Apocalyptic Homesteading (Day 1092)

almost 3 years ago

Hello Everyone!

Sticking to routines, A cold damp day of naps, The annoyances of pestilence & Pondering how to reuse Borax!

I am beginning this entry a bit earlier than I have been the last few evenings and I gotta admit that I definitely enjoy doing it more when I either start a little early or right on time. Since the sun will not be setting for another twenty minutes or so... I feel like I am 'doing good' in regards to my routines and hopefully I can continue doing it (on time) for the remainder of the week... which for one reason or another has not occurred ever since I first began shifting my routines... but hey I keep trying nonetheless!

Anyways, the day was another low energy one and I spent much of it napping on and off rather than getting outdoors in the cold and damp conditions and doing stuff. Not that I had much that I wanted to do aside from collecting more grapevines... but it will alas take a day or two of sunshine to dry them out enough... so even if I had 'braved the weather' I would have had to have found something else to busy myself with.

Lately 'finding things to do' seems to be a real sticking point for me and like I was saying in yesterday's entry some things really take the weather lining up 'just perfect' for me... and also me having a 'game plan' in place for when that happens. Admittedly, I have gotten way more slack on the 'planning part' of things and need to 'shake it off' at some point and get back into some of my better habits with having a solid itinerary.

There are also the things that I have planned which I keep failing to do because of resource scarcity... so I know that I should not be too hard on myself over all that jazz... even though I am hard on myself about them more often than not. At some point I need to get ahead financially 'just enough' that I am not barely scraping by each month and can actually put some resources towards the things that I want to be doing.

Spending so many finances on dealing with the pestilence has been a real drain on my proverbial 'coffers' and although I am holding my own against the little buggers... I need to wipe them out completely so that it will quit being a drain altogether. Of course that is not the only reason that I want to do that because there are the obvious health implications and what not... but there is also this mental component to it all... that amounts to a bunch of stress, frustration and dismay that I would rather live without.

Ever since I started applying that ten percent sulfur ointment once a week to that one dog... the mites on her have declined dramatically. I think that as long as I keep it up... along with the other treatments and frequent brushings... I think that I can get them fully contained within another month or two. In short I need to get a mattress and pillow cover ordered and be prepared to either freeze (or somehow wash) my blankets and sheets well enough to kill any mite or flea eggs that might remain... all around the same time... while also giving the environment itself a deep cleaning... and like I keep saying... maybe even paint the interior of the cabin just for good measure!

Of all the things that I thought that would be plaguing me at this phase of my life... I never thought that it would be the frigging pestilence that would be what is giving me such a hard time. It is not just 'dealing with them' either that is so bothersome... it is (like I was saying previously) the amount of resources (and time) that I have spent on simply keeping their population in check which is really annoying... to say the absolute least.

I am sure that hand washing my clothes and laundry is not helping either and although I have yet to set aside the funds for it... I have been looking at inexpensive used 'washing machines' as a solution. Given that I would only be using Borax (or bleach) as the cleaning agent I have been pondering where I can put the machine itself... so that I can make the best use of the gray water that it will produce.

One of the things that I keep stumbling upon in those 'thought experiments' is how I could use the gray water to treat lumber (or even wood that I harvest) against termites and bugs in general. I doubt that the concentrations of Borax would be high enough (per load of laundry) but there is no reason why I could not let the gray water sit in a pool (or some kind of container) and then let the water evaporate off and save the Borax for reuse.

Well, on that note I think that I am going to wrap this entry up and get on with the editing and posting portion of my evening. I hope that everyone is doing well and has a nice time.