Day: May 21, 2013

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The Start of My MacGyver Pile

When I had my house, I frequently scavenged for goodies to add to it, using what I found as inspiration rather than letting inspiration dictate what I’d use. I’ve done the same thing with my renos in Miranda, for example making good use of the Campbell River Home Depot’s dumpster.

This afternoon, I went treasure hunting in Hiram’s back yard. As a reminder, he’s the guy who thought he owns my property. He has piles and piles and piles of junk in his backyard and I was given permission to take absolutely anything I want.

Now, most of the stuff in the yard is absolute junk and not worth the trouble it would take to do anything with it, but I still found quite a few diamonds.

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The first item in this photo is some chicken coop-type wiring. Not sure yet what I’ll do with it, but it could come in handy to protect a garden from the resident bunny. Next to that are a few bricks. I’m going to keep my eyes out for bricks to use as edging and paths. Finally, the battered rusty round metal ring is a fire pit! I need to check what the rules are for fire pits here, but everyone seems to have one, so I’m hoping I’ll get to use it. I also found a bucket of good coals to go with it.

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Next to the fire pit are a few sheets of tin roofing material. Not much there, but could be useful to cover my future compost bin.

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Next to the roofing is my big pile o’ leaves. I am not making progress, believe it or not.

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Next up is the start of my pallet pile. If anything, they will be good kindling for the fire pit! Most of the other pallets are too heavy to carry, so I’ll have to borrow a dolly.

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I plan to use some pallets to make a porch. This piece of plywood is in great shape and will make a good topping for the pallets so that I don’t risk going through the slats. An outdoor carpet will be in order as well. Behind that is the bucket of coals.

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Finally, I found a ground plane for my high gain antenna! Just need to find some tin snips to cut it to size, then bang it flat and glue it to my roof.

There is tons of lumber to go through on that lot. All of it has been outside for eons, so it’s in dubious shape, but I think I could build some rough temporary structures with quite a bit of it. For example, I’m thinking of combining some pallets with fencing panels,  2x4s, and the tin roofing to make a temporary shed.

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Co-Oped

Nearly first thing this morning I headed to the post office. I got to meet the post master and received a key for my box. She asked me to return the key when I leave. I laughed and said that I hope to have that mail box for at least 30 years! She gasped. I think that my owning a lot in town wasn’t enough for her to believe I was planning to put any roots down here at all.

I don’t know yet what I’ll do with my mail in the winter, but I gave C&C access to the box when I filled out the paperwork just in case having them check it in the winter ends up being the best solution. I really don’t get any pressing mail except the odd royalty and commission cheque. Jody deposits those for me and I’d have to come up with something similar here.

The important thing is that this is to be my mailing address for as long as the post office here exists. I am sick and tired of having to make an address change! I’ve successfully redirected my mail in the past, so if I go anywhere else in Canada for any length of time, I can get my mail without having to change anything. It’s just trickier to the States; even if I could get mail redirected there, I wouldn’t be able to deposit the odd cheque. I’ve got six months to figure out the best solution.

I then drove into Assiniboia for groceries. Wow, what a madhouse since the store was closed yesterday for Victoria Day. There were crazy traffic jams in the aisles, plus their meat freezers went out over the long weekend, so there were a lot of unhappy carnivores.

I was able to find what I needed and am pleased to say that the produce at the Assiniboia Co-op is most satisfactory; very fresh and tasty even at this time of the year. I even found a good pineapple for $2.99. C&C told me that once their garden starts producing I should shop at their place since they give away the bulk of what they grow, but in the meantime, it’s nice to know I can get good tomatoes and leafy greens. I also discovered I picked a good day to shop since it was scratch and save day. You are guaranteed 5% and can get up to 25%. I was quite happy with the 5% as that was better than nothing!

Western Canada has a chain of stores under the Co-op name. It’s really hard to get information about this brand since each Co-op is independent. Locally, I am under the Southland Co-op. It was $10 to join, which bought me 10 shares and I am now a part owner of the grocery, hardware, and convenience store, as well as the gas bar! The only advantage I see to this is that I will get a share of the equity based on how much I buy locally in a year and I may occasionally get a token cash rebate. If I’m here for the rest of my life and shop here for six months ever year, especially with what I’ll be spending on fuel, this could really add up. At age $69, I would be eligible to get my equity in cash. So for $10, it seemed silly not to join.

I need to get a couple of hours of work done, then I will head back out into the yard and keep working on my leaves since there is very little wind today and I will also move more pallets.

I’m rather glad I don’t have Miranda parked ‘permanently’ yet this summer as I’m getting a chance to see if the corner I reserved for her really is the best. Indeed. It is very shaded, which will be good in the summer, but the passenger side will get all the mid to late day sun; perfect!