SHAUNAVON, Sask. – A Saskatchewan farmer’s love for radio-controlled trucks has taken him to new depths.
Joe Murray is digging out the basement in his house near Shaunavon using radio-controlled scale models of bulldozers, diggers and dump trucks. And the work of the tiny tractors is generating quite a buzz online.
“It’s just for hobby purposes,” said Murray.
“You know it’s not important that it ever gets done. It’s just something to do.”
Murray’s house was built in 1929. The basement housed the old coal heating system and that was about it. One corner of the house got soaked when there was heavy rain in 2002 and a chunk of the clay wall came loose, he said.
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“At that time, I had a dump truck and a trackhoe and I just cleaned up the mess during the wintertime,” he said.
“One thing led to another and about 2005, I started excavating the dirt out of my basement using my radio-controlled hobby.”
Murray, 43, ordered many of the model machinery kits from Germany and assembled them himself.
He’s busy with the farm for eight or nine months of the year and said the radio-controlled trucks are a good way to pass the frigid Saskatchewan winters. He posted video of his work on YouTube.
“Being on the farm, you’re always tinkering with mechanical things and here in Saskatchewan you know how cold it gets, so when the weather’s not too agreeable outside, you like to find something to do inside.”
Murray said he knows people think he’s “kind of nuts.”
“What they don’t understand is that it’s just a hobby, it’s just something to do. Whether people go out and fly remote-controlled airplanes or build hotrod cars or boats or whatever, I mean, it’s just a pastime,” he said.
“These radio-controlled models actually work and I’ve just been using them to move dirt around in the basement.”
He said he expects to finish the south wall of his home this summer or fall, but he’s in no hurry.
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