Yup. That time of year again. It snowed on the weekend, and a bit today as well.
Hmm. It's nice - crisp and clear and cold out. The cars whoosh by when there is snow on the road.
But it does make walking tricky. Or I'm wearing the wrong kind of shoes. My super-duper hiking boots I bought for our trip three years ago are just too solid in the sole to give good grip. And my trainers are a bit leaky. I need some new boots, yes, that's it.
What do I wish to commit to internet-land, to Google's "not" evil clutches for all eternity (well, til the end of the world in a few weeks...). That my trainers leak?
What is there to be said? The world over, children are laughing or crying. Men and women are talking, sleeping, washing, thinking. Fucking. Flossing. Going faster and faster, but getting nowhere fast.
Palestine... ah Palestine. The story of Israel and Palestine would make a great book, if (rather like Robert Jordan, RIP) they could just get to the end. Well, no use going in to *that* here. None of my business. But oh I wish I could bang some heads together.
It's all about the little things, isn't it. Shall I drink coffee (gives me a headache, allows me to think about silly little things like programming more clearly), or not (withdrawal... few headaches but a fuzzyness of brain). Shall I buy a car... or a new laptop... or give away half my books...
I am learning to play the guitar, what a joy! Sore fingers. The guitar helps me sing, and the singing helps me play, who'd'a thunk it?
Life's good. I am warm, loved, free.
Friday, November 30, 2012
Saturday, November 24, 2012
Digging in to Farming
These last two Saturdays I have been on a course in Ottawa called Digging in to Farming, specifically for people who are past the "mm I'd like to think about farming" but before the "I'm running this farm as a business right now" stage.
It was not a perfect fit for me, as I will - at least next year - be an employee rather than a business owner, but some of those tasks may fall to me and my partner in this venture, Lindsay. In some ways we are a venture within the parent organisation - a program, a subsection - and will have quite a bit of autonomy in terms of day to day. We'll have a budget, and unlike a small business won't unilaterally be able to go to the bank to raise money to invest in the business, and so on.
It was a very, very good course, though, and I did get a lot out of it. In fact a lot would help *anyone* starting a small business that is more complex than my current IT consultancy/freelance work - proper business plans were circulated, the talk was about financing, profit & loss, marketing, finding the right enterprise, and so on.
We had an amazing group of about 20-25 people, two seasoned farmers as primary tutors, plus a local farmer who has been running his own business for the last couple of years, after being farm manager before that.
The group was diverse in business ideas - and it really brought home that "farming" really is not a big enough word to encompass all the activities possible.
One "frightening" thing to me, in terms of scaring me off becoming a "proper farmer", is that it really is not just about working the land. Again, like any business, as it grows the proprietor will tend more to a managerial and administrative role.
I don't want that. I used the word "homestead" last week and I'm beginning to think that that is more what I am interested in. Have some land, grow food for myself and sell any excess (or preserve it), raise a couple of pigs for the manure and meat, a few chickens for eggs. Not... business plans, forecasting, analysis to show I can (probably) make money to pay off a bank loan.
So that's the rub. I want to be outside, growing stuff, making use of the land. Not in an office, dealing with HR, interns or employees, form-filling and so on.
What is going through my head right now is that a) if I did run a business I would categorically NOT want it to grow - I would want it to be small enough that I could manage most of it myself, with MAYBE some hired help at peak times, and b) if I go the homesteading route, I could spend my life saving money - "earning" money by only rarely having to go to the supermarket, and perhaps selling the occasional bag of veg to the neighbours.
As they said at the course, realising that you do NOT want to run a farm business is just as much a success for the course and helping people realise they actually do.
I have next year mostly tied up (small CSA work two days a week, soapstone workshops now and again), but there will be lots of spare time. Just trying to work out... what to do with it.
I might just buy a small piece of land, plant an orchard and nut trees, and "potter" - grow veg. And the economics be damned. Good luck to the small farmers making a go of it. I'm just seriously thinking the business management side of it is not for me.
It does rather make me laugh - do all the work of figuring out your business, show you have a high likelihood of turning a profit, work like a demon, and the bank will probably lend you money at a rate of 4, 5, 6%. Where after your costs you might make 2 or 3%. Including the countless hours most farmers don't really count up.
I don't know. Maybe I'm just lazy. But have you seen the profit banks make in Canada?!
Do I "love farming"? Maybe, maybe not. But I know if I was out working 12 hour days to make debt repayments I would be extremely bitter. So perhaps this is not for me.
Just thinking all that through makes the course absolutely worthwhile, and if you are considering running a business of any type I couldn't recommend a proper, industry-related course like this one enough.
Huge thanks to FarmStart for putting it on. I know a lot of people got a lot of different things from the two days!
It was not a perfect fit for me, as I will - at least next year - be an employee rather than a business owner, but some of those tasks may fall to me and my partner in this venture, Lindsay. In some ways we are a venture within the parent organisation - a program, a subsection - and will have quite a bit of autonomy in terms of day to day. We'll have a budget, and unlike a small business won't unilaterally be able to go to the bank to raise money to invest in the business, and so on.
It was a very, very good course, though, and I did get a lot out of it. In fact a lot would help *anyone* starting a small business that is more complex than my current IT consultancy/freelance work - proper business plans were circulated, the talk was about financing, profit & loss, marketing, finding the right enterprise, and so on.
We had an amazing group of about 20-25 people, two seasoned farmers as primary tutors, plus a local farmer who has been running his own business for the last couple of years, after being farm manager before that.
The group was diverse in business ideas - and it really brought home that "farming" really is not a big enough word to encompass all the activities possible.
One "frightening" thing to me, in terms of scaring me off becoming a "proper farmer", is that it really is not just about working the land. Again, like any business, as it grows the proprietor will tend more to a managerial and administrative role.
I don't want that. I used the word "homestead" last week and I'm beginning to think that that is more what I am interested in. Have some land, grow food for myself and sell any excess (or preserve it), raise a couple of pigs for the manure and meat, a few chickens for eggs. Not... business plans, forecasting, analysis to show I can (probably) make money to pay off a bank loan.
So that's the rub. I want to be outside, growing stuff, making use of the land. Not in an office, dealing with HR, interns or employees, form-filling and so on.
What is going through my head right now is that a) if I did run a business I would categorically NOT want it to grow - I would want it to be small enough that I could manage most of it myself, with MAYBE some hired help at peak times, and b) if I go the homesteading route, I could spend my life saving money - "earning" money by only rarely having to go to the supermarket, and perhaps selling the occasional bag of veg to the neighbours.
As they said at the course, realising that you do NOT want to run a farm business is just as much a success for the course and helping people realise they actually do.
I have next year mostly tied up (small CSA work two days a week, soapstone workshops now and again), but there will be lots of spare time. Just trying to work out... what to do with it.
I might just buy a small piece of land, plant an orchard and nut trees, and "potter" - grow veg. And the economics be damned. Good luck to the small farmers making a go of it. I'm just seriously thinking the business management side of it is not for me.
It does rather make me laugh - do all the work of figuring out your business, show you have a high likelihood of turning a profit, work like a demon, and the bank will probably lend you money at a rate of 4, 5, 6%. Where after your costs you might make 2 or 3%. Including the countless hours most farmers don't really count up.
I don't know. Maybe I'm just lazy. But have you seen the profit banks make in Canada?!
Do I "love farming"? Maybe, maybe not. But I know if I was out working 12 hour days to make debt repayments I would be extremely bitter. So perhaps this is not for me.
Just thinking all that through makes the course absolutely worthwhile, and if you are considering running a business of any type I couldn't recommend a proper, industry-related course like this one enough.
Huge thanks to FarmStart for putting it on. I know a lot of people got a lot of different things from the two days!
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Bath
What luxury. Steaming hot water, peace, quiet.
But at what cost? We have an old, electric hot water tank. Surely *using it* is non-ecofriendly?
Well, with the wonderful Hydro One Time of Usage meters, I can see exactly how much - down to the hour - how much electricity I'm using.
Last night I ran a bath at about 3 minutes to 7pm. The ToU meter shows 4.06kWh for 7-8pm last night.
7pm is when off-peak clicks in here, so assuming little other power usage happened in that hour (it didn't - just the usual, fridge, fan for the forced air system), a bath costs about 4kWh. With a 20 year old hot water tank.
The cost of that bath is about 25 cents, then. Our average daily usage is about 10kWh, maybe a touch higher. I can certainly see that our forced-air system is using a few kWh per day - our lowest usage in the last month has been 6-7kWh compared to 3-4 earlier in the year.
What can I do to save energy (save taking fewer baths - something I only do rarely anyway!)? Well, I put some insulating strip round the front door where there was a definite draft. I still need to block the old letterbox and cover the single-pane window on the front door. And put some stripping round the back door.
The old water tank could be replaced by a much more efficient version, but I believe it would be uneconomical to do so - I will do it when this one blows up. Our average daily hot water usage is probably in the region of 2kWh. Cutting this in half... just not worth it.
We need better curtains; we could use a fancy new furnace with a better thermostat (the current one is entirely manual, so I have to turn it down when I go to bed, meaning it's chilly til someone gets up and turns it up in the morning!). Again, we'll replace the furnace when the current one dies as the savings are unlikely to ever be paid back.
Our gas bill for the last month was about $70 but they estimated high, I think. It'll be interesting to see if this goes above $100 in the midst of winter - probably. The system is only heating the house by 10-15 degrees C at the moment, and will have to work twice as hard when it gets really cold. I guess the snow will add insulation though. We'll see.
Yes. That is all.
But at what cost? We have an old, electric hot water tank. Surely *using it* is non-ecofriendly?
Well, with the wonderful Hydro One Time of Usage meters, I can see exactly how much - down to the hour - how much electricity I'm using.
Last night I ran a bath at about 3 minutes to 7pm. The ToU meter shows 4.06kWh for 7-8pm last night.
7pm is when off-peak clicks in here, so assuming little other power usage happened in that hour (it didn't - just the usual, fridge, fan for the forced air system), a bath costs about 4kWh. With a 20 year old hot water tank.
The cost of that bath is about 25 cents, then. Our average daily usage is about 10kWh, maybe a touch higher. I can certainly see that our forced-air system is using a few kWh per day - our lowest usage in the last month has been 6-7kWh compared to 3-4 earlier in the year.
What can I do to save energy (save taking fewer baths - something I only do rarely anyway!)? Well, I put some insulating strip round the front door where there was a definite draft. I still need to block the old letterbox and cover the single-pane window on the front door. And put some stripping round the back door.
The old water tank could be replaced by a much more efficient version, but I believe it would be uneconomical to do so - I will do it when this one blows up. Our average daily hot water usage is probably in the region of 2kWh. Cutting this in half... just not worth it.
We need better curtains; we could use a fancy new furnace with a better thermostat (the current one is entirely manual, so I have to turn it down when I go to bed, meaning it's chilly til someone gets up and turns it up in the morning!). Again, we'll replace the furnace when the current one dies as the savings are unlikely to ever be paid back.
Our gas bill for the last month was about $70 but they estimated high, I think. It'll be interesting to see if this goes above $100 in the midst of winter - probably. The system is only heating the house by 10-15 degrees C at the moment, and will have to work twice as hard when it gets really cold. I guess the snow will add insulation though. We'll see.
Yes. That is all.
Friday, November 9, 2012
Home Sweet Home
I'm writing this on a ipad so this'll probably take a while, and contain more typos, than normal.
I'm home. Home is where the wife is, so they say - she's here so it must be!
What have I done since getting home? Well, I did indeed put the snow tires on the car. I'm currently going through CDs and DVDs and putting them into big wallet holders, and throwing out the plastic cases. Not sure if I can do anything useful with the cases.
Usually I buy music digitally, but some albums are half the price when bought second hand, even including postage.
After living out of a suitcase for a month, coming home to all this stuff is odd. I want to throw more out. Much more. I'm not doing too badly - one surplus desktop PC and one laptop have been donated to Kara's work.
But I still have 4 tubs of what one would politely call e-waste. A Dreamcast, one UK and one North American Playstation 2, PSP, old motherboard. An iBook G4 I bought for no good reason at all a couple of months ago.
I have started three Canadian "DRIPs" or dividend reinvestment plans - that is, buying a share certificate and having the dividends reinvested directly in that stock. You can do this via a broker using a method called a synthetic drip, but these three are the 'real thing' - shares held directly in my name. Some give a discount on the reinvestment price, too.
Why would I want this? Well, a synthetic drip only buys whole shares. If you get $10 of dividends but the stock costs $10.01 per share, you don't get any new shares. With a 'real' drip, you get fractional shares.
Like most countries, domestic shares have their dividends taxed favourably in Canada - as the company has already paid tax on the dividend. Note this is not Couch Potato - I am stock picking here, rather than buying the whole market. So this is a sideline, a small investment for fun.
What else. I should be buying chicken wire and stakes, firstly to make a leaf composting enclosure, and to make a groundhog exclusion zone for next year. But today I'm mostly taking a break.
And looking at cars on the internet. Always looking at cars on the internet...
I'm home. Home is where the wife is, so they say - she's here so it must be!
What have I done since getting home? Well, I did indeed put the snow tires on the car. I'm currently going through CDs and DVDs and putting them into big wallet holders, and throwing out the plastic cases. Not sure if I can do anything useful with the cases.
Usually I buy music digitally, but some albums are half the price when bought second hand, even including postage.
After living out of a suitcase for a month, coming home to all this stuff is odd. I want to throw more out. Much more. I'm not doing too badly - one surplus desktop PC and one laptop have been donated to Kara's work.
But I still have 4 tubs of what one would politely call e-waste. A Dreamcast, one UK and one North American Playstation 2, PSP, old motherboard. An iBook G4 I bought for no good reason at all a couple of months ago.
I have started three Canadian "DRIPs" or dividend reinvestment plans - that is, buying a share certificate and having the dividends reinvested directly in that stock. You can do this via a broker using a method called a synthetic drip, but these three are the 'real thing' - shares held directly in my name. Some give a discount on the reinvestment price, too.
Why would I want this? Well, a synthetic drip only buys whole shares. If you get $10 of dividends but the stock costs $10.01 per share, you don't get any new shares. With a 'real' drip, you get fractional shares.
Like most countries, domestic shares have their dividends taxed favourably in Canada - as the company has already paid tax on the dividend. Note this is not Couch Potato - I am stock picking here, rather than buying the whole market. So this is a sideline, a small investment for fun.
What else. I should be buying chicken wire and stakes, firstly to make a leaf composting enclosure, and to make a groundhog exclusion zone for next year. But today I'm mostly taking a break.
And looking at cars on the internet. Always looking at cars on the internet...
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