AND SO IT GOES

Getting Eric’s business off the ground made the months of May and June rather stressful – at one point he had completed three jobs, but hadn’t seen a single cheque. Thankfully, the situation balanced itself out and we are now squirreling away money for our bus. While it feels good to see a padded savings account balance, we can hardly wait to reduce our reliance on banks, which are basically wolves in sheep’s clothing. If anyone has experience with alternative ways of dealing with money, please let us know! 

Eric found full-time work as the general contractor for a cottage in Silver Beach, near Riding Mountain National Park in Manitoba. This is about 1.5 hours away from Moosomin, so he lives at the campground there four days a week in a 19-foot travel trailer, complete with shower, kitchen, and the most comfortable bed he’s ever slept on … seriously. My dad and brother are working with him (well, my brother is back to school for September, so that means Eric’s looking for more help). They also live in a trailer at the campground, so Eric isn’t alone – they get together to watch movies and play XBox – real outdoorsy-at-the-lake kinds of activities. 

Eric says: 
I am currently trying to sell myself as a general contractor and so far I’ve been able to pull it off. I have built entire houses before and have had my own business before, but putting the two together was quite the amalgamation. It would be impossible for me to list all the tasks involved in running a legitimate construction company, but let’s just say it has taken months of research and many long phone calls to Canada Revenue Agency to make it all work. 

The actual construction is going well. Earl, Jonas, and I built and poured the concrete foundation for the this cottage in early July and have since completed the framing, including for two of the three decks, and set structural log posts on granite boulder foundations. We have the windows installed and are waiting for the roof material to be delivered. I am getting the chance to build lots of very custom stuff on this place, which makes work both challenging and enjoyable. A log railing, log posts on the granite boulders outside, log posts and railing inside, and an assortment of other little special things will certainly make this place stand out. 

I have to admit that it is very intimidating to be responsible for so many sub-trades and so much money. Don’t get the wrong idea – it’s not all my money. General contracting is a funny thing – you make an educated guess as to how much a certain project will cost (this one is well into the six figure digits), then you build the thing, hoping the client pays on time, and also hoping that when you are finally finished you will have some money left over for your troubles … the jury is still out on that part. I figure we will be in Silver Beach until the middle of October and then I hope to take a week or two to work on the bus before the next project. 

Back to Rachel: 
With Eric working so far away, I am alone most of the week, but not really alone because the beautiful and funny Dinah is my companion. For the most part, I do appreciate this alone time, because I know I won’t always have this kind of space allowing me to work on a number of different personal projects. Although I feel like I’m making little headway, I have to keep telling myself that this is an important step in my journey of writing, life, and everything else. I also write the occasional article for the local newspaper, research bus stuff, keep house, work out, and (for what seems like the first time in my life) get all the sleep that I need. 

The downside to being alone and trying to be a writer is this noisy apartment. The building isn’t built well, so every noise seeps right through the drywall, and the floor joists, and every other medium you can think of. We are unwillingly intimately involved in the lives of the guy above us with the dog, the other guy above us with the squeaky recliner, the guy beside us who washes dishes late at night, and the girl below us who likes hip hop (at least she turned the bass down when we asked). 

Also, because this building lacks any type of air exchange system and the apartment has only one opening window, we were forced to get an air conditioner, which manages to completely isolate me from the summer happening outside. And it is defective. Even though we already returned it once. Our advice is to not buy a Whirlpool brand air conditioner. At least not the 8,000 BTU model. 


Adventures with an air conditioner 

We looked at the selection of air conditioners at Canadian Tire in Brandon (at that time in mid-May, few other stores had many a/c units for sale) and choose one that was small enough for our window. If only we could have waited for a month, we would have found one that was the right size and way cheaper and probably more reliable. As it was, this unit was out of stock and we had to wait a week to get it. Then it was another week before Eric managed to scab together some scrap plywood as an insert for the window. For some strange reason that we still don’t understand, he spray-painted the thing before bringing it into the apartment. Of course, the extreme toxic smell, its off-gassing chemicals killing brain cells, and the instant headache it caused, made it impossible for me to be in a 50-foot radius of that board, so Eric had to take it right back out, leave it out for a couple weeks, and reinstall it. All this involved much pain and struggling from the numerous times of wrestling the 100-pound metal box with sharp corners in and out of a small opening. 

After about four weeks, the fan started randomly turning off and on. This phenomenon did not appear under the heading in the manual titled “Noises your unit will make.” We figured we must have received a defective unit and decided to exchange it. Once again, this involved grappling the beastly thing out of the window, into its box, into the van, driving into Brandon, and then hauling the thing back out of the van and onto a shopping cart and driving it into the store. Of course, once we got the new unit, we had to follow the same process in reverse. 

After about four days, the fan started randomly turning off and on. Then we could no longer adjust the temperature – it somehow stuck itself on 64 F (or 17.8 C) even though I set it at 74 F (or 23 C). (Of course, this unit does NOT have the option of Celsius – honestly, only old people and Americans understand Fahrenheit. The only Fahrenheit I know is that I can cook my food at 350 F and that it will cook even faster at 400 F. I have this feeling my air conditioner won’t reach those kinds of temperatures.) 

So, our air conditioner works in that it does keep the bedroom cold and the rest of the apartment tolerable, as long as the oven isn’t on. I simply had to decide to not let the random mechanical clickings and knockings bother me, because that thing is not moving from the window before winter. And at that point it might head out the far side of the window after a swift kick with our feet. 

Although I will admit, I appreciate its background hum that drowns out the noise of the other people in this building when I’m trying to sleep. 


The fun stuff 

Eric’s parents crossed three provinces to come visit us in early June and although the weather was rainy and cool, we drove into Winnipeg and camped in popular Birds Hill Park, just north of Winnipeg. Eric’s mom has never been this far east in Canada (except the time she came out for our wedding, but since Kola is barely over the Saskatchewan border, that hardly counts), so we were happy to show off the lush beauty of Manitoba. 

We also went camping one weekend in July with my parents in Spruce Woods Provincial Park, using Eric’s “work” trailer – quite a different experience from our tent. Since it was yet another cold and rainy weekend, being able to sit in the trailer and play Carcassonne was certainly more convenient than huddling into our sleeping bags and playing crib by headlamp light. But it was also less spiritual. 

We went to the Brandon Folk Festival, marking one year since we’ve been living here in Manitoba/Saskatchewan. We went for two days this time, and it was wonderfully relaxing to sit and not have to think about anything, but instead listen to good live music and soak up the gorgeous weather. 


No road trip for us 

We had been planning to make a trip to B.C. in August, as one of Eric’s friends was getting married in Sorrento. We expected to make stops in southern Alberta and southern B.C. to catch up with friends and family on our way through and had hoped to be present for the burial of Eric’s grandpa’s ashes (in Vancouver). Grandpa Bartle, although in poor health in an assisted living complex, had passed away suddenly on May 25, exactly five months since we’d last seen him. However, he hadn’t wanted anyone to have a funeral for him so no services were held immediately following his passing. 

But when we sat down to make solid plans, we realized that going on a road trip was not the best choice under the circumstances of the time. After hours of deliberation and looking at all the options, we made the difficult decision to not go. It was an incredibly disappointing conclusion for both of us, obviously missing both the burial and the wedding was more than just unfortunate. But also, I was really looking forward to getting away and doing some travelling. For someone used to travelling, it is hard to sit in one place for so long. Since we’ve been married, the longest stretch we’ve gone between trips has been about five months. Now we are approaching eight months and I am feeling the itch! Eric does a lot of driving throughout the week, and has to balance living concurrently in two places, so packing up his toothbrush and sitting in a vehicle for 50 odd hours doesn’t hold quite the same appeal for him. But I would love to get away for a while. I console myself with the thought that once we’re in our bus I will be able to travel whenever I want.