Pulling the ripcord. Major life change

It's like the Mafia. Once you're in, you're in for life.   Why I don't tell all my talents to everyone!  They still find me too though.

In reply to ShawnG :

That is an honor that you have skills that are so high level that someone wants you that bad. I have always been super impressed with your depth of knowledge and the things you do. That person is fortunate to work out an agreement with you.

Thanks for the kind words guys, I appreciate it.

If this works out well, it will mean less hustle at home to pay the monthly bills too.

Sorry for the late update.

Trip to deal with my client worked out very well. Looks like this is going to be a regular thing for me!

On the home front, we're getting frost at night so I've been pulling out the garden and getting things ready for winter. We had an absolutely miserable year for the garden. Our spring was so wet that everything got drowned. Corn didn't do well in spite of re-seeding we got nothing. Potatoes, garlic and squash did very well.

The cold spring and an error on my part also contributed to our bees not doing well so there was no honey this year but I'm confident for next year.

We're changing our plans a bit for the garden next year. We're narrowing our focus a bit to things that don't need as much attention from me. Next year will be only specialty potatoes, garlic, corn and zucchini as this seems to be the only thing people want to buy.

We're also starting christmas trees next spring. I need to consider something for retirement and trees are ten years in the future. We have our order in for an initial batch of 50 trees to see how each variety will do. We're planting Scot's Pine, Blue Spruce and White Spruce.

There's zero christmas tree farms out here and the only real trees come from the hardware store in a sock. There's no "Pick and Cut" type places. When we lived in Langley there were probably 20 tree farms in a 100km radius to do your shopping at. The people we've talked to about the idea seem excited.

At worst, I'll end up with a wind break or have some landscape trees to sell.

Got our bees all prepped for the winter too:

Snug as a bug...

Bees are a special skill. I have three friends who all tried raising them out here and all gave up after opening dead hives several Springs in a row. But up there is drier so maybe they will winter better once you get the hang of it.

In reply to bearmtnmartin (Forum Supporter) :

They made it through last winter with less insulation so this one should be OK as long as they have enough food. Fingers crossed.

Wife unit had her glass art in the Saskatoon Glassworkers Guild sale last weekend and absolutely killed it. Sold a lot of her pieces in just two days.

I'm going to be at the Sask Snow Outdoor Leisure Show this Saturday, kissing hands and shaking babies, trying to promote the repair shop a bit.

Sunday I get a day off.

Monday I catch a flight back to Vancouver to work on customer vehicles for a week.

Now I just need to figure out how to clone myself.

And... Here's the thing with owning your own business...

Pros: You're the boss.

Cons: You're the boss.

Had a brand-new ignition coil that was installed two weeks ago on a customer's truck go bad. Napa is covering the coil under warranty but I get to eat the labour on the replacement. Yay me...

Today I discovered that my wonderful new method for cleaning carburetors isn't so wonderful. Yeah, the crock pot with antifreeze gets them clean but it also melts out the nylon throttle bushings and decel enrichment valves.

Looks like I get to buy my customer a carburetor core that I can overhaul since the little brass insert can't be removed without damage and the valves aren't available anyway.

Looks like I'll be making a big, fat zero or maybe even be eating the weenie on this job. Oh well.

Oh, and my shop heater crapped out today. Turned out to be a bad high limit switch so at least it's a $15 part instead of a $250 heater. Too bad it's two weeks away.