Apocalyptic Homesteading (Day 520)
Hello Everyone!
A Late start, The gaming hobby, Odd weather, Seedlings everywhere, Churning the soil & Corn grows fast!
I slept in a good bit this morning after binging out gaming last night to the point where I totally lost track of time and fully zoned out the way that I am prone to do! Not that I am complaining or anything but I have been avoiding doing it to that extreme ever since I started playing again and just felt like it was time to do it.
Undoubtedly drinking espresso late into the evening did not quite help and although it was leftovers from earlier in the day... I think that in the future I should avoid doing that completely. I absolutely have to get back on track with my 'no coffee at night' rule and not do that thing where I make it before sunset and tell myself that I have not broken the rule!
There are of course other factors which contributed (like the draw of the social aspect) and I have to say that just interacting with other folks is sort of a 'drug' on its own. Mainly though it is just that I have not gotten to play with that one buddy of mine for years and it has been an absolute blast playing as a team with them, cracking jokes and sharing our game related knowledge.
Perhaps I did not need to spend all that time looking for a new 'hobby' and should have just looked at re-shaping my current ones but who knows because I will assuredly get burned out playing that game and might be right back to square one. It will be fun to ride the ups and downs of the first few weeks of ladder but after that if I play it at all it needs to be in extreme moderation.
Not that I have ever been good at 'moderation' when it comes to gaming (hence all the years of binge gaming) but perhaps I can pull off some occasional light gaming without getting sucked in. The only thing stopping me from truly binging out now (during our practice times) has been that I have too many outdoor projects that I want to attend to plus I like keeping my routine sleep cycle.
Anyway, it is now a few hours before dark and the day turned into a productive enough one because (after a brief afternoon gaming session) I went hiking and then got busy doing all my routine chores. The chores were a bit much due to all the inclement weather we have had keeping me cooped up indoors but I never let that stuff get too far behind even if I have to do it in the rain.
It is unrelated but the weather today was actually very gorgeous except that for some odd reason it was both brightly sunny and frigging chilly! I wound up having to layer up my clothes just to be comfortable in the shaded areas and even then the very slightest breeze made the fact that I was wearing shorts noticeable. It was just kind of jarring due to how nice it was and then boom the cold would hit out of nowhere!
Late in the day I took a good look at all the newly planted black locust pots and whoa there are a bunch of seedlings now and in some of the pots almost all the seeds sprouted which I have seldom had happen before. Although the leaves are not quite as round as that older strain that I have, that could well change once they get a little bigger.
After seeing how good both them and the corn plants were growing in that area I went ahead and scarified some of those newest black locust seeds that I got in the mail and got them planted in short order. Once again that batch of seeds looked pretty good and I did not encounter any that were empty husks but I did notice several of them that in my opinion were not likely to grow.
All of which is to be expected I guess (seeds being seeds) and part of why I tried a few different suppliers. Like I have said before, hopefully between the three strains that I have I can get the traits that I want. If not then I will keep finding different suppliers and ordering seeds until I do.
On a different note. I churned over the soil in the topsoil trap again today after a few days of not doing it and whoa was that same little chicken so happy to see that occur! I swear she runs herself back and forth so much waiting to look for the worms that I think she needs them afterwards given how many calories she burns off in the process.
The soil in there is looking like it really needs to be removed and get used soon so I am thinking that over the coming days I am going to fill the rest of the flower pots that I have with it. If there is enough left after that I think that I will do more of those 'planting trenches' (for the trees) or maybe even a raised bed if I can find a sunny spot for one.
There is assuredly a lot that I want to achieve over the coming weeks as far as gardening and farming goes and I think that I am absolutely going to plant more potatoes now that I have more of them that have grown eyes. I have been waiting for a while now for them to do that and I think that I even have a good spot to grow them in that gets enough sun.
I am as of yet still undecided on whether I am going to create a large mound to grow them in or use one of my really big flower pots but I think I have settled on one or the other of those options. I briefly considered building a box for them but unless it is one of those bushcraft triangles (like that compost is) then I do not want to do it considering how precious lumber is right now.
Well, I am going to wrap this entry up so that I have time to get the critters fed before dark. I also just cooked up a big pan of flat bread and it has finally cooled down enough to be able to eat it and my stomach is growling with hunger! I hope that everyone is doing well and has a nice day/night.
https://peakd.com/c/hive-114308/created
I am growing my potatoes in a mound, but I am not using soil. I started out raking up pine needles and mounded around them. Now FPL mulched under the powerlines so I am using that mulch. I put wire around them and every time they get 6 inches tall, I pile more mulch on them. I hope it works, I really like it because I have no weeds.