There are times when I get started on something and don't know when to stop.
Yesterday when I got home from work, the neighbor across the street comes up and asks if I have a saw she could use for a project. She knows perfectly well I have a saw, I've used it in the yard a few times to build our huge raised bed boxes. She's just being polite, I suppose. Rather than just entrusting my brand new saw to her, I crossed the street to see what she was gonna cut to see if it could be done with a different tool.
Her front yard is about four feet long by about twelve feet wide and the grass has been trampled by frequent foot traffic to the point where there is very very little grass at all. She acquired some small pallets (think 2'x4') and wanted to reuse them as a sort of fence. The bottom two skid boards needed to be removed, and she wanted a single central board cut off. She said she had tried to pry the skid boards off, but couldn't with their claw hammer.
I knew we had the tools, but I had just gotten off work. She kept talking about how she needed a fence, but had no money to buy a fence. We had picked up a little wire border fence thing for our front section next to the road for $20. It protects the cacti and weird little plants the wife has planted in there. I think the lady was trying to guilt trip me into helping her, I don't know.
Anyway, I went into my house, grabbed a mallet and a rock hammer and proceeded to take apart all seven pallets. I had to hammer the rock hammer's chisel back between the boards, pry them apart, and move on. It was hard because the joints were all connected by four long nails. Once the prying was done, I left and came back with the circular saw, made the seven little cuts, and then told the lady I had finished. She was very glad and said she'd pay me something when they were able. Then I was able to really "come home from work" and get on with my evening.
I could have initially just told the lady I couldn't help her, or that she could use my tools (probably not ever see them again), or that I would help her later... But I had the equipment, had the knowledge, and had the ability to do the thing that she and her husband couldn't do.
I think it's important to help people if they truly cannot do what needs to be done, but sometimes I get so far into something that I realize later I could have saved myself an hour of work if I were just a bit more selfish about my time.
Speaking of the boxes, we now have almost seven of them prepped out and ready for the dirt delivery. I just got paid, so we'll be making the trip out to see if we can find some decent compost/manure/soil for delivery next week. Hopefully we can get everything finished up and in the ground by the 14th. Any later and we'll be hedging our bets for final harvest time in the fall.
Thursday, May 08, 2014
Wednesday, April 09, 2014
A Return to a Simpler Time
So much has changed since I last posted. I remember typing it up, now, and times looked pretty bleak.
I managed to find a contract to hire gig doing cell phone migrations, of all things. The company I was contracted to needed someone to assist with helping people shift from using Blackberry phones to iPhones. A worthy cause I was behind all the way, but I was curious to see what would happen after all the phones were switched.
During my stint there, I showed them what I could do. They were shifting lots of things around and changing their entire WAN topology. There seemed to be a revolving door when it came to the network guys, and most of them seemed to just want to browse facebook instead of fixing all these weird little issues that came up. So, I jumped in and helped out where I could.
Things were going pretty well, but as the job was contract to hire, I ran out the contract, but still no hire. I could tell they were squirrely about it, so I reached out to the recruiting community and found the job I'm in now. Good pay, decent benefits, and I'm essentially the only IT support staff this company has.
It reminds me a lot of previous jobs I've had where it seemed like people had a pretty good idea of what needed to happen, but nobody would pull the trigger and start any projects. Maddening.
Our landlords came by last week to check out the house since they hadn't stepped foot inside for over a year and a half. They seemed pleased with how we were taking care of things. At some point during the walkthrough, they indicated that they really were interested in selling the house, as they weren't interested in owning more than one house anymore. I get it, you know, they're both working, both busy, and I don't think they make a lot of money on the rent they charge us. Rather than ramp up the rent, why not just sell it?
First of all, I'm not even sure we are financially able to buy a house right now. I still have some student debt, just bought a car a year or so ago, and there's some rascally hospital bills that are still slipping through the cracks every month. We love the house, but I'm not sure we can really scrape the barrel and afford the house...
I have been bitten with the builder bug, recently. I bought a decent drill and circular saw, and have been eyeing various things in woodworking magazines. Last weekend I bought some wood and built two sawhorses and three raised beds for gardening. The beds are pretty big: 4'x8'x1'. The wife painted them yesterday and we're preparing for a dirt delivery sometime this weekend. Seeds are ordered, so that is that. Now I just need to buy the wood and build six more boxes and we'll have a decent amount of food for the year, so long as the weather and the plants cooperate.
At various points during our marriage, I've noticed that if Shannon mentions something three times, I should pay attention and follow through. I don't mean a Beetlejuice kind of thing, more like over the span of a few months, if she mentions something it means she's seriously considering it. The latest idea: raising chickens.
Turns out, it's totally legal for us to raise a maximum of 8 chickens in our backyard, so long as the area is kept clean and decently quiet.
I've already formed the coop and run plans in my head, and have even extended it so far as to include a rabbit hutch and perhaps an in-run compost bin. Chickens apparently are awesome compost stirrers, and we have a ton of compost stuff every year that just gets added to a stack without real decomposition happening.
It's weird, I always had this idea that I would gather information, pay off bills, buy some land, and THEN start the big homestead. But now, I think perhaps the homestead is happening in our current house, essentially right in the middle of a decently large city. I've seen pictures and read stories about how things used to be, you know, back in the "old days", when a family would have a garden, canning surplus, and even keep small animals to raise for food no matter where they lived.
Maybe I'm more old-school than I thought?
I managed to find a contract to hire gig doing cell phone migrations, of all things. The company I was contracted to needed someone to assist with helping people shift from using Blackberry phones to iPhones. A worthy cause I was behind all the way, but I was curious to see what would happen after all the phones were switched.
During my stint there, I showed them what I could do. They were shifting lots of things around and changing their entire WAN topology. There seemed to be a revolving door when it came to the network guys, and most of them seemed to just want to browse facebook instead of fixing all these weird little issues that came up. So, I jumped in and helped out where I could.
Things were going pretty well, but as the job was contract to hire, I ran out the contract, but still no hire. I could tell they were squirrely about it, so I reached out to the recruiting community and found the job I'm in now. Good pay, decent benefits, and I'm essentially the only IT support staff this company has.
It reminds me a lot of previous jobs I've had where it seemed like people had a pretty good idea of what needed to happen, but nobody would pull the trigger and start any projects. Maddening.
Our landlords came by last week to check out the house since they hadn't stepped foot inside for over a year and a half. They seemed pleased with how we were taking care of things. At some point during the walkthrough, they indicated that they really were interested in selling the house, as they weren't interested in owning more than one house anymore. I get it, you know, they're both working, both busy, and I don't think they make a lot of money on the rent they charge us. Rather than ramp up the rent, why not just sell it?
First of all, I'm not even sure we are financially able to buy a house right now. I still have some student debt, just bought a car a year or so ago, and there's some rascally hospital bills that are still slipping through the cracks every month. We love the house, but I'm not sure we can really scrape the barrel and afford the house...
I have been bitten with the builder bug, recently. I bought a decent drill and circular saw, and have been eyeing various things in woodworking magazines. Last weekend I bought some wood and built two sawhorses and three raised beds for gardening. The beds are pretty big: 4'x8'x1'. The wife painted them yesterday and we're preparing for a dirt delivery sometime this weekend. Seeds are ordered, so that is that. Now I just need to buy the wood and build six more boxes and we'll have a decent amount of food for the year, so long as the weather and the plants cooperate.
At various points during our marriage, I've noticed that if Shannon mentions something three times, I should pay attention and follow through. I don't mean a Beetlejuice kind of thing, more like over the span of a few months, if she mentions something it means she's seriously considering it. The latest idea: raising chickens.
Turns out, it's totally legal for us to raise a maximum of 8 chickens in our backyard, so long as the area is kept clean and decently quiet.
I've already formed the coop and run plans in my head, and have even extended it so far as to include a rabbit hutch and perhaps an in-run compost bin. Chickens apparently are awesome compost stirrers, and we have a ton of compost stuff every year that just gets added to a stack without real decomposition happening.
It's weird, I always had this idea that I would gather information, pay off bills, buy some land, and THEN start the big homestead. But now, I think perhaps the homestead is happening in our current house, essentially right in the middle of a decently large city. I've seen pictures and read stories about how things used to be, you know, back in the "old days", when a family would have a garden, canning surplus, and even keep small animals to raise for food no matter where they lived.
Maybe I'm more old-school than I thought?
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