Pulling the ripcord. Major life change

Tuesday evening an hour from your home.  Pintys Nascar race Wednesday.

Just sayin'.

Might be fun but sadly, I have adulting to do.

Maybe once we're here for good.

Ordered truck parts today. They should be here tomorrow. 

Did some adulting around the house. Installed a new kitchen faucet to replace the old one that was falling apart.

Installed a laundry tub in the basement. All the plumbing was there already. Turns out the existing drain line was a bit too high and water doesn't like to drain uphill so I put the tub on some blocks temporarily. 

Wife unit convinced me not to give up my tropical fish hobby so I brought my breeding tanks and racks. Got them set up today. Fish will go in tomorrow. 

Everything is a mess at the moment but I'll get it tidied up later.

I tested my well water before the filter system and it should be just fine for South and Central American livebearers which I  have never had great luck with because of my water on the coast.

Last, I managed to finally get the little Case tractor running well so I put the mower deck on and cut the lawn. I also mowed the section where the garden will be going in.

More tomorrow. 

On your suburban if you have the vortec engine with the distributor cap that the plug wires attach horizontally make sure you replace the cap and rotor. They cause the bulk of the misfires on those. And clean the loctite off the new screws that come with the cap, it will cause the plate on the distributor to break.

In reply to gearheadmb :

Thanks for the tip. I hadn't ordered the cap but I think I will now.

In reply to ShawnG :

A previous owner of my house built a cabinet to mount the utility sink on - nice because it makes storage under the sink easier/better.  Be careful with those riser blocks. I see you have the legs screwed to them, but also add something to tie the two sides together. I've had the legs of that type of sink spread apart unexpectedly, come apart from the sink and dump water all over. Not fun. 

Well, I rolled the dice and tried just changing the parts I had ordered. No luck, truck still runs the same.

Cap and rotor are waiting for me at the parts store tomorrow. 

On the up side, the trailer is unloaded now and we met another neighbor who seems nice.

I have to go out after dinner and make a level pad for the dumpster that is arriving tomorrow. 

I also placed an order for some seed garlic to be planted in September. 

Guess that makes me an official farmer.

Case tractor is acting up again but I have it figured out, the points are old and it's difficult to keep the screw on them tight because the threads are pretty much gone. New points are ordered.

I needed a win today so I cleaned out the little raised bed garden that the owners had built. I have enough seeds lying around that I can probably grow some veg to feed us a bit before the season ends.

Before:

After:

Well, gearheadmb nailed it. It was a worn out cap. 

Replaced cap and rotor, running well now.

Enjoying a well earned beer.

In reply to ShawnG :

See the spots at the lower right and upper left, where three conductors come together?

That is whats known in the industry as bad design.

In reply to Streetwiseguy :

Seem on par with the other GM products I've dealt with.

We've had a long run of Ford trucks that have all been great. The GMT400 / L29 Vortec truck is our first GM truck, only because I couldn't find a 7.3 Powerstroke Excursion to buy. No Triton engines please.

It tows great, my only complaint is the weak brakes which I've upgraded and the fact that every time I need this thing to he reliable, something goes sideways. It's a high mileage truck but it got a new engine 4 years ago and a new transfer case 2 years ago. 

I think our next truck will be something with that new Godzilla engine.

And I  just found out that a good friend of mine on the coast has been diagnosed with cancer.

He's always been a super healthy guy too.

I'm really worried about him. I knew there would be a lot of friends I would never see again but this is a shock.

So cancer can go fornicate itself with an iron stick. 

I'm curious - how do you have until the farm needs to be profitable? Or is this more of semi-retirement where if it succeeds, great, if not, it'll be fun anyways?

In reply to pheller :

I'm hoping to be profitable in a year but it's not likely. My first year will probably be "work to learn" rather than "work to earn".

The sale of the house should give us a big enough cushion to live off of for a couple years so that helps.

The wife unit wants to get a job in town to help. A nice cushy government job with benefits would be ideal.

We really want it to work but if it doesn't, there's an empty auto shop in town where I can hang my shingle. 

We both really want the farm to work. This is a dream we never thought would be possible ten years ago.

In reply to ShawnG :

In relation to farm profitability- two words: vertical integration.

An example four pounds fresh yields one pound freeze dried.

Added some peat moss to the test garden and planted some seeds I had left over from last year.

No time to get a late season crop in for market but we can have some stuff to eat.

Planted two varieties of lettuce, spinach, sugar peas, leeks and green onions.

This will also help me see how badly the local wildlife will try to snack on my garden.

Got 2mm of rain today and the garden beds soaked it right up. 

Fingers crossed.

I am interested in how you feel about the winter and the shoulder seasons. I am heartily sick of rain and I sometimes think a cold winter would be better. But maybe not. So please do some seat of the pants comparisons of how you feel about the climate over the next nine months or so. 

In reply to bearmtnmartin (Forum Supporter) :

I'll do that. Part of the reason for the move is that I'm sick and tired of the miserable, wet, grey winter's on the coast.

We looked at this place in March and it was -5c and sunny,  snow was about a foot deep on the ground and I was walking around in jeans and a t-shirt.

We got home to +5 and wet, I swear it felt far colder.

I get depressed, angry and bitchy with the winters on the coast. I'm hoping that it's different here.

So far the hottest it's been this week has been +30c with a constant breeze, sure beats the +34c on the coast.

In reply to ShawnG :

I absolutely agree with your take on the temps, -10 in the Arctic felt better than +5 on the coast.

Sunshine is about the best part of Saskatchewan.

A clear, calm, sunny, -25 day in February is a beautiful thing.

In reply to ShawnG :

The humidity chills you to the bone.  I will take subzero temps over 40F and rainy.

ShawnG said:

I get depressed, angry and bitchy with the everything on the coast. 

I berkeleying hated berkeleying living at the berkeleying coast. Seven berkeleying years of my berkeleying life I will never berkeleying get back again. berkeley.

I hear you.

In reply to SkinnyG (Forum Supporter) :

It's funny, it never bothered me until I left.

We have to make one last trip back to get the horses and the last load of stuff from my shop and I simply hate being there now.

The constant buzz of traffic and people, my whiny effeminate neighbor running either his pressure washer or leaf blower all damn day because that's the only machinery he can operate (had the balls to bitch about my dog barking too), my other neighbors kids yelling and making noise all day (at least they're playing outside).

The traffic, the E36 M3ty drivers, the four murders in the last week.

I'm done, I'm so completely done with noise, bullE36 M3, crazy people and my relatively quiet town going to hell.

The last couple years have made people nuts.

Most folks who grew up there, can't fathom the idea of living anywhere else.

Most folks who leave, NEVER go back.

I grew up in very, VERY rural communities (even Stewart, BC for a time), and simply cannot stand city.