Homestead Memories - Getting From Here to There

My Old Chev Truck

Goin’ down the road, in my old Chev truck

Gettin’ where I’m goin’ maybe takes a little luck.

The fuel tank leaks, there’s a hole in the floor

And I’ll have to admit that there’s quite a bit more,

Yes, I’ll have to admit that there’s quite a bit more!

                                                                                           

The tail pipe’s gone and the windshield’s cracked.

The hood and cab are red and the fenders are all black.

There’s a small crop of oats growin’ in the truck’s bed.

The spare tire’s flat and the battery’s dead,

Yes, the spare tire’s flat and the battery’s dead.

With a chug-a-chug a clunk and a rattle kling klang

My old Chev truck always starts with a bang.

She ain’t very fast and she rides a bit rough

But no one can say my old Chev’s not tough,

No, no one can say my old Chev’s not tough!

For 20 year’s and more she’s been workin’ like a horse

Haulin’ hay, wood and critters, and the family of course.

I’ll keep her ‘til she dies or the wrecker has no parts

Cause that old Chev truck has a place in my heart,

Yes, that old Chev truck has a place in my heart.

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 I got to thinking about days gone by and all the different vehicles we had that got us from here to there in the last 40 years. I have a feeling most folks, like us, would have a pretty long list if they pondered that long a span. Memories, for me, are crystal clear but jumbled together a bit. I am afflicted with a warped time-line so I often know the "what" but the "when" is another thing entirely. So I picked my husband's brain while he was watching the news. He grudgingly granted me his usual amount of attention for a few fractured minutes to mull this over, while trying not to miss a single moment of news he'd already seen at least twice. In the end it seemed that he didn't remember much more than I do, or maybe he just wasn't able to multi-think.

     When we first came to Alberta we had a '68 Volkswagen panel van. We had many adventures in that van. One time, while heading to California to return our visiting nephew, dog tired and a little desperate we pulled into a camp ground that was closed for the season. It was one of those inky black moonless nights. To top it off fog blanketed the forrest making visibility almost non-existent. We were inching along at a slow crawl, searching for a camp site, when we experienced a sudden tilt to the right. Upon investigation we found that the wheels on the passenger side had partially dropped off a ledge leaving us balanced on the edge of a deep ditch - deep enough that if we tipped into it we'd end up stranded on our side in the middle of nowhere. I put my wee little boy behind a guard rail and told him sternly not to move even one inch. Our nephew and I hung onto the outside of the driver side of the van to provide ballast and my husband fortunately was able to get enough purchase to drive the van back onto the road. My son remembers this as "One of those times you tried to kill me, Mom". He apparently also saw wading in the ocean on that same trip as another one of those times.

     Another time, on our way home from the States, we came out of the mountains in Eastern Washington. I was driving and when I put my foot on the brakes nothing happened. I was remarkably "in-control" (remember, these are my memories) as I approached a red light in the small town we'd pulled into. "Dick", I said calmly, "we don't have any brakes." So I dropped a gear at a time (yes, I was receiving somewhat frantic instructions), headed up a hill and pulled off to the side, using first gear and gravity to come to a stop. Dick then took over. We drove downtown in low gear and gently eased into a diagonal parking space around the corner from a hardware store. But the curb failed to halt the van! There we were, on the sidewalk, heading slowly for the plate glass window at the front of the Washington State Bank! Employees and customers alike had their eyes trained on the approaching vehicle, surprise combined with fear freezing everyone in their tracks (a hippy version of Bonnie and Clyde planning to rob the bank?). We in turn were holding our breath, gritting our teeth and bracing for the worst. But we stopped. Had a good three feet to spare. With a Cheshire grin and a little wave we eased the van backwards into the parking space. Dick went to the hardware store and bought a nail to plug off the brake line and we limped our way back to Alberta.

     The Van got smashed by someone running a stop sign in the Hills. We had a variety of trucks after that - an oil guzzling Ford which we got rid of pretty quickly; an old International, no power steering, one of those old beaters just hanging in there; an ancient blue one ton the RCMP used to stop nearly every time we took it on the road, just sure some standard or another wasn't up to snuff.

     At long last we were able to buy something decent and got a brand new 1978 plain Jane Chev truck. This one stood us well until the bird incident several years later. My son, Owen, rescued a Robin that had stunned himself on our window. The robin wasn't recovering very fast and he was feeding him and trying his best to bring him back to health. Dick was doing a Border Collie training clinic at a horse arena near the city. The arena owners had offered to print the most recent edition of "That'll Do!" (a Border Collie magazine I was producing) on their photocopier, so Owen, the bird and I drove down to join Dick on the last day of the clinic. Since I was still left with the job of collating  the journal after the clinic was done, Dick, Owen and the bird left for home in the truck leaving me at the arena. Half hour or so later I got a call from the Devon Hospital saying my son was there, but he was okay...there had been an accident...

     So here's the story. Dick was checking out the bird who was perched on the back of the seat (they now call this distracted driving). Eyes back on the road he failed to react in time, ploughing smack dab into a big old clunker of a car turning left in front of him. Owen's head created a hole in the windshield, Dick was fine, the car he hit barely scratched, the truck was totalled, and I'll be damned if I can remember what happened to the bird.

     After that we got a Mazda truck. It eventually met its demise with the aid of a moose. I can still see that moose. He was running sort of parallel to us at first. I watched him sorta roll over the cab in slow motion. The moose limped away. The Mazda did not.

     For a while we had an old restored Chev which inspired the song included here, also two Nissan trucks, a Dodge Caravan and a Dakota. We had a variety of cars as well, the most noteworthy of them being an old blue Subaru which was given to us by a friend. It had been used to chase Buffalo on the southern prairies before we got it. It was tough to drive in the winter cause the heater was, to say the least, inadequate. I needed to wear warm winter gear and cover with a blanket, put the defrost on full just to make a wee hole in the windshield to see through. But it was my first car and I was determined. Owen told us many years later how he drove it on the fields, ramping over hills doing a "Dukes of Hazard" imitation - just one of the many stories we heard 20 years after the fact. He also roamed every bush trail within a ten mile radius on a little off-road motor bike.

     I have a feeling some blog readers have colourful vehicle stories of their own. I'd love to read some in comments if you have an inclination to share.

Solar "Incentives"

Our modest solar installation

    Beginning March 1st, 2016, the NDP Government of Alberta (with the aid of funding from the Federal Government of Canada) will begin accepting applications for the "Alberta Municipal Solar Program" and the "On-Farm Solar Management Program".

     The Minister of Agriculture and Forestry, Oneil Carlier, recently said that "Agricultural producers embrace innovation and are good stewards of the land. The solar installation program will help increase farming efficiencies, reduce power bills and greenhouse gas emissions and add to Alberta's power grid." Information seminars are being held throughout Alberta regarding this program. Not unexpected, the usual catch 22 is attached discriminating against low income earners, i.e. small farmers. To be eligible the farmer must have a minimum of $10,000 in farm and livestock income. Besides the $10,000 catch 22, I suspect there are other less obvious discriminators, but perhaps I'm reading between the lines when there's nothing between them.

     I can't help but wonder, why do these grants apply only to farmers and municipal buildings? What about individual home owners who would be interested, for the sake of the environment, for supplementing their power bill? The more homes using solar for power, the less drain on the grid, leaving grid power for industry and negating the need for government funding to expand the grid system.

     What about people who want solar installations who are not connected to the grid (those using generators or those having no power at all) who would not be lessening their "power bill" and would not be contributing to the "power grid" but could improve their quality of life dramatically? I know several families in my own area who fall into that category.

     What if someone just wanted to go all out, someone with enough land so that an installation would not be offensive to neighbors, someone who is not a farmer, what if someone like that wanted to build a solar installation that would reduce "greenhouse gas emissions and add to Alberta's power grid"? What if they were willing to inject a chunk of their own cash into this project? Would such a person be eligible for any government assistance? Just how serious are the provincial and federal governments about stimulating alternate energy projects that might actually provide a source of income (a job?) to someone willing to take a gamble on a better future?

     For those are eligible to apply under the current programs, will they be able to bank credits in the summer to be applied to their power bill in the winter when sun is scarce? When we looked into this idea several years back you could only bring the power portion of your current bill to zero, but you could not amass credit toward future bills or receive any actual cash back. Also, ask anyone with a power bill, how much of that bill is power? How much is administrative costs, line charges, etc? I hear my friends complain about these costs quite frequently. It's my understanding that solar credits will be applied only to electrical usage, not to these other fees. Do not ask this Alberta farmer about power bills though. I do not know. I have never had one and I have lived in Alberta for 42 years.

      After living without power for 10 years, in 1984 we raised the first solar panels onto our roof. We did this for two reasons. The first is that we have always tried to be environmentally conscious and we saw this as a step toward a better future. The second reason was that power lines were 2 miles away. Putting grid power in was cost prohibitive. Since then we have added to our system several times, upgraded the panels, added more, gotten an efficient inverter, a diesel generator, and brought our home into the modern world - more modern, I feel, than homes having grid power. All the investment in our power system came from our own pockets, even though people applying for grid power at that time were subsidized to an extent, and able to stretch installation costs over many years.

     We would very much like to get a bit of help to upgrade our oldest bank of solar panels with newer, more efficient panels. How nice it would be if, for once, our needs fit within the parameters set out for government grant eligibility. On pension income, we sure could use some help! And when our current battery bank has lost its efficiency, it would be just grand if we could get help to pay for a new more efficient battery storage system instead of having to dig another gob of cash out of our increasingly shallow pockets.

     Just saying....

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     So I went to this website: On-Farm Energy Management Program - Growing Forward 2 - Government of Alberta, www.growingforward.alberta.ca › Progra...

     Right at the top of the page it said "not accepting applications at this time". Gotta love governments.

     I also looked at the AMSP site. There is a clause there stating off-grid installations are ineligible.  

     I'm not one of those Albertans clamouring to blame all the woes of the current economy or Alberta's dismal fiscal reality upon the fledgling NDP government. They have, after all, come into power in the wake of a 40 year Conservative Dynasty, when world oil prices are as low as they've ever been, when the Canadian dollar is in the tank, when addressing climate change is both expected and demanded by anyone with a thinking mind. But in their exuberance to make changes they have made errors, mostly in public relations, and have had to backtrack, apologize, appease. They need to remember that one reason they came to power is because the Conservative vote was split, not because all the folks in Alberta are excited by their ideas.

     I have found, though, that this government cares enough to respond - to comments I've made on FaceBook and Twitter, and hopefully to direct contact with MLA's.

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Copy of this blog sent:
To the Alberta Government Ministers of:  Agriculture and Forestry, Hon. Oneal John Carlier, and Environment & Parks, Hon. Shannon Phillips
Also to the Federal Minister of Environment, Hon. Catherine McKenna

Homestead Memories: Working with Horses

     When we first moved to our land we decided we'd like to use horses for our farm work, logging, firewood and gardening. As with nearly everything else we did, we were winging it - no prior knowledge, no one to teach us with the exception of a few sporadic lessons from some old timers. But, other than a few catastrophes, we did pretty well. (Note: "We" is what I call the royal WE, meaning my husband, Dick, with me providing back-up support.)

     The first thing we did was go to a local horse trader to buy a team. He saw us coming about 40 miles away. So Tim, our gelding, who appeared sound at first was actually lame. The trader claimed it was because his hooves were trimmed a might short, but hoof growth never corrected the problem. Mom, our mare, "may have been pregnant", he said, but in reality was fairly old with a slung belly. We acquired a set of harness, hitched up the team and proceeded to plant a half acre of potatoes. The half acre eventually became a quarter acre of weeds and a quarter acre of potatoes due to the fact that we just couldn't manage to care for that large a crop with our knowledge level and everything else we had to do. I remember that we built a page wire play pen for my son down by the potato patch. I suspect that wouldn't hold up well alongside today's safe baby products, but, like the cardboard box I used for a car seat, we did what we could and somehow my son survived.

     As time went on we purchased a beautiful pair of Percheron mare colts, a fine set of harness from Sackville, New Brunswick, and a few more implements - eventually owning a plough, mower, seeder, disk, dump rake, garden cultivator, manure spreader, dump wagon, and sleigh - all of which we made use of. Using horses my husband logged an area across our lake and sold the logs. He also got Tamarac fence posts from the lake in the winter. We fenced our leased quarter (carrying the wire through the inaccessible parts between us on a pole), got our firewood, used a walking plough to prepare what we call the "L shaped field" to plant a crop, tilled the garden - all using horses. Once the Percherons were trained as a team we sold Mom and Tim.

     Working with a team of horses is both rewarding and frightening. They are huge animals which you must care for, feed well, and respect. Things do not always go as planned. One winter one of the nearly grown colts fell on the lake ice and couldn't get up. She was wild-eyed, panicked, sweating. There was no way she could right herself. We tied a rope to Tim and, after much worry and encouragement, he finally pulled her to the shore and firm ground. I remember once Dick had the team standing outside the barn while he forked it clean. A huge dump of snow avalanched its way off the barn roof onto the sleigh and off they went; would have kept going, going, going but they wedged themselves between two sheds and came to an abrupt halt. Another time they slipped on an icy hill with a sleigh behind them and down they went into a tangle of harness. We had to remove the harness to free them, take them to the top of the hill, attach a rope to the sleigh and pull it up, re-harness and reattach the sleigh. From this we learned that shoeing them in winter was wise. While training the Percherons, Ruthie and Honey, to work as a team out in our North field, several fighter jets zoomed low overhead causing absolute terror for the team and quite a control issue for Dick. But over time Ruthie and Honey and Dick became tuned to one another and worked well together in a long standing partnership of mutual respect. After a couple of disheartening tries and sad seasons both mares had fine stud colts, Sonny and Jim.

    Horses are very well suited for logging. Dick got a berth across the highway from us. He would fall and buck the trees and the horses pulled them to a landing. On our own land he would roll them onto the sleigh and take them home. The second winter here we took our horses, goats, chickens, just walking baby boy and ourselves up to a chipboard bush shack we built near Swan Hills where we, along with our neighbours, logged fence posts for a local mill.  That was quite a winter, living in our tiny shack with only room for a crib, a bed, a table and a tin airtight heater. The snow was deep, used to sift through the seams of our shack when windy but was almost refreshing at times because we had to keep our heater running at full capacity in order to melt enough snow for the horses to drink. Mom even pulled a dead moose - hit by a truck, killed by the RCMP and donated to us - (yes there's more to that story) across the highway and through waist deep snow to our shack where we hung and butchered it, froze it outdoors, and had many good meals.

     Though we used the horses for many years, we did end up getting a tractor. The first one was a John Deere A, tricycle wheeled tractor, very old, tippy, a challenge to drive. The second tractor was a propane powered giant 930 Case with a cab in which you'd nearly melt on a hot day. Finally we got a 265 Massey, which we still have. We continued to use the horses for quite some time but as they got older, and we got older, and the colts were sold, we finally retired them. They lived out their final days, well over 30 years, on the pastures they worked when they, and we, were young.