ffj's Early Retirement (round 2)

[theanimal]

Thanks for sharing the photos. I always enjoy reading your posts. I was going to mention the same thing as @mathiverse. In the past, I went through a similar process when I was applying to government jobs (both state and federal). On the job posting, those positions would usually have the name and phone number of the contact number of the hiring manager. Like @mathiverse said, introducing yourself and maybe asking the hiring process goes a long way. Some of those positions take it too far, as I’ve heard from others that if you don’t do that, they won’t even think of offering you an interview.

[ffj]

@animal

I've been looking through a site called Indeed. I still remember the days of old of buying a Sunday newspaper and looking at the classified ads, ha! Those days seem like forever ago.

I don't apply for anything unless I know I'm qualified for the job. And I have had two of the applications rejected and it would be good to know why. These are not high caliber jobs for the record. It's possible when they see my college graduation date as before they were even born it might be scaring them off, which is kind of a weird position to be in to be honest.*

Before I adopted my dog from the shelter they made us fill out a questionnaire with all of these flowery and leading questions. I am a fairly blunt person so it was irritating just reading them because this is simple: I agree to take the dog, feed and shelter him, and give him plenty of attention. And pay a fee of course. Why do I have to answer a question on my parenting skills? Thank god my daughter was with me and offered to fill out the 3 pages of questions. She said: I speak their language, let me do it. Gladly. Point is, maybe I need to learn to speak a new language.

* When I was inquiring about the electrical program at our local community college the admissions person was a young lady about 26 years old. There was an obvious difference in speaking styles and approach to the topics at hand. She was very nice and professional, but after twenty minutes or so she started getting on my nerves with the inflections of her voice. Sooooo has replaced like, haha. Maybe I am the problem.

[Scott 2]

Great to see the pictures with your posts.

Job applications are a weird thing. Often a high caliber person simply has less experience with the process, and so gets passed over for a much less qualified applicant. From what I've seen here, that's most likely the problem. I'm sure whoever figures out what you offer, will be very happy.

[ffj]

Any Germans here? Is this true? Because if it is true I need to learn this phrase. God knows I needed it last weekend when I finally just gave my buddy a look that said "you gotta go". Most of you know exactly the immense feeling of relief when you get to shut the door and return to silence. It's glorious.





Building more fence. This time replacing the horrible fencing at the back of my property. How and why my neighbors cattle just don't walk through what is there is beyond me. It is really bad. I have waited for months for help with this with lots of promises of shared work but I'm done waiting. Just going to do it myself. And you know what? I'm about done setting posts. All by hand. It reminds me how long it can take wanting to do something easily with the right tool (in this case a tractor) when if you just do it immediately with a less then perfect tooling (hand diggers) it gets finished. I should have taken the initiative with this months ago.

While I was working the other day I kept hearing a mother cow bawling so I checked out what the fuss was about:



This is a newborn calf just hours old and quite frankly it was about another hour away from death. Little guy had hypothermia and could barely keep his head above the water. So I jumped in the creek and carried him to the bank but momma cow was not happy with me holding her baby.



Every time I tried to get the calf away from the sloped bank she would try to head butt me so I called the neighbor and told him to come and get this cow away from me so for the next thirty minutes we played a game of baby trying to stand up, baby falling back towards the creek, momma moving even closer each time baby fell until I was basically standing in the water holding back the calf while momma blocked me. At least I got some good pictures. And the neighbor appreciated me saving his livestock.






@Scott

Glad you enjoy the photos. You are the motivation for this posting actually. I'm not much of a wordsmith like some of you on the forum so I compensate with pictures. Oh and I've been rejected on these last two applications. It's weird, I can go out self-employed and make good money on various home projects for people but I can't land a job that pays $18/hour working for a company. Something's off.

[ertyu]

Even though I don't comment much, I also enjoy the photos, catless as they are

[Der Leiermann]

I grew up in a German speaking country and I’ve never heard that expression about feeling visited enough. Maybe a northern German expression, they’d have sayings I’m not familiar with.

Great update and photos!

[ffj]

@ertyu

We still have the old guy:



You couldn't pry this dude out of our homestead with a shovel. He adopted us about 6 years ago and he is shameless. When he showed up he was about half this weight and half his hair was missing, and he had a broken rib which you can still feel. All he dreams about is sitting on your lap and purring until he falls asleep.


@Der

I knew it was too good to be true, haha. That would be too easy, wouldn't it?

[ertyu]

he is excellent
old age goals

[ffj]

ertyu, this photo is for you. When I passed this barn and saw all of these cats I had to stop and take a photo. And some of them ran away before I could take the picture! A true herd of cats, ha!



Life has been crazy busy, as it always is this time of year. It's amazing that during the winter one has to actively search for something to do but as soon as the sun reappears and the temperatures get warmer suddenly there aren't enough hours of the day. But I finished my fence:



It was such a joy to cut out all of the old, nasty, broken fencing that this new fence replaced. And I didn't lose one cow! Now my neighbor has offered to pay half of the cost of materials which is a good deal for him as he didn't do any of the work but he seems to have forgotten me. But I still have faith he'll come through as he is a decent guy, just extremely busy as I have been. I would like the money only to buy a roto-tiller as my old one has broken down, but I managed to get my garden and my nitrogen rich cover crop (mainly clover) turned over with a tiller loaned to me from another neighbor. I really am blessed with great neighbors and it is such a contrast to my old place.



While I was working the garden I dug up my seed storage of acorns and planted those. I also had other varieties in the refrigerator for their cold stratification that I planted. I am especially excited about my persimmon seeds. I hiked a lot of miles to collect those seeds.






And I burned several brush piles, not that I had time for it but the conditions were perfect and you have to burn when Mother Nature decides it is a good time. And it is an all day affair once you start because you have to continuously push the pile in on itself as it burns. I take pride in having nothing left but ashes.




I've pretty much given up on the whole Indeed job hunting site. I have applied for seven different jobs and have not received one invitation to meet with anybody, just an informal e-mail response that says "we are proceeding without you". I am clearly too old or am not playing the game correctly but it doesn't matter as I am working regardless. I got a call a week ago asking for help to finish a house under construction and that is what I've been up to this past week. It's mainly finish work such as hanging cabinets and installing trim. I also built this porch:



I am pretty adverse to just spending money for the sake of spending money but with these jobs mainly paying cash I have to do something with it that I would consider being an investment. Now I could put this money in a traditional investment vehicle such as an IRA or the like but I decided to buy some tools and one of them is this battery operated track saw:



Oh my goodness it makes me want to throw away all of my corded tools. Overall, I invested about $2000 in new battery operated tools and I can't see ever using anything else unless I have no other choice. What a game changer. It makes doing these jobs so much easier.

[ffj]

My daily drive to work for the past two weeks. This place has no phone or internet connectivity and it is one of the quietest places I've ever been for this part of the world. You don't even hear airplanes except on a rare occasion. I just read iDaves posts and he mentions turkey's doing their Springtime romantics and this place is no exception: you can see Tom's displaying their stuff on the open hillsides as you drive past.


I've been doing lots of detailed work to this house with the expectation that the builder was going to come back to work and take back over. It's a long story on why he isn't here at the moment, with some truly unfortunate circumstances. But I met with him yesterday and he basically said he was done and I could finish up all of the work. Wait a minute, I thought, this is your job and I'm helping you. I didn't sign on to be working every day for the next month or to take over.

Mind you, what work is left is highly detailed, such as installing the finished stairs, hanging very expensive doors, and trimming finish grade baseboards (not paint grade) as well as a host of other responsibilities. His original agreement was to finish the job (no written contract) but he has basically told the homeowner that he is moving on to other jobs. I feel like I've been snookered here and if the homebuilder hadn't just experienced some calamities in his life I would be truly pissed as I agreed to work for him partly as a gesture of kindness.

But I like the work and I like the homeowner so I will continue on and it pays well. But this experience has been eye-opening and I feel like I am being used as a bit of a chump to be honest. I've considered the home-builder a friend for several years now and I just feel this is disrespectful behavior on his part.

The other wrinkle is that I need a helper occasionally. Now he has been lending this young Mennonite kid to help me which has been nice once I straightened him out (whole other story) but he's indicating he needs him on other jobs ( the ones he's not abandoning). Now the homeowner is kinda handy so he can help at times but if I get left without any help I'm going to blow my top, haha. This is precision work and an extra set of hands simply to hold things if nothing else is important. We'll see what shakes out.



O.K., enough ranting. Life is good otherwise. I continue to maintain my weight loss even though my food choices have been less than ideal since I've gone back to work. It's really hard to cook, actually prepping to cook ( having materials on hand, etc.) when you've been gone all day. Much easier to buy something prepared and use that time to clean-up and relax instead of cooking. I need to work on that area of my life or I will lose any gains I have made so far, which has been around a twenty pound weight loss since December.

I continue to work in the blackberry patch also, prepping the canes for a July harvest. The owner of the vines has given me total control and profit over them. His exact words when I inquired about them were "fuck those blackberries, I'd just soon mow them down!". So I've opted to concentrate on the blackberries which sold extremely well last year in lieu of the mushrooms. The profit margin is so much better for the blackberries. Right now I am trellising the canes to the supports and cleaning out the old stalks. Then mowing between the rows. It's a lot of work simply because he has neglected them but once this is done I simply wait until July to pick them.

[theanimal]

I'd missed your last update. Your fence looks really good. That was a good sized brush pile! Besides waiting for the right conditions, what do you do in terms of contingency planning in case things get out of hand? Considering it's spring, I figure the ground is fairly saturated. But in the extreme instance. by the (limited) look of where you are, you seem like you're close to your property's edge and I have to imagine far from any utilities like water/hoses?

Thanks for sharing as always. You live in a beautiful corner of the world.

[delay]

Thanks for the picture! A real life "ford" on a car road. I've only seen those on mountain bike tracks. Reading about other's struggles with weight is always interesting! Good to read you've maintained the 20 pound weight loss.

[ffj]

@the animal

Thanks. I'm pleased with the fence if nothing more than I got to remove the old crap that was there. Much cleaner look now without damaging my trees.

I have the advantage of having spent 28 years in the fire service so I know how fire behaves, so I'm not afraid to push the boundaries. Wind and low moisture content are by far your biggest threats when burning outside. High fuel content nearby would be my next concern. Even though it looks like in the picture I have exposures, it's just low grass and leaves for the most part. So even if it "got away" a little bit, I could easily put it out.

Speaking of which, since I don't have access to water where I burn, I carry 3 "water cans", which are pressurized fire extinguishers filled with simple water under pressure. I can shoot a stream of water twenty feet with it. Each can holds 2.5 gallons. I also carry a garden rake for smothering out leaves and grass. I use fire all of the time on my place as it works so well.

This is a beautiful corner of the world. The first week of May will take your breath away it is so pretty.


@delay

I've been a fatty most of my adult life. I can still perform, it's not that bad, but I definitely have carried excess weight for many years. It all comes down to eating habits, nothing more as I am quite active. I used to joke: I don't drink, do drugs, gamble, or chase whores, can I at least have a Snicker bar? But sadly, even my Snicker bar days are coming to a close.

There is definitely a trade-off in trying to maintain an ideal weight as it can become all-consuming chasing those last ten pounds. I don't know whether it is worth it to be honest. Food rings that bell for me.

[ertyu]

A true herd of cats, ha!

I counted 9. Excellent catting! Thank you for thinking of me . Now to read the rest of the updates.

I don't drink, do drugs, gamble, or chase whores, can I at least have a Snicker bar?

Heh, I hear ya. It is also one of my greatest struggles in life that virtuous behavior in other areas of life doesn't magically make refined sugar good for you

[ffj]

Been a while, time for an update. And, my life is pretty much the same. My only goal was to work myself out of a job and I have finally completed that mission. And have been offered two more jobs which I skillfully deflected interest in for the time being. I think it is hilarious that I can't even land an interview on a job hunting site such as Indeed but I can find work easily elsewhere for much more money. Anyway, I am currently taking a break from working for other people as I need time to reenergize my creative side. I miss it.

Mainly because I would like to make more content for my YouTube channel but it's hard when you've worked all day and still have to mow grass, tend the garden, etc. I reached a milestone on having over 500,000 views which I consider a win. Also, I have taken the money earned and like a drunken sailor spent it all on new equipment for future content. It's quite liberating to spend without thinking about it too much and I am buying items that I would never have bought otherwise. I consider it free money.

Here are some images of my last job which was a love and hate project. The builder finally confessed to me he had no plan on how to build these stairs and kind of assumed it would all go together. So I got to "figure it out" and make something of it. I wanted to choke him on some of those workdays, haha.

This is called a Dutchman's breeches. It allows you to mark on the outside of the skirt board where the finished board will rest. I had to get these marks perfect and make the cuts precise or the whole board would be ruined. Very slow process.







The handrails were another difficult aspect simply because the rough framing wasn't directly in line with the upstairs floor. The builder just winged it but he was close but not so close that I didn't have to do lots of extra work to make this line up on both levels. Mind you I had one chance to make all of these cuts perfectly so I resorted to mocking up some of this with cardboard to make sure I was correct before I cut anything.



And finally I had to install the upper handrails:



All in all it came out well. I also trimmed out the entire house installing doors, baseboards, shelving and casings. And built a couple cabinets. It's been a long job and I have an interesting issue of what to do with all of this money I have just earned. I didn't get into this position of early retirement by being reckless with spending and quite frankly it's become a bit of a burden figuring out the best way to utilize this income. It's such a weird position to find oneself.



I think I have cracked the code on raising tomatoes from seeds to produce beauties like this one. I start out hydroponically with a homemade set-up utilizing a large cat box, a piece of foam, and an aerator, plus nutrients. Under grow lights. Once they are a certain size, I transfer them to a cup with potting soil and condition them outdoors for a couple of weeks or more and then plant them in my garden. They almost all turned out great, I planted 45 of them and gave the rest away.



You see that goofy looking cow on the left? That son of a bitch can run and jump like a deer. I helped my neighbor get their escaped cows back into their field through a broken fence the other day and all of the regular cows were easy to corral back through a gate except that one. I clocked him running 25 miles an hour at one point trying to escape me trying to turn him around. I finally just gave up before I killed myself running wide open on a four-wheeler through a field. Then it just jumped the fence, no gate needed.

These guys never give you trouble though.

[ertyu]

How cool. Thank you for the pictures, ffj. There were acacias where I grew up. Nostalgic. Also, those stairs look perfect. Kudos!

[AxelHeyst]

Always love your updates ffj! Wow, nice work on those stairs and finish work, I bet that feels good. Someday I'll learn to get beyond banging 2x4's together, your pics are inspiring.

[ffj]

@ertyu

Acacias? Like a plant? If so, what reminds you of them? You have piqued my curiosity.

@axel

Thanks. I was happy with the way it turned out, the homeowner also. Sometimes I hesitate to show these pictures because it looks like I'm humble-bragging but this is literally the main thing I have done for the past month. So thanks for the encouragement and remember I started out by banging shit together too. And that I only show the stuff I didn't screw up.

My next project hopefully is a tree house. The timing and money are hitting just about right. Fingers crossed.

[ertyu]

What do you guys call this tree? They're acacias at home. I used to enjoy the smell of the blossoms and to pull the meaty ... how do you even call this part -- the stem inside the bloom on which the pollen clumps rest? We ate them, they're fragrant and sweet towards the base. People make flavored honey somehow, I always assumed it was the by placing beehives nearby

[Frita]

Lovely pictures, I pick up on a sense of satisfaction and peace. Kudos on growing tomatoes from seed too, ol’ time garden skills that now seem uncommon.