I know that it's kind of cynical, but after now 5 years in total and three years of waiting for a permanent resident status my wife and I have finally given up on waiting for the Canadian government to make up their minds. Our son will be 12 next year, which is the last chance he will have to connect to high school in Europe (which in many countries there begins at age 12), so we have decided to move back there while we still have time to bring his education up to European standards for that age.
This is quite a heavy decision, we've got our lives invested in Canada and it will take a lot of doing to move us, our dogs and a small portion of our posessions back to Europe.
One mans misery is another mans good luck though, and I have for sale a whole pile of RE related stuff, tools and so on, you probably all know from the various pictures in my diary what I've got laying around here.
I have 4-8 weeks of getting all this done, I won't be in a position to drop stuff off (though I may go and visit Tom, RonB and the Dans with any leftovers if there is time to do that), but if you're interested in any of the following (maybe this should go under classifieds, but the 'Canadian bit' is more of a rant then please let me know and make an offer, there is no way I can take this stuff with me. I'm on St. Josephs Island, Canada, so most people nearby in Michigan or thereabouts or in Ontario would probably be best positioned to take advantage of this.
Another option would be to use Ebay, but I'm not too hot on that, have used it once and didn't like it (I know some of you make a living there, it's just preference).
I have for sale:
(prices in Canadian dollars)
Meuser lathe (7' between centers and 22" swing with the gap bed removed)+tooling+accessories+toolcart $5000, Excello turret milling machine with lots of tooling, clamping kit, vice and indexer $5000, ford 9n 1942 tractor in extremely good state with a backblade $3500, John Deere 310 backhoe pretty rough but it works $7500 and a Kubota 4950 DT 55HP four wheel drive tractor $10,000, a ton of RE related gear, including two motor conversions (one 'Zubbly' machine I bought for $1500 and other than a few tests I didn't get around to do much more to it) and the 'gray' machine from the diaries. South Bend small precision lathe with lots of tooling $1500. A small fortune in hand tools and various smaller items (you probably would have to be here to take a look at what we have). A 240 V 3/4" capable thermal dynamics plasma cutter $3500, a plama/woodworking CNC table (without software, you'd have to
hook up a pc and such to the stepper drivers to make it work, that part does
not go with it because it is very experimental in nature) $3000 (the drivetrain
alone is worth a multiple of that), this machine will need some work but it
is an absolutely amazing tool to have and use, again see my diary for pictures.
Either this stuff is brand new or old and restored to good state and in perfect
working condition.
Also, but that's another story altogether I have for sale a 98 acre farm with a 2400 sq ft house with attached 2400 sq feet garage & workshop, completely off the grid. Reasonable offers will be considered.
If anybody is seriously interested let me know and we will see if we can meet up and make some deal, also if you are seriously interested in any of this stuff then I'll shoot detailed pictures but if you are wondering what any of the above stuff is then you probably should not buy it
I can not tell you guys how much it pains me to have to shut down this project, but there really is not a whole lot of choice for us, we can not continue to live in uncertainty for ever.
All the rules have changed and it has caused us to fall in between so many cracks that besides all kinds of delays the demands that are made of us have gotten so extreme (police clearances from countries where we haven't lived for years, paperwork dating back to '96 and stuff like that) that I can not see how this will end in a good way, in spite of local and provincial officials doing everything they can to make it work. The Federal government has the final say in all this and they seem to have been out to lunch the last 3 years. Which is kind of ironic because at the very same time they are scouting in Europe to find companies that are willing to move here at their expense in order to create jobs (which we were already doing quite a bit, employing between 5 and 10 people depending on the time of year).
This farm, the people around us and the projects that we were doing are a lifes dream come true, and unfortunately as all dreams do they come to an end.
We are still researching a remote possibility of moving to the US with the
whole kaboodle, but it looks like the chances of doing that in an orderly fashion are very slim indeed, so for now I have resigned myself to shutting things down.
I'm still planning one farewell trip to The Dans, RonB and Tomw and whoever else is on that route.