Author: Rae

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Gravel Déjà Vu

I joked earlier today on Facebook that if I had known I’d have so many status-worthy events today, I would have saved them up for a blog post. Well, here’s the post anyway! 🙂

Today was a pretty dang perfect Saturday, especially since we got our first sunny and hot day in almost a month! I was up earlyish and got my day’s work done by noon. I could then get tomorrow’s work done to have a full day off or do two half-days off. I chose the latter and it wound up being the best choice.

I started the afternoon by going to Willow Bunch to get some produce and to check out offerings at the thrift store. I got a good haul today!

Remember, I’m building a wardrobe entirely from scratch, from underwear to coats, so I’m not going nearly as crazy with the clothes buying as it might seem, plus the bulk of what I bought last year and was hoping to fit in this year is a size or two too big. And, frankly, when you’ve been a size XL or 1X most of your life and you find a super cute dress size S that looks fabulous on you and it’s just $1, it’s not hard to justify finding room for it in your wardrobe. 🙂

I also lucked out and found a good set of pruning sheers for 25 cents! I was going to borrow a pair from Caroline today, so this was good timing!

I got home and put laundry on, then I got on the roof and cut the branches that have been rubbing at the overhang and keeping me up at night. Let me repeat that in case you didn’t catch the significance of it. I went off and did something else while my laundry cleaned itself while not at an RV park or friend’s house where I’m using borrowed laundry facilities, but instead on my own turf! 😀

Once the overhang was branch free, I started at the south end of the eastern perimeter and worked my way north, trimming all the branches I could reach and which were small enough for my sheers to handle (which was a lot bigger than I expected; almost thumb-size!). I also laid down some pallets and piled logs on them in the hope that they will eventually dry. I was grateful that Charles’ trailer was still parked out front so I could get rid of the branches immediately.

While all this was happening, the gravel guy stopped by to make arrangements with me for delivery. On a Saturday! He needed Charles’ trailer out of the way to do that so he told me to give him a call when the coast was clear.

He also reminded me that the gravel this year is even worse than the stuff last year that I was unhappy about. I said that for this year’s application, it would be fine, I just didn’t want to pay the big bucks for it. He said that it would be more expensive than the crap I got last year and I wouldn’t get a discount on it!

He said, “I can bring you pit run,” and I perked up because that’s what I’d initially requested, but kept getting dismissed on the few times I discussed gravel with the RM. ‘Pit run’ is really dirty gravel with big rocks, even boulders in it. I want the rocks for landscaping projects, so this stuff being so much cheaper makes it feel like a real deal to me.

He left and I went in to call C&C to put in a request for Charles to move the trailer. Caroline said he’d check his schedule and get back to me.

Shortly thereafter, I heard the gravel guy again and went out. He said that he’d just spoken to Charles, who was going to move the trailer shortly. Was I really sure I wanted pit run? He pulled out a map and said that he’d just dumped some two miles out and he wouldn’t deliver me a load of it unless I went out to look at what I was ordering.

I knew exactly what I was ordering, but I humoured him and drove out. I’m pleased to say that, “Go about two miles east to the road just before the big turn, not the bad road, the good one, and look at what I dumped right after the Texas gate,” was perfectly sufficient instructions for me to find the place!

The pit run was exactly what I thought it would be, so I came home and called the gravel guy. He asked me again if I was sure. Yup… He said that I was second next in line and he’d be by in a couple of hours.

I hung up with him and thought I heard noise outside, so I went to see if it was Charles. Indeed. I put on proper shoes and jumped in his truck to take the branches to the branch dump, which is just around the corner, by the cemetery.

As usual, his dog, Brutus, was in the front seat, and had no desire to give me more space than necessary, so intent was he at getting some cuddling out of this whole affair. I still can’t believe what a dog person I’m becoming!

I came in and debated whether or not to make dinner or wait for gravel and decided to go for it since I was starting to feel a little faint. I’d been saving a package of Japanese dumplings for a night like this, so I had a nice treat. I even whipped up a frozen banana with some all natural peanut butter for a decadent (yet healthy!) dessert.

Shortly thereafter, I heard the gravel guy again.

He floundered in the mud getting in the yard and almost got stuck, perfectly exemplifying why I was so eager to get the front part of the yard covered!

As it was explained to me, after the old garage that was on this lot got torn down, the lot was back filled with manure. The ground is therefore very, very soft. After a wet period like we just had, with lots of hard rain, I can’t even park on the lot. So I really wanted to add a layer of material to give me a proper driveway and, as a bonus, provide another RV pad.

Once the load was empty, the guy got out of his truck to make sure I was happy and to get the cheque for the material, which has to be paid for on delivery. I’ll get a bill later for the delivery. The gravel was $66 and the delivery will be $189.

I was thrilled with the product, smiling as I noticed one big rock after another. I knew it would be hard work to get it all smoothed out, but I wouldn’t have gotten much better stuff from the RM and it would have been three times the cost!

Instead of crashing with a movie, I went out and starting hauling and raking gravel. Having property is good for my health! I doubt I’ll get lucky again with the neighbour who has the tractor since he’s farming and working very long hours.

So my goal at this point is to rake it out just enough that L can back in his trailer when he arrives in a few weeks. If I do an hour of work a day, that will be easily achievable, and I need exercise anyway!

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Haven Closer To Water

The RM is flushing the hamlet’s water system today and there are a lot of guys on deck for that. One knocked on my door to inform me that he had located my water main!!!!!

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The valve is about 8′ into the ground. Getting water above ground is going to be a lot of work and quite costly, probably more expensive than putting in power! I need to get a backhoe in here to get down to where the valve is so that it can be replaced, and then I need the water brought up to ground level and located somewhere on my property, which will involve trenching. Wish me luck finding a plumber to give me a quote!

I learned after the fact that it was one of my neighbours down the street who asked the RM guys to find my main! He and I had talked about looking for the main for a while, yes, but I’m still impressed that he thought to put in the request for me!

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Haven With Laundry Facilities (That Guests Might Actually Want To Use)

Thanks to my trusty wheelbarrow, I was able to get my washer and dryer out of the truck and into the grainery today. Of course, I had to try them out!

I have plenty of water hose, so I just uncoupled it from the RV holding tank intake and brought the hose to the grainery, where I coupled it to my sprayer, which effectively gives me an on-off switch for the water. I then rolled an extension cord from the grainery to the exterior outlet on the motorhome (closer than the breaker box).

I don’t have a manual for the washer, but it was fairly intuitive. It’s really not that many fewer steps than using the Wonder Wash, but it does allow me to do a lot more laundry at one time since the washer has a bigger tub, plus the washer does some of the labour itself.

I’ll still want to use the Wonder Wash for small loads, like dish cloths, that need super hot water, but for clothes, I think I don’t think it will be hard to get in the habit of using my washer. 🙂

I added soap to the tub and then started adding water. I set a timer and learned that it takes about 20 minutes to fill the tub completely. I was able to put a lot more clothes in the machine than I would have expected.

You can choose how long to have the washer agitate the clothes. I picked 30 minutes since I had some really soiled clothes in the load.

Again, I set a timer, and went to do something else. When I came back, I put the washer on the ‘drain’ setting to get rid of the water and transferred the clothes to the spin dryer to wring them out. I had to do this in two batches since the dryer capacity is smaller.

I put the clothes back in the washer and filled the tub again to rinse the load. So another 20 minutes on the timer, then another 15 minutes of agitation, then another two loads in the spin dryer. Oh, and an extra 20 minutes on the fill because I forgot to shut off the drain setting! *shakes head*

The process may seem like a lot of work compared to an automatic unit, but it sure didn’t feel like it after using the Wonder Wash for so many years! I also didn’t get completely soaked, so I can do laundry in cooler weather!

It was grey and overcast and there’s rain in the forecast, so I decided not to tempt fate and instead try out my dryer. This is where I learned that the exterior outlet on the RV is on the same circuit as my office, where I had a heater plugged in and running. So I blew a breaker (oops) and had to move the extension cord to one of my new 20A outlets on its own circuit.

It took several hours to dry the load completely since it’s a 120V unit that doesn’t get as hot as a 220V unit. I definitely won’t be getting in the habit of using it, especially since clothes smell nicer coming off the line!

I am very happy with my new laundry setup. This isn’t quite the kind of washer I was hoping to find, but I really wanted a 120V dryer, so the washer is a good compromise. They are also hard to find over here, so I may be able to recoup the cost later and apply it to an automatic unit once I get the cabin wired and plumbed.

While the clothes were drying, I tried out my new weed whacker. Yes, I ran a dryer, a weed whacker, and a heater all at the same time. Having 70A available to me is pretty sweet. 🙂

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Summer Supply Run

I have been long overdue for a supply run because I am finding it increasingly difficult to stock my pantry in Assiniboia. Moreover, I found something on Kijiji that I really wanted, so a trip to Regina ASAP was in order to pick it up. Therefore, I burned the midnight oil all week to get today off.

Lately, I’ve been getting to sleep around midnight and getting up at six. So you can imagine my shock this morning when I woke up and the clock said it was 9:30!!! I was expected in Regina between one and two and wanted to have lunch in Moose Jaw, so I was out of bed as though someone had lit firecrackers under the sheets!

To my dismay, it was pouring rain out and I had stuff to unload from the back of my truck, a chore I had put off all week since I was so busy typing and I’d have the whole of this morning off…

I still managed to get to Assiniboia by 10:15ish and stopped at the bakery for the first time to try their coffee. It turned out to be very expensive dishwater, so I’ll stick to the gas station for coffee emergencies from now on as theirs is tasty.

The drive to Moose Jaw was uneventful until a few klicks from the city where there was construction and we had to detour. This brought me to the wrong end of town to have sushi, but the right end to push on to Regina. I knew that I wasn’t going anywhere near the Regina sushi restaurant, that it’s very expensive, and that there’s no parking, so I decided to stick to my plan and have my sushi lunch in Moose Jaw even if it meant a couple extra crossings of town.

On the way to the restaurant, I stopped in at the Town & Country Mall, where I had my nose pierced in April. I had been told to come back around this date to have the piercing tightened, so I thought I could make an appointment for after lunch or even after Regina. But my piercer was free, so she took me right away. Was I glad to get that done! My nose healed super fast and the loose piercing has been driving me batty!

Lunch at DK Sushi was yummy, as always. The all you can eat is still good value for me, but just barely, as I get less and less each time I go. I added up what I got today and came in at about $20 if I bought à la carte, versus $17 with the all you can eat, plus you get really good chocolate ice cream with that option. 🙂 I asked for a half portion since I wasn’t able to finish a whole one last time (too rich and sweet for my new taste buds).

From lunch, I immediately headed out to Regina since my ETA was now about 1:45. Thankfully, the seller was very conveniently located near the highway and just a few blocks from Cabela’s, which was having a sale I didn’t want to miss.

The items I was picking up were a Japanese-style washer/spin dryer combo and a compact 120V dryer. I’ll do posts about those once I get them out of my truck. I couldn’t talk the seller down from $300 for the set, but I knew that was a crazy good deal, so I paid up. They are the perfect compromise between my current laundry setup (Wonder Wash and a spin dryer that really needs to be returned to its rightful owner) and full size units that would need water hookups and a 220V outlet.

These my appliances (seller photos):

Next stop was Walmart, which was conveniently located next to both a Bulk Barn and Cabela’s. I stocked up on dry goods and then went to the Bulk Barn stock up on nuts. I’m afraid to admit how much I spent on nuts because I went a little well, nuts. 😀

Cabela’s was having a sale on Keen footwear, so I picked up a good pair of sandals with covered toes for the summer (if we ever get one…). I bought a model that is good for light hiking as well as wet activities. It’s been a very, very long time since I shelled out the bucks for high quality sandals and I hope these last me! I also picked up an outback-style hat for the wagon train because I was told that I can’t show up this year without a proper horse wrangler hat and cowboy boots. I’m all set! 🙂 It was raining again by the time I got out of the store, so I wore my new hat, which offered good protection against the rain.

Next on my list was Canadian Tire or Home Depot. Neither was convenient in Regina, so I headed back to Moose Jaw to its Canadian Tire. There, I got a really good deal on an electric lawn mower.

I was going to buy a reel (manual) mower, but this electric mower was much cheaper. I didn’t want a gas mower because I didn’t want to have to deal with maintaining another engine.

To my surprise, a very nice stock clerk took the mower to the till for me, waited for me to pay, pushed it to my truck, and helped me figure out how to load it in when the appliances weren’t leaving much room. I was impressed since it’s normally impossible to get service at Canadian Tire!

I also picked up weed whacker, but failed at getting a ladder and tree limb lopper, so I’ll get those in Assiniboia next week.

My following stop was M&M Meatshop to stock up on chicken breasts. I wish I had had room in the truck to pick up a small deep freeze since the chicken breasts were on sale. I took a chance on four packages fitting in the freezer, what with everything else I had in there already. Spoiler: I ran out of room and decided to pull out the ground chicken to make chicken burgers tomorrow. 🙂

Then, it was time to get groceries. I was pretty beat when I got to the checkout, but I had bought enough to get 10 cents off a litre, so I decided to get fuel before heading home. To my delight, there’s a ‘we serve’ pump at the Safeway gas bar, so I didn’t have to do it myself and my fuel was ‘just’ $1.19.

BTW, fuel was $1.39 in Regina and $1.29 in Moose Jaw and Assiniboia/Willow Bunch today. I’m always surprised that I’m not paying a ‘rural location surcharge’ for my gas out here!

It was close to seven by the time I headed home and I was getting the hunger shakes, so I decided to stop for a meal instead of just snacking on the way home. There was a Boston Pizza right at my last turn before leaving the city and I love their pulled pork sandwich, so it was an easy decision. I had it with a salad rather than fries and I only ate half the bun, so the meal felt quite reasonable and didn’t put me to sleep on the drive home!

It was still raining when I came in, so I just unloaded the food. I now need to get to bed because I have a big typing weekend ahead of me. I wasn’t supposed to have much work so I could clean the yard, but it’s going to rain both days so I might as well type.

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Promenade Interruptus

I was heading out for an evening stroll before getting cracking on my last file of the day, when I stopped dead in my tracks upon seeing C&C’s flatbed trailer parked in front of my property. That could mean only one thing, an invitation to load it up with the huge amount of branches leftover from Charles cutting down my trees this spring.

I spent, oh, maybe a half hour hauling all the branches to the trailer and filling it. Of course, the biggest and heaviest branches were under the little ones, so I filled the trailer in reverse logical order. I hope nothing falls off, but at least the trailer is just going around the block!

This is perfect timing because I am going to Regina on Friday (hence why I am again burning the midnight oil; I am trying to get ahead in my work queue). I aim to come back with a lawn mower, weed whacker, and tree limb lopper so that I can make an attempt at taming Haven’s badly neglected eastern perimeter.

Charles, wonderful neighbour that he is, mowed my lawn last night with his tractor, but it’s high time for me to be self-sufficient about that! I was going to get a reel (push) mower, but may talk myself into a gas model. It’ll depend on prices, features, and what’s on sale.

The RM emailed today to ask if I still wanted more gravel this year, stemming back from an early winter discussion. I am impressed with their powers of retention and/or note taking system! I was going to get gravel to put under the buildings, but it’s too late for that. I did order a load (25 cubic yards) to go from the front of the RV pad to as close to the sidewalk as possible.

I requested the cheap stuff that’s mostly sand and stone, since the last load has turned out to be much more satisfactory than expected. For one thing, it’s not muddy even in heavy rain!

I don’t know when the load will be delivered, but I do hope my neighbour will be again available to spread it out, otherwise I will have a lot of shoveling to do before my friend L gets here in just a couple of weeks!

Haven is just that these days, a lovely, idyllic place where the soundtrack of my day is the melodious call of the mourning dove.

I love having a reasonably weather tight building in which to store things, meaning my yard looks neat. And I might have lost my winter view of the hills, but I’ve gained the amusing sight of a gopher circus.

Summer is already racing ahead much, much, much too quickly, and I look forward to L’s arrival and my second wagon train vacation, days that will hopefully slow down time just a little.