The most time-consuming thing on the farm is earning a traditional income to cover all the bills that we are responsible for. I have been using DoorDash to try to keep up on them, but even when I work my butt off it does not produce enough to get ahead. The nature of working my butt off means there is not enough time to do anything else to help make up further distance on any of it. Then there are the car maintenance costs and time, problems and maintenance that all take from the pittance I earn.
My birthday arrived last week, and because Idaho Driver’s Licences last eight years, I didn’t even think to check it, so it quietly expired. I was off that day, but when I went in to work the next, I was prompted by the app to verify my identity. I thought that was weird because I had only done it the week before. So, I tried and tried, but every time, it only showed a black screen when I took the photo of my license. I gave up and went home, where my wife pointed out to me that the license was expired, and proposed that was the reason I was getting a black screen. I don’t know. Awfully clever if that is true. Means it is reading it before I even upload it. Either way, I went down to the DMV and got it updated, they voided the old one, and said a new one would arrive in ten business days, which is just a less bad sounding way of saying two weeks. Then they gave me a paper temp. I tried that, then DoorDash suspended my account for using a paper license, which they can terminate you for doing. That was something they make you aware of when you first sign up but leave you to forget a year or more later when you happen to have an expired license. So, now I am under threat while I wait for the new plastic card to show up. Pleasant. Real nice.
So, I am on a forced vacation!
So what am I doing with the time off and the money gone and the lack of money coming in?
Well, we are looking at all the ways we could be earning on side-gigs that we have not been able to do anything about because I have not had the time. For example, today I photographed some new pictures of beeswax candles to list online. I have been finishing up on the roadside firewood stand, too. It is nearly ready to fill up and start selling from! I’ll need to spend some time on splitting, probably tomorrow. It needs the steel put on the roof, but for now, it should do. I need to get some roofing screws first. Next, I need to get my photography and portraiture business listed and try to get some traffic to the website.
While all this is going on, I have had time to clean up the shop for summer work and get moved back in there. I have also had the time to help Missus get some cleaning up done in the house, and get her big loom photographed and listed. She is just unable to put the time and work into warping that monster. Getting too old, and all that!
So, summer will be along before you know it, and with our winter having virtually vanished this year, I think summer will be here by the time Spring starts in a couple of days. I don’t know if it is safe to plant anything. We have had such late frosts here. But I will be cleaning up in the barn and the yard before long, and hopefully will have that done before the new ID comes in, and I can get back to work, because I have a lot of financial catch-up to do.
I put the wires back together in the battery charger and managed to get it working again and able to charge car batteries. I’ll do the one on the sawmill soon and see how it does at starting up. I have a couple of projects that need doing, like a roadside market stand, and a little shed for the potter’s wheel. I will dual use that as a firewood shed for the shop for winters. That’s the plan, anyhow.
Keep up here and see when all this gets done!