Month: May 2013

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Answers!

It figures that the one day in weeks if not months that I decided to not get dressed would be the day a neighbour dropped by!

This neighbour is half of the couple who sold me the lot! She’s very nice; retired from being a power engineer in Manitoba and now raising horses. I am going to their place at about 4:00 for wine and to meet her husband.

First off, I got some answers about my property purchase. They own all the vacant lots in town and paid only $100 for mine! They thought it would be the last to go because it is so small. I thought my offer of $3,500 to their request for $5,000 was a low ball, but she laughed and said that I didn’t even come close to matching the low ball offers they had gotten previously. They considered my offer fair and serious and took it since it was cash in hand, plus they thought the tiny lot would be hard to sell. She doubts they would have accepted less, though.

Now, in no particular order, here’s the scoop on services.

Mail

The lean-to attached to a private house is a proper post office and is open in the mornings. So I can mail things from there and get a PO box. No more having to run into Assiniboia for general delivery.

Water

I am on a water line and need to contact the RM (rural municipality) to find out how to get a tap. For the summer, I am welcome to go to my neighbours and fill up from their exterior tap! I can back up to it with my truck, so I am going to get a big container to fill once a week or so and then tap into that with smaller jugs. The water is NOT drinkable.

Garbage

Garbage, water, and sewer fees are about $600 a year. My neighbour says I am welcome to put a bag in with their trash this summer!

Sewer

The neighbour says that I am on a sewer line, but I’m not really. In RV parlance, their sewer is for grey water only and everyone has holding tanks for black water, which they then have pumped out. It will likely be cheaper for me to just haul my waste to a dump station. Grey water can run on the ground considering how little I use.

Power

I do indeed have a pole on my property, so I just need to have a metre put on it and then have an electrician install an outlet. Shouldn’t cost me more than $1,000 total.

Grass

My neighbour did my lawn last summer. I told her that she can come up with a number for what that was worth and I will gladly pay, either with cash or with barter. They are doing construction this summer and I let her know I’m moderately handy and available if they need help.

Gravel

The RM will deliver gravel to my property (to use as an RV pad) at a rate of so much per yard (no idea how many yards I’d need). Several neighbours with little tractors could apparently be bribed with beer to spread it around.

Supplies

Willow Bunch is only 18KM away (compared to 32km for Assiniboia) and has gas and a small grocery store. The road there is gravel, though, so thank goodness for my truck! I drove that road once in my car and swore it would never happen again.

Assiniboia has a movie theatre!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now, I may have jumped the gun on my excitement since it doesn’t appear to be a proper cinema and I can’t get any information on what’s playing this weekend, but it’s a beacon of hope that I won’t miss seeing this latest Star Trek on the big screen (although with the amount of work coming in this week, I can almost justify a four-hour round trip drive to Moose Jaw to see it…).

Neighbours

I’m told most are hermits, especially the guy right next to me. As long as I’m not loud and obnoxious, no one’s going to care what I do.

So that’s the scoop! I have to get back to work. OMG, it doesn’t rain but it pours. I don’t think it will ever be enough to get me back over the hump from the last few issues AND to cover what’s upcoming, but it’s still a relief!

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Technological Improvements

Sitting here in the middle of my field (sorry, that one never gets old), I am enjoying a fast internet connection with sufficient bandwidth that I can watch the new Audi commercial starring dueling Spocks without worrying about overages (Goooooo Bilbooooo!). I can’t help but marvel about how quickly things have changed.

It was about this time five years ago that I really began to research in earnest how I was going to live on the road, and one of the biggest components was getting online. I was chagrined to finally admit defeat. The only way I could get coverage just about anywhere was with a satellite dish, and that was several thousands of dollars to invest just getting set up, never mind the billing costs.

But within only about a year and a half, Bell and Telus joined to update cellular service across Canada. Suddenly, there was service just about everywhere. Mobile bandwidth devices were pricey and the plans outrageously high, but the investment was now only a few hundred dollars. Less than two years after conceding that I would never under the existing circumstances have a mobile internet connection, I got a free mobile internet modem in exchange for taking over a contract. It is not hyperbole to say that this changed my life. Suddenly, I could work freely from the road.

Something similar happened almost exactly two years later, friends gave me an internet modem for use in the U.S., which cost a pretty penny to set up but offered more bandwidth, and suddenly I had internet coverage in almost all of Canada and the U.S.

And just a year after that, I’m sitting in the middle of a field in rural Saskatchewan, a field that just a few months ago didn’t even have cell coverage, with a new Canadian mobile bandwidth device, which only cost me $50 (plus $180 for a booster, still cheap compared to a few years ago) and I am experiencing not only the fastest internet speeds of my life, but also the biggest and most affordable bandwidth allowance I’ve yet seen.

I really think that cellular connectivity is the future of the internet and I am excited to see how the technology will continue to evolve in the coming years. It is likely to get even faster and cheaper.

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Okay, I’m Done

The last couple of days have been all the proof I need that internet is a vital to the running of my business and that I cannot get by without having it at home!

I have a number of different jobs to do today, one of which is proofreading a French document. All my tools for that are online. So I’m doing that job in the truck. As a reminder, my truck has neither a bathroom, a kitchen, nor a cuddly cat.

My booster order left Richmond (B.C.) this morning. Come on Canada Post, get it here FAST!

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A Fruitful Experiment

This afternoon, I need a quick clarification on a job I’m doing. I knew that if I headed out to the field where I get reception, I’d get sidetracked. I decided to see if I could get a signal with my Mifi up in the air.

I actually got it to lock onto the network a couple of times at ground level, but not long enough to do anything productive. I used packing tape to attach my awning pole to my broom, then put the Mifi into a baggie and taped that to the awning pole. Finally, I climbed up the ladder and one-handedly taped the broom to the ladder (quite a feat I tell you).

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It actually worked! I got one bar (I can check the connection through my computer) just long enough to get the answer I needed and send a couple of emails! I brought the Mifi down and it was very hot, so even if I had had a decent connection, this was NOT a good temporary solution until I get the booster.

But what this tells me is that the booster is going to work for me and that I didn’t just throw money out the door.

Now, here’s hoping that the 10 to 25 day shipping estimate is overly conservative… It really hit me today that getting online a couple of hours a day really does make me more productive, but also impedes that productivity.

The best solution for me is the one I’m going to get, internet at home, but with limited bandwidth. That said, I can do a hell of a lot more for 15GB than I could with 5GB! I have no idea how I managed that long with so little connectivity, although after years of relying on public wifi, that much better than nothing. 12GB this winter was really good, but not always quite enough. 15GB should serve me well, and at just $10 for each additional GB, I’ll have some breathing room.

In other news, I think we skipped spring and went straight to summer. My first night here, I FROZE. I had lots of blankets on the bed, but didn’t left the furnace on too low and didn’t wear warm enough jammies. My second night, I was comfortable, but the rig was icy in the morning. My third night (last night) I finally had the smarts to put on the flannel jammies again… and was way too hot. I woke up covered in just a sheet and the furnace hadn’t even cycled on all night.

The days here have all been HOT, at least 20C by noontime. It’s only going to get worse. I may find myself dreaming of AC at some point. But the wind definitely helps, and is not too violent down in the valley.

Finally, I forgot to mention something in my last post. Avocados here are 99 cents, almost double what I paid in Texas. If they are as tasty, that will be a bargain.

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Quick Supply Run

I was running low on gas this morning. Being more than 30KM from the nearest gas station, I didn’t want to worry about getting stuck! Mondays are usually a slow day for me, so I headed into Assinboia for gas and a few groceries to check out the grocery store.

Well, I am not impressed. They didn’t have a number of items I consider to be pantry staples, like cocoa. Prices were okay, though. I will have to do a Walmart run every few months after all.

Assiniboia felt FAR, but it’s really not. It take about 20 minutes to get there. There’s just a lot of big open country between the village and the town.

I think that once I get internet at home, I’ll feel more settled and okay with being so far out that going to Assinboia more than once or twice a week would be excessive.

The wonderful Andy Baird helped me figure out what I need to get online at home. It’s all available on Amazon, but none of it is shippable to Canada. I normally get around that by shipping to my friend in VA at no charge and then paying her to ship out to me. I decided to buy through Future Shop and have shipped here, which should be a little faster, although they say 10 to 25 days (!!!). It was also $180 out of pocket (OUCH). I did think about just driving up to Regina and getting what I need today, but then I would have had to add the gas expense as well. I’ll post details once I’m up and running. *all appendages crossed*