Apocalyptic Homesteading (Day 110-113)
Hello Everyone!
A brief introduction: Hi I am Jacob.
TL;DR: There is no tl;dr because you should have more patience and attention span than a gnat on a high wind.
Apocalyptic Homesteading Day 110-113!
Another Corn Patch Planted, Treating And Planting Black Locust Seeds, Roads Make Good Firebreaks & Wily Pine Trees
The last few days have gone by in a blur of activity and as I sit here in the wee hours of the morning writing this all I can really think about is the stuff to yet be done. It is always challenging to recall the things that I have done over a period of days which is probably why I should stick with writing each day and not let the days stack up like I have been doing with these entries. It comes down to how much time that I have each day though and what the heck that I want to do with that time. Honestly, even on the mornings that I wake up relatively early (like six or seven o'clock) I have to decide whether or not to devote three or more hours of my day to writing and editing or to just get on with my day doing stuff outdoors. With the change of weather and springtime rapidly approaching I have been spending less and less time indoors and by the time the sun is up all that I want to do is be making the most of my day outdoors and not spend one moment longer than I need to indoors.
At some point I will undoubtedly need to take an extended break from all the physical activity because after all I never took any real downtime this past winter and have pretty much just stayed in motion getting myself setup here. Of course I have done much more than merely working on my own setup and have been doing stuff all over the property to help either maintain it or to somehow make improvements to it... but for the most part I feel like I have barely begun to get things done here in regards to either my own setup or the property itself. I guess that for most folks those two things would be quite intertwined and on the surface of things they are for me but when it comes right down to it I have to often divorce the two just for the sake of my own sanity. When living and working in the same place a certain amount of balance is necessary and a good way to do that is by establishing some healthy boundaries whilst maintaining a semblance of separation between the two. To avoid getting too lost down the rabbit warren on that topic I should sum things up by saying that it is always a tricky damn endeavor and one that is always incredibly dynamic and requires that I pay attention to it.
Anyway, I finally used up the last of the corn seed that I had in that flower pot. There is a really nice sunny spot near where I have been thinking to install the solar panels and although it is kind of in the 'main thoroughfare' the plot that I planted them in is surrounded my a bunch of short scraggly bushes. I am unsure what those 'bushes' are but they sort of look like gnarled miniature oak trees and since there was a big opening between them where grass is growing I figured they would make a nice barrier and still let in enough sunlight for the corn plants. It was a few days ago now when I planted it but I think that I put in nine rows of corn which more or less filled the entire open area between the bushes. As a side note I may have another flower pot of that corn seed in the storage tent but I am unsure how well it has fared given that the vermin have been in it pretty heavily. If there is more seed I need to find out soon and either get to planting it or getting more of the stuff because for some reason (probably because of the failed crop last year) I am rather intent upon growing a bunch of corn this year.
On a different note. I spent some more time scarifying black locust seeds and getting them planted in some flower pots. I now have eleven three gallon flower pots with five to seven seeds on average in each pot. I am assuredly over-seeding the pots but I am spacing them far enough apart that I can transplant them later if need be. I am just unsure on how viable the seeds that I have actually are and am totally gambling on whether any of them will germinate in the first place. I have been being sure to water the pots each day just to keep them damp in the high heat but I have to be careful not to over water them and bugger the entire endeavor up. As of now, I have enough potting soil left to plant three more pots once I have prepared more seeds and after that I will have to collect some topsoil from around the property for the rest of the flower pots that I currently have. Given that black locust can grow well in a variety of soil types (including poor and acidic ones) I am not too concerned with the viability of the various soils here (not to mention the clay) but for starting the seeds potting soil seems to work best in my experience.
The entire farming thing is always rather daunting and I often have to tell myself to 'just plant one seed at a time' and that seems to keep me from getting so overwhelmed that I get poleaxed into inaction by the sheer scope of things. From soil, to sun, to water, to pests... to whatever... there are always so many factors and considerations to make that it is more than daunting and that is without factoring in the workload. So it is 'one seed at a time' for me and now that I actually think about it I think that I am doing well so far this year because I have somewhere around ninety black locust seeds planted, around two hundred corn seeds planted and thousands (or maybe tens of thousands) of grass seed spread over what probably amounts to a few acres.
Thankfully the grass seed is the easy one to spread and as far as the 'area of affect' goes and it is the most noticeable once it begins growing in which has been nice to see it doing over the last few weeks. There has even been several larger patches of it popping up in the dog yard and just yesterday I raked all the leaves from the southern portion of the area and revealed several patches that I could not see before. I had let the chickens scratch up the area real good before I raked it and although they were hard on a few places that already had grass growing in them they prepped the rest of the areas well for more grass seed to be spread over. What I am considering doing to get the dog yard growing grass rapidly is to keep the chickens out of it (except for Bob of course) and irrigating it with a sprinkler connected to that hydrant that recently got installed uphill of the dog yard. I may also soak some of the grass seed overnight to help it germinate before spreading it. The big idea there is to get the now bare slope covered in grass before any heavy rains come and start eroding the terrain. I will probably need to spread straw on the slope also just for good measure because who the hell knows what could happen with the weather.
One thing always leads to another thing that is for sure! A few days ago I set off on the bike with the cordless chainsaw (yeah its sketchy riding a bike with a chainsaw) and rode over to one of the roads that I had previously begun clearing of fallen pine trees. I have no idea how many trees that I cut out of the road, sectioned down into manageable sizes and rolled out of the road... but I did wind up swapping out batteries at one point because I had used up all of the twelve amp hour one cutting large logs. Of course, I was cutting a precariously hung tree when the battery died but that is just how it goes more often than not.
The tree was (still is) leaning diagonally across the road and is all of twenty meters tall and absolutely hung in the branches of some big oak trees on the side of the road. The tree was already like that when I found it there so I tried to cut it near the base in such a fashion that it would perhaps roll free and fall but instead it slid downward and rolled only slightly until it got wedged in the crook of two branches. Since at that point the tree was standing nearly vertically I just backed away from it all, put the saw down out of the way and then tried to push the tree the rest of the way down... without any success at all. It is still wedged there actually and I need to go over there with a rope, metal cable and the hand wench and tension the base of it until it pulls itself free at the top and falls into the road where I can then cut it up and move on down the road continuing my obstruction clearing endeavors.
That particular road is the only one that leads into the woods on that portion of the property so without it being clear there is no good direct access to a large swath of the woods aside from a few meandering game trails. Having the road cleared is not just good for general access but also for any sort of emergency response (like for forest fires) or whatnot and will also act as a firebreak itself. There are a lot of good reasons to have the road cleared but honestly I just want to ride the bike down it at the moment!
A few days ago I went back to the old base camp area and tidied things up a bit. There were a bunch of small cacti that me and the dogs had uprooted in the area and I had made a mental note to get them replanted before the spring so it was good to get them in the ground again. I also raked up and hauled away all the droppings/soil from where I had the chickens cooped and added it to my compost mound at the shelter site to feed the worms. I also cut down a bunch of small stumps and brush that was in the way around that camping area and more or less gave it the grooming that I never gave it during the time that I spent there camping. The site itself is pretty nice this time of year and being quite shaded I noticed just how much cooler it is than the area I am currently in is this time of year. It is a nice camping site in the warmer months but whoa I shudder to think about how shaded it always was in the fall and winter before I got relocated to a sunny area!
In general things are going rather well here and moving into the warmer part of the year I have to slow down a good bit and pace myself differently to accommodate the longer daylight hours. All of which translates as 'I will be taking more naps' and there just is not any way around that! Seriously though, it is just a good idea to be more aware of the wildlife and surrounding environment and go frigging slow at everything just out of caution which also means not doing stuff while I am fatigued. At this point I should simply take a nap when fatigue arrives and be done with it rather than doing things that are going to compound the fatigue.
Reminding myself that I have been going full tilt for the better part of a year straight is not a bad idea either because after all I am human and prone to all the things that humans are prone to. I have been repeating that saying about 'not breathing anxiety into the world' to myself a good bit of late and oddly enough I do it much more often when I am riding the bike around and having to pay more attention to my breathing than I normally do. The bike is still fun and all and it sure makes a massive difference getting around the place but it sure does burn some calories even if the ride is fun.
Well, it is getting on in the morning here and I should wrap this up for now. This time of year it is hard to justify sitting at the keyboard beyond sunrise especially if I want to get all the things planted that I want to plant for the year. Time slips by all too fast.
Alright, I never got this edited and posted earlier because I immediately went and worked on clearing that road some more. It all began with simply going over there with the wagon-load of gear to pull that aforementioned pine tree the rest of the way down... and rapidly turned into sectioning not only that dead pine tree up but a bunch of other ones as well and then rolling them out of the road. I got really over-involved clearing the road of both vegetation and tree debris and finally ran out of steam when I had cleared nearly half of its length down the gentle slope on that portion of the property. I came to a large patch of saplings growing in the road and decided that enough was enough for one day, loaded up the wagon and headed back to camp. On the way back to camp I continued my cleanup efforts and gave the portion of the road that I had previously done a second pass and got it looking quite nice.
Once I got all the gear put away I was completely wiped out for the day and just rested. I even managed to nap a few times which was nice. I am unsure which day it was that I took completely off last but I am probably overdue for one especially if I am at the point where a half of a day's work wears me out as much as a full day usually does. The days seem to pass by quickly here and they tend to blend together. Considering my high spirits it is no surprise that I can put in long hours with a smile on my face and not really notice the amount of time that I am putting in around the place. Between the daily chores, the on-going infrastructure projects and the routine maintenance stuff as far as land management goes there is plenty to keep me in motion and now I have also been cruising around on a bike for fun to boot so go figure!
Okay, I am going to wrap this up for real this time and call it good enough. I hope that everyone is doing well and has a nice day/night.
More about me: I have been doing property caretaking (land stewardship) for many years (decades) and live a rather simple life with my dogs doing what most folks would consider to be an 'alternative minimalist lifestyle' but what I often just think of as a low-impact lifestyle where I get to homestead and spend the majority of my time alone with my dogs in the woods doing projects in the warmer months and taking some downtime during the colder months.
Nearly four years ago I began sharing the adventures (misadventures) of my life via writing, videos, pictures and the occasional podcasts and although my intention was to simply share my life with some friends it undoubtedly grew into much more than that over the years and now I find myself doing what equates to a full-time job just 'sharing my life' which is not even all that glamorous or anything but hey folks seem to enjoy it so I just keep doing it!
The way that I look at it is that I give it all my best each day and while some stuff I write is better than others I think that for the most part I do a pretty good job at doing what I am doing which is simply 'sharing my life' as candidly as I possibly can and whatever folks get (or do not get) from it there is always the satisfaction of me doing what I set out to do... which is to simply share my life.
https://peakd.com/c/hive-114308/created
https://peakd.com/hive/@jacobpeacock/hive-survival-guide-sixth-edition
