it only going deep enough to stir up the surface, my 50hp tractor should handle it.

I dug around in the dump in the back of the farm and found 8 cultivator sweeps that have plenty of life left in them for what I want so I don't have to buy those.

Our chickens are laying now and we have eggs to sell.

I have a paying backhoe job coming up tomorrow. I have to go dig a hole to bury a neighbors horse.

I've decided to insulate and heat the 25 x 25 shop inside the quonset. This will keep my tools from rusting and give me a warm place to work in the winter. I've fixed the butchery the last guy did to the framing and installed a pair of swing doors large enough to get a car inside as well. Once the heat, insulation and electric is done, I'll put a set of quickjacks in.

We're getting signed up for Christmas markets so I need to get working in the woodshop and making things for folks to buy.

Well, another month down.

We have snow on the ground now, garden is all finished for the season. Just waiting on seed catalogs to arrive so I can buy for next year.

Farmers market season is done, Christmas market season is here. The glass kiln is set up in the basement and the wife unit is making fused glass art, I've been banging out items for sale in the wood shop and we've been to two craft markets so far.

Nobody is buying.

It's not just us, every other artist and crafter we've spoken to has said their sales are 50% of last year or worse. Listening to a podcast the other day, apparently some small US retailers are seeing drops of up to 70%. People are really watching their money right now.

So, with that in mind, my shop is finished and I'm open for business as of this morning. Shop is insulated, heated, has compressed air and 120/240v power.

I'm in the middle of a welding and fab job right now, making ramps for an equipment trailer for one of the locals. Once that is done, I've got a Jeep Patriot coming in for suspension work. Have to pay the bills somehow and I like this better than working for someone else.

Once those two jobs are done, I'm going to invest in a set of 7000lb Quickjacks for the shop. I've only got a 9' ceiling and I need a clear floor so a two-post or 4-post lift is out of the question.

I've got accounts set up with NAPA, Air Liquide and a local steel supplier so I get good guy pricing with all of them. Anything else can come from Rockauto or McMaster-Carr. I still have all my contacts from the vintage car world too.

Still have some cleaning and organizing to do in the shop but a little bit each day gets it done. The wife unit's saddles are hung up in there for now because they need to be stored where it's warm and dry. I need to get my milling machine put back together, track down a decent, used lathe and a shop press and I should be all set.

Wife's glass art:

Valet trays and bottle openers:

Figured maple treasure boxes with cherry liner:

Shop:

Good to see you on page 1 again! I will probably never follow this path, but I sure enjoy following this thread.

Glad you're enjoying it. Thanks!

Worked on the fab job until I ran out of wire, heading to town tomorrow for supplies.

Spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning and organizing more. Stuff is getting put away so that's a plus.

Well, that was a surprise...

I posted on our local communities facebook about mechanic services and the messages started coming in.

I've got work booked for the next couple weeks and I've had to turn away a couple jobs (big, ugly stuff I don't want to do).

Feeling pretty chuffed about that.

In reply to ShawnG :

That's great! Will you need a business license for that?

In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :

It doesn't seem like it. All my dealings with the town here seem to have given me the impression that if I just play nice they will try to stay out of the way.

Not sure what the USA equivalent is but where I live is outside of city limits in a rural area. The Rural Municipality I live in has three towns in it and the total population is a little over 300.

As long as you pay your taxes on time, they don't seem to care what you do as long as you're not a nuisance. I think they're just happy to have people here who want to contribute to the community instead of sitting around, waiting for the government cheque to come.

If they do come knocking, I'll just plead ignorance and get whatever they want me to have in place.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone.

It's been a while since I updated so here we go.
We're having a brown Christmas here in Saskatchewan. It's +2c and no snow today, this time last year it was -42 and 2 feet of snow.
We lost our faithful, 10 year old Bernese Mountain Dog, Ruxton a couple months ago. Jenn promptly promoted Oscar, out 9 month old Maremma to the position of house dog so the idea of having a guardian dog is right out.
Last month we made a new addition to the house, an adorable Newfoundland puppy named Charlotte. She's settling in comfortably and training up well.
Jenn is making good progress with her fused glass art and her stained glass. We're finally figuring out how to fire the glass in the kiln correctly to get the results she wants.
Market season was not good to us this year, everyone is being very careful with their money right now and all the small businesses we've talked to are feeling the pinch.
We had a really good response to some of our vegetables last year so this season we will be putting in more carrots, peas, beans, beets and pumpkins. We've also cultivated another half-acre of land in order to put in more corn for next year. We were very impressed with the quality of the corn last year.
Our seed order is placed and we're busy waiting for spring.
I've finished insulating and wiring my shop and I'm taking in mechanical repair work now, which has been helping a lot.
Hope to have more in the new year.
Shawn and Jenn.

In reply to ShawnG :

Merry Christmas. A brown plus two holiday is a pretty nice bonus in my opinion. Pissing rain here of course.

In reply to bearmtnmartin (Forum Supporter) :

I've got a buddy in Thasis, he said the rain was crazy yesterday. Flooding and everything.