Geese Geese And more Geese

This time of year the Geese head south for winter and the sky can be full of them if you look closely there are thousands here, these are heading north though cos i had just walked down the the small lake and made them fly off in my hi vis jacket

when they land on the stubble field to feed on the grain left after the combine and your not allowed to shoot them until after 12 noon

as they need to feed for the journey south

This is my office not at all like a European truck and there are gauges for just about everything, this one is a 2008 and comes with a satellite radio which is grate and has just about every type of music on there and even God channels if that's what you need in your life, i have Radio one, a new country channel called highway and NASCAR tuned in on mine it also has a CD, am, and FM too
And the reason i have all this time to take pictures is that its broke down again, i parked up in consort AB to tip salt the next day and when i came to start it next morning it started for 30 seconds then cut out . All electrical power had gone a 400amp fuse had blown in the battery box, so a major short out probably the starter and there are four battery's on here, its 12v but has 24v starting i think,just pleased i don't have to change the battery's as the wiring in there is like wow which one do if you know Wat i mean, anyway i was there all day until another truck was hauled out to me and i could tip and carry on.
The new truck is an automatic and really nice to drive as i don't have to think about
changing gears
this was my second load on my own the first was to Brooks AB and if you read these bloggs this place comes up quite a bit with another company also red trucks, they haul out of hear and we haul salt in but our side aint quite so nice as theres, i think there is another blogg on here that hauls the live cattle in
I will cover this place on anther page as its huge nothing like it in GB or Europe i think.

So Do You Want To Be A North American Truck Driver

So if you fancy joining me and becoming part of the Westcan team.

Professional Truck Drivers

class 1 or equivalent licence

1 year - 7 or 8 Axel experience

Clear driving abstract

Heavy duty Technicians

Journeyman or 3rd/4 year apprentice

Tractor and or trailer experience

Flexible shifts with variable start times- both day and afternoon shifts available

various terminal locations available in

Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia

Please feel free to contact me so i can put you in touch with the appropriate people

markburton36@ hotmail.com

with the subject of jobs @ westcan

Better Let You Know Who I Work For Know

Its been a long time coming and i wanted to keep it quite who i was going to work for for my own personal reasons, and also until i had made up my own mind about Westcan and spoken to the terminal manager about this blogg and got there approval for it, i just used the term

THE COMPANY

But i have and it is

Its taken a long time to get this far and a bloody LONG ROAD has been traveled, and if you have read this from the start then you will know all about it.

I started my follow trip week with one of the oldest Mack Trucks we have in Saskatoon
but it had been cleaned and after spending the summer parked in the back field it was a seasonal truck now and needed it.

so after a pre trip and some air in the tires [i have 32 ]we set off to load salt [salt is a by product from the Saskatchewan potash mines] for Rocky mountain house in Alberta in the foot hills of the Rocky's.

Once loaded we set off and was nice not to turn left in Qyen for Brooks AB

We tipped next morning and headed to Edmonton to load salt again for rocky mountain house my next load was for Nordegg about a 100km past RMH and my instructions were, when you turn off the paved road put your inter Axel lock in you will need it as you will be in 2nd gear going up the gravel road hill oh and your on your own i will meet you there

I was met at the bottom by an escort and off we went up the hill and no i didn't make it all the way up i just couldn't change down quick enough and had to start in bull low but after that no problems i was on my second hopper when my trainer turned up.

Why they had to put a salt shed so far off the hi way i will never know!!!!

back to Edmonton for a quick one to Leduc before loading fert back to our own warehouse in Saskatoon.

while we were waiting for our hoppers to dry in the sun after having them washed, i got a can com message to swap trucks [ bloody hell not even a week in the same truck] i was happy with the old girl then i saw the number and it was a fairly new truck only 18 months old so reluctantly i moved my gear over lol.

apparently i had to change because the old truck had a Jack shaft[PTO] and was needed for anhydrous ammonia going up to peace river

So quite, the gear change nice and precise, and i could hear the Mack fitted satellite radio and that's just going out of Westcans Edmonton terminal,

a couple of hours later we were on our way back to Saskatoon arriving later that night, i parked up and went home for the night, then on Friday i unloaded the fertiliser into our own large warehouse whilst being watched by our safety guy just to make sure i did things the right way, i did and i was signed off good to go

so i am a North American trucker with a T

I could get used to this but don't hold you breath mark it cant be assigned to me for too long but i will enjoy it while i can

This trucks got a 495 Volvo engine most of the older Macks have a 460hp mack engines [Renault] we have some automatics but most of the others have 18 speed Eaton Fuller boxes standard in most American trucks

Beaver Creek

Beaver creek is a conservation area 15 minutes from home right by the south Saskatchewan river

looking north toward the city

This is Beaver Creek flowing into the river

all but a few leaves are now gone

There are a number of trails which you can walk its not a huge area but nice for a Sunday afternoon walk, there is plenty of wildlife chipmunk's, deer, birds that feed from you hands
but we didn't see any beavers lol and at 24 degrees hot
Not bad for the 3rd of October.