To say the last couple days have been hot is a drastic understatement !! keep in mind I am from the great white north where it gets cold enough to kill penguins ! … this heat wave is absolutely killing me!! it’s been so hot the Devil himself stuck his head out of a gopher hole and said D@mn ! it’s hotter than Hades up here!! …. I can handle 20 to 23 degrees Celsius with just a mild case of the sweats and about a gallon of ice water every 20 minutes or so , but this!! THIS!! 31.4 Celsius !! (88.52 Fahrenheit) is gonna be the absolute death of me!! too hot too too hot!! and it will eventually get to 35 – 38 – 40 Celsius by mid July ( about 104 Fahrenheit), I am sure Mother Nature is enjoying watching me nearly pass out working in this heat! it’s payback for driving that ozone frying global warming Bronco !!
I’ve been busy outdoors helping a friend get his yard fixed up the way his wife wants it, that right there is a comedy of errors, he has MS and is slower than molasses in January, but I admire him because he doesn’t let it stop him from doing what needs to be done. I have a bad back that likes to crap out at the worst possible moments , that and fibromyalgia makes for a lovely day at the best of times, the 2 of us are in great shape! (NOT) lol , but we muddle through helping each other and we get things done eventually.
So anyway , we are almost done his yard, when I am done at his house, I come home and work in my own yard, usually in my veggie garden, I am at war with the weeds, and I fear the weeds are currently winning , everything is coming up now except my corn, cucumbers, and pumpkins , hopefully those start popping up in the next week or so.
I am seriously toying with the idea of leaving my part time job at my other friends bar/hotel, heck I only make $10 an hour there and only work on average 4 hours a night 3 or 4 nights per week, the tips are good though, not often a Cook gets tips but I do, $50 here $50 there , but it’s not really the money that’s an issue ( I still run my yard maintenance business, and haul scrap so it ain’t like I’m sitting on my @ss doing nothing) I am semi retired…. by that I mean I only work as much as I want/need too, and I always have a couple irons in the fire, the only time I actually sit on my @ss and do next to nothing is winter ( at minus 45 I ain’t stepping out for nothing or nobody) …. why would i be entertaining the idea of leaving the bar/hotel….. because it’s summer and that kitchen is wicked hot, and it’s not so fun anymore, my friend keeps adding to my job list and those 4 hours are starting to stretch into 5 and 6 hours , it’s just not worth it to me to be away from my son for that long almost every night now, so i haven’t been answering my phone when my friend calls, and I won’t until I decide 1 way or the other what it is I want to do.
I got into the scrap business with another friend, he has a 5 ton tilt deck truck, so I invested and became a partner , I don’t own half of his business, but enough to earn a 6040 split ( he gets 60 I get 40) it generates a nice little income for me and I am learning new things so it is fun for me.
perhaps my greatest iron in the fire is , and this is so simple it’s ridiculous, I build large wooden construction waste bins , and rent them out to the local construction companies that come out here to build/renovate houses ( way cheaper than renting a big metal loras bin) and I haul it away with my friends 5 ton truck , and replace it with an empty one, the scrap wood they throw into it , I take out and what I can’t use for various small projects, I cut up into 1 foot lengths and sell it off for firewood! very little ends up in the landfill, most of it ends up in the village folks fire pits , I don’t just supply this village, I also supply 4 others , same goes with my yard maintenance business, I do 4 other communities not just my own.
I like being my own boss, I pick and choose my hours, work at my own pace and am always keeping a weathered eye on the horizon for new ventures . I am by no means rich and at times live paycheck to paycheck, most times with all my irons in the fires, I generate enough to take the winter off and enjoy my days at home.
I save money where I can , I bought an old 100+ year old home that was a fixer upper for less money than most spent on a down payment for a new huge Mcmansion home , I drive older cars, and do a lot of horse trading ( bartering) for things I need or want , my furniture is used , but nice, and I have some antiques as well as home made stuff , I chose quite simply to pursue life and personal happiness over monetary gain , I do plan on eventually going completely off the grid, I want to install solar panels and 2 small wind turbines on my house and generate my own power, I will stay hooked to the corporate power for only one reason…. to put electricity back onto the grid ( they actually pay you for doing that) I won’t make millions or even thousands doing that, but even if I get a check for $50 or $100 per month from the power company…. well thats $50 or $100 extra a month I didn’t have before!
I know I have a nice shiney new high efficiency furnace , but eventually i want to turn that off too for good, just keep it as a back up, I’d like to upgrade my little wood burning fireplace to a high efficiency pellet fireplace, heat the whole house with that ( my house is under 900 square feet split level) replace the gas water heater ( it’s a rental) with an electric which will be powered via solar/wind … most likely a rental again, because if it craps out it gets replaced free and is not my problem. The only area I’d have trouble stepping off the grid is the water supply, yes I have about a 20,000 gallon cistern , but that hasn’t been used for anything in about 50 years , except for spuds, I put potatoes down there for cold storage , I would have to make sure it didn’t leak before even attempting to use it for water, then there’s the issue of …where do i get the water? …. digging a well in the village is frowned upon big time. course I could fill it with rainwater and meltwater and use it for the toilet , run it through some filters and it could be hooked up to supply the entire bathroom , the garden and for watering the lawn etc. and just use the village water for drinking that would cut my water bill down to next to nothing. ( I will have to ponder this awhile)
So anyway my kidlet is off on a 3 day camping trip with his school , so it is just me , the 4 cats and the dog for the next few days, which means for 3 days I don’t have to wait for him to get off the computer , I have a laptop up in my bedroom, but we only have 1 wireless turbo stick .
So that’s all for tonight, Remember Folks:express your love often, never take tomorrow for granted, and be kind to others.
Butch
easy wood projects to build
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