What are you doing sleeping on the ground, you haven't been evicted again have you jex! Lol
How’s the weather?
- Thread starter The Masked Shadow
- Start date
I thought I would take advantage of the little spell of nice spring weather we are having to drag a couple of new stock tanks against the side of the house, where I intend to keep them this summer. My others are across the yard. I just picked these up on sale a Peavey Mart; got 'em cleaned out and all filled up, just waiting to put some fish in.
We have a slight hard water problem every spring.
My one small inground pond is nearly ready for fish also.
We have a slight hard water problem every spring.
My one small inground pond is nearly ready for fish also.
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Finally! Spring is (almost) here!
Temps have reached into the 60F range daily for the past week or two, and almost all of our snow is gone except for the largest piles and drifts. My lawn is flooded, which is typical each spring, and I currently have a submersible utility pump draining the largest puddles into my 6 stock tanks and my little inground pond. This is the one and only water change that pond gets, i.e. pumping out last years water as soon as it thaws and then refilling with fresh spring snowmelt water.
Temps have reached into the 60F range daily for the past week or two, and almost all of our snow is gone except for the largest piles and drifts. My lawn is flooded, which is typical each spring, and I currently have a submersible utility pump draining the largest puddles into my 6 stock tanks and my little inground pond. This is the one and only water change that pond gets, i.e. pumping out last years water as soon as it thaws and then refilling with fresh spring snowmelt water.
I'm glad you're finally coming out of the deep freeze! Lol.
I take it we won't be seeing any more pics of your face frozen solid then, not for a few months anyway!
You are correct, sir! My smiling visage, although locked in a perpetual grin of brotherly love and fellowship as I bask in the balmy warmth and sunlight of a Manitoba spring, will remain invisible in future.
But, official and complete retirement looms only one month away, so rest assured my fish will benefit from my loving attention even more than they have up till now. No more three-week stretches without a water change; they will be enjoying 75-100% fresh new water weekly from here on in, unless I sign on for the odd single northern work wrap from time to time as I am vaguely planning.
We are on our 3rd day of sunny skies and temperatures above 78F so it has been glorious! I was able to mow 3/4 of the lawn that we normally do, the other 1/4 is still too wet due to the heavy rains last week and the terrain.
Upcoming congrats to
jjohnwm
for your upcoming "official and complete retirement"!
Upcoming congrats to
jjohnwm
for your upcoming "official and complete retirement"!
I don't know if it's a blighty English thing but when most people seem to retire over here it's not long before they're moping about and bored, and end up getting a part time job or something. The "shock" of working all their lives and then all of a sudden not working seems to be a genuine affliction over here!
I am absolutely the polar opposite of this. I can't wait to retire, and will be doing so early, though not sure when yet. I have so many other interests to keep me busy boredom would never get chance to set in.
You're pretty much the same as me in as much that you have other interests to keep you active and busy. Why do you think, before you've actually even retired, than you may get lugged into doing the odd "wrap." Surely you'd want to have a clean and permanent break from working life?
That's not strictly a British thing at all. I am constantly hearing about folk here who retire and then quickly go out of their minds with boredom...but they tend to be people whose life revolved around their jobs and who had little in the way of outside interests. Worse yet, a fair proportion of those seem to succumb to some malady that quickly puts them into the grave, and I can't help but feel that it is the stress of suddenly not working that contributes to this. Not a problem for me; I am one who feels that earning a living definitely interferes with living! I have lots to keep me busy.
My father was exactly that type of workaholic, who put the welfare of his family ahead of all else, including his own welfare. He took a slightly early retirement upon being diagnosed with cancer and given 6 months to live. He passed away 20 years later, and not from cancer...in fact, I am convinced that cancer extended his life! It made him decide to enjoy what remained of his life without guilt, and that mindset likely pulled him through the cancer treatments and let him continue living. He was certainly too stubborn to die just because a doctor told him to!
Shortly after retirement, but before it became apparent that the cancer was going into remission, he told me that he hoped I would never fall into the trap of workaholicism (that's gotta be a word!) that held him prisoner for most of his life. I looked him in the eye and asked him if he really saw that as a possible problem for me; he thought about it and agreed that it seemed unlikely.
Why would I go to work here and there, off and on? Simple: the work I do, and the places I do it, pays very well because not many people are willing to go there and do that. There is a tiny sub-culture of electricians, ironworkers, pipefitters, teamsters, carpenters and other tradespeople that does this stuff, and you tend to see the same people at various far-flung locations over the years. Working 10 or 12 hours a day for 21 days straight lets the cash pile up at about four times the rate of the same job done in the city on a five-day-per-week basis thanks to overtime, and by the time you add on such extras as isolation pay and retention bonuses, it's hard to say no. And it gives me a chance to see some remote places that I likely would not visit otherwise. I enjoy birding and fishing, both of which are usually available at most sites. I've also gone to sites where I was able to pack in a rifle and other hunting gear, put it into storage somewhere and then go on a hunt immediately after the work rotation ends...and those are strictly DIY hunts, which are far more exciting and satisfying than the common guided hunts many travelling hunters enjoy.
Right now I am eyeballing a rotation for next year at the northern end of Baffin Island. The job site that has employed me for the past 7 years is a one-hour plane ride straight north from my home. The Baffin job is another 3 hours north of that, well north of the Arctic Circle! Polar bears, walruses, the elusive Ross' Gull...how cool is that?
