Heck with it.

Heck with work, (for now, I'll go there on the rainy days). Heck with the mud. And heck with using the ladder too. I got me a house to build.

I finally found a use for all that 2x10 lumber that I used for my concrete footing forms. I use them for sidewalks and I also built my ramp up to the main floor out of them. A few years ago, my neighbor from in town and I built a new fence. My neighbor thought I was nuts when I wanted to keep the rotten old fence instead of throwing it in the dump. I'm sure glad I kept it.

In the morning, all this mud should be real nice to walk and drive on, unless it decides not to freeze over night. It is like dry dirt when it is all frozen. Tomorrow morning I'll have to forward some of my lumber over to the house on the frost, then go to town for some more lumber and supplies in town to keep me busy over the long weekend. I am finally getting into the swing of things again. Today I put in a long one, and my poor old knee is feeling it. It stays light pretty late here now. It is after 8 pm before I lose my daylight. I shut it down just before 8. Today I glued and screwed the last sheet of plywood down on my basement floor, and finished caulking it all. I had to leave that one open for awhile so the inspector could have a peek at things. He did pay me a vistit about a week ago or so. He made me add one more ply to my main beam down there, so now I have four 2x10 wide. I still have to phone them for an inspection again before I backfill the basement, but I'm not going to backfill until things dry up around here. But I can build up top while I wait for that to happen, so thats what I'm going to do. I kinda mentioned to them at work that I want no interruptions for about 2 weeks. We'll see how that goes. We are kinda at the end of the winter work season and things really slow down or stop for awhile. I kinda feel like I should be there and working on my truck and all, but, if I don't get a roof on my house soon it just might rot away eventually. It is my top priority right now. Heck with work.

Health Care

I'm not really into politics all that much. I mean, I do listen in a bit on some of the crucial stuff I guess, but I don't have much to do with it. The government generally does what they want and if it affects me, I just somehow try to work my way around it somehow. But one thing that really gets me wondering is this new "health care thing" going on in the USA. I did'nt really research it or anything, so I don't know exactly what it is all about. Maybe it IS a nightmare, but if it is anything like what we have here in Canada (and I don't even know much about that one), I kinda thought that everyone in the States would be happy about it. I THINK that what we have here in Canada is a good thing anyway. I don't pay anything, but yet, when I need to go to the hospital, it costs me nothing. Well, maybe some medication, or crutches, etc. We used to pay, but as of Dec 31 2008, they no longer wanted our money. Well, I can imagine they are getting it from us somehow though. When I was paying, it costed me $132.00 every 3 months when it all came to an end. I kinda wished they were still charging us, because now that they don't, it makes me wonder if I should be buying some insurance or not, but as far as I know we are still covered.
I can remember when I was 16 or 18 when I recieved my first Alberta Health Care bill in the mail. I can't remember how old I was, but I think 18. It was probably my first bill for anything, as I was still living with the folks at that time. If I remember right, that bill was for $86.00 every 3 months and they gradually went up to $132.00. and now 0. That is about a 27 year span. I have broken my right leg twice (each time was about 5 days in the hospital or more) and have had alot of other minor injuries along the way(rodeo and other foolish things). The physio thereapy the second time I broke my leg(knee) was all paid for(until they kicked me out for missing 2 appointements without notice, dumb kid I was). I also periodically go in for a checkup. It has never costed me anything other than some minor little expenses. MY biggest fear, is if they were to someday come along and take that all away, and put us on the same boat that the Americans just came off of. I am really curious to see how things are going to work out with this thing down there. I can see where American people might get a little excited, because it is a real big change, but from way up here and not being affected by this, it looks to me like your government is really trying to help. But then, like I say, I don't really know much about it (the cost, coverage, details, etc), that's just what it looks like to me at this point. Just thought I would throw in my 2 cents. Healthcare is'nt necessarily a bad thing all the time.
I can remember getting pretty excited about it when I got that first bill in the mail. "Who the hell do they think they are, blah, blah, blah". My dad was on their side as he was trying to explain some sense into me. Up here in Canada, for me it was the cheapest and best insurance I ever bought, even if it was forced upon me, and I hope they start charging us a little bit again, as I do feel it is hard to demand good service if you're not paying something for it. But I'll take the free also. So thats how it is in Alberta as far as I know anyway, not sure about the rest of the country.
Does this sound accurate to the rest of Canada? (like alot of Canadians visit this site). lol. Some do, I know.
I hope it all works out real well for everyone down there, and I THINK it will, but I don't know that for sure. It'll take a bit of getting used to probably, but I'll bet in 5 years from now, alot of you will be thinking alot differently about the whole situation. This is just my opinion. But lets check back here in 5 years, shall we.

Me, mud, work and weather.

A self inflicted picture of myself. I'm not sure how to pose for a picture, especially when I'm the one snapping the shot. The squirrel in the tree and my dog was wondering what's goin on. Now everyone else is probably thinkin the same.

It snows, then warms up, then snows, then warms up, then........It's quite a mess around here at times lately.

Inside of the water cistern. 8 foot diameter and about 11.5 feet long. 3500 gallons of water storage. Well it will be a little less once the concrete is poured in the bottom. There is a little water seeping in as things melt around here. I'm sure that will stop eventually in time once everything is saturated and settled. I won't be pouring concrete in here untill a little later in the summer to give things a chance to thaw and settle.

The cistern has been backfilled for awhile now, I just did'tn get around to posting pics until now.

I decided to go with the blueskin water proofing membrane around my basement. I put on a piece of it one day just to get a feel of it. I'm waiting for a nice day to get it all done. I have just about had enough slopping around in the mud trying to get things done on this thing. I'm seriously thinking about just concentrating on the pay job for a bit and let things dry up a bit around here. The peterbilt is due for an inspection at the end of April and if I don't work on that now, I will find myself doing it later on when the weather is nice for building. Also one of the trailers that I am pulling is in real need of some TLC. So, I might as well get all caught up with that stuff working in a shop and getting paid for it, rather than slopping around in the mud. March has been kinda busy for me at work. It is usually our busiest month of the year. All the oil companies are in a big panick to get some last minute things done before spring break. Pretty soon, alot of the bush roads will be closed to heavy traffic. As it is now, we can only go on them at night, when the temperatures are cooler and the mud is frozen. This time of year, I find it really hard to work on my own project even if I am not working all the time. Go out one night and it kinda screws your whole schedule up for a day or two.

Just when I thought things might be starting to dry up we get some more snow to melt. This one was taken this morning. Today I am being a bit of a house plant(shack plant I guess). Sometimes I enjoy doing nothing but hanging out in the old shack and playing around on the computer, like today. The dog likes it too, but the squirrel misses us. Although it is snowing and clouded over, when I check out the power generating situation, I find that I am bringing in a little more power than what I am using right now. Somewhere around Feb 14 2010 is the last time I have used my generator to run my shack. Most of my power used to run power tools etc has also come from my solar setup, but I have used the generator a few times for misc things such as plugging the backhoe in on a cold morning and running power tools at times, on a cloudy day etc. Life is pretty darned good. I'm thinking about doing a little house cleaning today possibly. lol. We'll see.

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I almost forgot to mention that I updated my blogger profile a few days ago. It used to say what I wanted to be doing and how I wanted to be living, but I guess I am now doing all that.