New Truck

My car died.  It turns out that when they say you should change your timing belt at a certain interval (every 60,000 miles in my case) they say that for a reason.  I changed mine at 60k miles but that was 75,000 miles ago.  I had put off doing it again thinking that I might try to do it myself this summer.  But the summer didn't get here soon enough I guess.  The timing belt broke, my engine's pistons shot up into the valves, which shot out all over the place, and so the valves and pistons were pretty busted up.  The car just stopped.  I got a couple of quotes to repair the motor and they were both about $2400.  But the transmission has been shifting pretty hard for years and something in the exhaust system kept causing the check engine light to come on.  So I decided not to get a new engine.

Instead I bought a new truck.

 A new to me truck anyway.  There is nothing else new about it.  It is a 1984 Toyota pickup and it is pretty beat up looking.  But it starts easily and it drives nice.  It has over 184,000 miles on it, but I think I can get a few more out of it.  Molly doesn't seem to be very impressed with it.  She knew I was looking for something cheap, but I think she wanted me to get something a little nicer.  But it was only $600 so I figured even if it lasted a half year or so, it was worth it.  And it might last longer than that.  I am done with school now so I only have to drive a couple miles to catch my vanpool everyday.  So at five miles a day, it should last pretty well I hope.  And the kids love it.  Luke likes to stand in the bed and shoot baskets.  The kids want to name it Mater because it is pretty rusty on the back and I guess it reminded them of Mater from Cars.  And they said Mater used to be blue.  So I told them they could call it whatever they wanted.  I am happy to have something that drives and I have always wanted a little truck like this.

Graduation

I have officially graduated.  They gave me a diploma cover and everything.

Walking away from my last final I felt great until the thought occurred to me that I wouldn't be back.  Then I felt a bit sad.  I will miss school.  I just like learning new things.  It does feel good to be done though.  I can now watch all those movies on my netflix queue that I never got to.  And who knows what else.

I should thank Molly for going through it with me.  Thanks Molly.  You are the best.

My mom came up all the way from St. George and my dad came down from Brigham City.  So that was nice of them.  They are great parents.

Chickens and Chicken Coop

We thought it might be fun to have some chickens.  And we like eggs.  So we got some little chicks a month or two ago.  They are called Buff Orpingtons. They are pretty cute.  We bought some for us and some for Jenifer (Molly's sister) who was going out of town and couldn't keep them herself for a few weeks.  So for a few weeks we had a dozen or so.  But only four of them are ours.  We kept them in the living room for a few weeks in a big plastic tote and the kids loved to sit and watch them and get them out and play with them.  Especially Ethnie, who calls them the little babies.  Here is a picture of her laying next to them and just watching them.

After a few weeks they started kinda stinking up the house, so we tried putting them in the laundry room for a while but that got pretty stinky too.  So then they moved out to the garage and my car moved out to the driveway.  A few times in the last month or two it has been warm enough to take them outside.  The chicks seemed to enjoy that and so did the kids.

Well, they couldn't stay in a plastic box in the garage forever so I was slowly trying to build them a coop.  Molly had been looking at different coops online for about a year and she decided the one she liked the best was this one.  So I bought the plans (which was hard for me to do, but I was so busy with school that I wasn't sure I would have time to make my own, so thought it would be best this time) and started working on it.  There was one Saturday about a month ago that was not snowy or rainy so I got the legs and the floor put on it that day.  Since then, I have just been going out for an hour or two anytime it is not raining or snowing and working on it a bit.  But it has been raining or snowing almost every day all month, so not much got done.  Then yesterday it was clear and I got a whole day to work on it.  I almost finished it.  Here it is so far.

We put the chickens in it last night because it is finished enough to live in.  I still need to add the trim and paint and what-not but it is getting close.  And I have to build the chicken run.  The chicks are about 8 weeks old now I think and they will start laying eggs at about 20 weeks.  We eat about 18 eggs a week, which is about what these four chicks will give us (18-20).  So that will save us about $2.00 a week.  The materials for the coop cost about $400 so, not including feed, it should take us about four years to save any money.  So I guess this is not about saving money, it is mostly just for fun.  So far it has been fun, but I will have to get back to you on that after the novelty has worn off.