I enjoyed my retirement for about three years, give or take.
After working for almost forty years, I was so excited about retirement.
I didn’t want to move down south, just to stay on my farm and spend the rest of my life doing nothing. For the first two years, I did love it. I worked in my garden, started growing some marijuana plants, did some renovations on my house, and tried to keep busy. Eventually I got bored, so I wanted to find a productive way to spend my time. I never thought I would miss HVAC repair work, but that is how it shook out, so when duty called, I started doing my old job again. My neighbor Hank has a fair amount of livestock, and experienced some issues with the heating systems in his barns. During the winter, those heating systems are essential for keeping your animals alive and safe during a hard freeze. You can’t use fire, or regular space heaters, because then the animals might damage them or break them. More than one local farmer has lost a barn, a house, or livestock from a faulty heating unit, so we all take them pretty seriously. When Hank needed some help figuring out his heaters, I was more than happy to grab my tool kit and take the lead on the investigation. What I miss about HVAC work is using my mind and my hands to fix mechanical problems. Growing pot is great, don’t get me wrong, but I like the satisfaction I get from repairing HVAC equipment.