Apocalyptic Homesteading (Day 28-29)

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.

[End Introduction]

Apocalyptic Homesteading Day 28-29!

Rainy Chilly Days, Trenching The Fence Lines & So Many Naps

It has been a weird last day or so because I woke up last evening at around eleven o'clock and then was up until nearly dawn when I fell asleep for a brief time and from there I pretty much just napped all day on and off as it rained. I had been watching the weather all day the day before and could tell that a storm was blowing in but I was hoping that it would blow over in the night and I could get a good day's work in on the new dog yard fence but that just was not the case. Even the few hours of work that I was able to get in the day before was done when it was clammy, cold and dreary and that was when it was merely threatening to rain.

Now that it has been raining on and off for nearly twelve hours it is really 'ugh' outdoors and I even switched to using an electric kettle and stainless steel french press to make my coffee with just so that I do not have to go outdoors to brew my favorite beverage. The temperatures have not been below freezing or anything but the combination of the wind, the rain and the cold sure makes for some unpleasant conditions.

Surprisingly the tent scenario is working out rather well. Although I am burning through propane at twice the rate that I did last winter (when I was in my cozy shelter) it still does not amount to a whole lot of propane in the grand scheme of things. I also have not been very conservative with the propane and have been keeping the tent a good bit warmer than what I really need it to be... just because I can! It is after all just a tent and although it retains heat well enough it does not have any insulation or anything like that to help keep the heat in so if I shut the propane heater off the temperature inside drops markedly. Once the tent is warmed up though (and it is not below or near freezing outside) I can usually shut the propane heater off and get by with the recirculating oil heater especially if I leave the fans on the propane heater running so that the air in the tent is getting moved around some. When I am sleeping I of course crawl under all the blankets and have the dogs to help keep me warm so that sure makes sleeping rather pleasant even on the really chilly nights.

Anyway, I finally got to digging that trench through the loamy layer of topsoil for the bottom of the new dog yard fence and the digging was nowhere as difficult as I thought it would be even though I have encountered a good many roots that I have had to cut out of the way while I was digging. At first I thought about just making a slit in the ground (with a shovel) for placing the bottom of the mesh fencing in and then thought it would be better to make the trench wider just to make things easier on myself while I am installing it.

I basically cut the trench in the shape of a triangle by sliding the shovel in the ground from one side and then the other side and where they met they formed a triangular shaped 'plug' of that loamy material that I then flopped to the outside of the fence so that I can use it later to fill in the trench with once the mesh fencing is installed. To dig the trench in a more or less straight line I used a long stick that I laid on the ground between two fence posts at a time and used it as my guide but since the stick itself was not perfectly straight some of my lines are a bit curvy which will not matter because of how wide that I made the trench.

It took me most of the afternoon to get two and a half of the fence lines trenched and I probably could have finished the remaining ones but decided against it because the west one is uphill and the remaining portion of the south one is uphill of where I will be working on installing the mesh fencing to start with. The reason that is significant is because with the (then impending) rain I did not want to have the clay from the trench getting washed downhill and make a mess of things where I will be working at later. The way that the other fence lines (that have already been trenched) are situated will shed runoff (rain and clay) away from the areas that I will be working in so it was not a big deal to dig them and just get it done with. Given that I now have my technique for digging up the 'plugs' of loamy soil to create the trench the remaining trenches should go rather quickly when the time comes to do them

Well, I am just going to keep this one short and sweet. I hope that everyone is doing well and has a nice day/night.

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The trench along the bottom of the north fence line!

Thanks for reading!

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.

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That Is All For Now!

Cheers! & Hive On!



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