Apocalyptic Homesteading (Day 39)
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 39!
Some Days Are Made For Napping, Too Many Aches, Writing About Writing & What I Want
It is another chilly morning here and I am indeed in slow motion and also doubting that I will get to work outdoors before noon. Having taken the last three days in a row off from working outside (because of the cold weather) I am not feeling all that inclined to take another day off but I also do not want to put my arthritic hands under a bunch of strain in the cold either. So far I have avoided having my hands cramp a lot and it would be nice to continue avoiding that if at all possible even if it means staying cooped up indoors until this spell of bad weather passes. As far as the weather goes it is looking like another big storm system will be making its way into the area towards the end of the week so I am unsure just how feasible my 'secret agenda' of finishing the new dog yard before new years will work out. Given the enormity of the task before me it is probably best if I do not try to hurry the process for some imagined deadline but I still like the idea of having such a goal and that I have been working towards said goal over the last few weeks.
The day was not all that productive of one and I mainly just stayed indoors out of the cold weather, played my favorite video game and took a bunch of naps which apparently I needed a lot of considering how many of them that I have squeezed in over the previous three days. The naps (and the days off) have assuredly done my body well and many of the minor aches and pains that I was feeling have subsided. My hands are still rather stiff which is mostly from how much they have gotten used while using the pliers and wrapping the fencing wire back on itself but the inflammation in them has definitely subsided after a few days of inactivity. To give you an idea of just how inflamed they were a few days ago I could look at them and visibly see that they were puffy and noticeably larger than they normally are. They of course have gotten a god bit of use the last few days because of all my usage of the mouse and keyboard (especially playing that game) and they would probably have healed up all the way if I had not done so but hell it was well worth it and I took a break every time that they got to aching from it.
On the days that I do not do a bunch of physical activity I sure do not have much to write about and when I do go to write about them I am always like 'well just start typing and see what emerges' and in doing so I occasionally meander down some train of thought that is worth sharing but more often than not of late I find myself not wanting to say all that much, not 'over share' (whatever the hell that really is) and definitely not write a bunch of 'fluff' that lacks any substance. There are of course all the many topics of this lifestyle that I can always delve into but I seldom do that anymore because if those topics do not naturally enter into my writings then I do not want to force them into it. By and large these posts are still just me sharing my life and I still think that leaving it up to the reader what they learn (if anything) is the best way to go and especially so if I want to continue the daily journaling motif and not water things down to the point where I am displacing my personal life for the sake of sharing information about doing stuff. Ultimately I guess my goal is to always have a blend of the two and tell the story of my actual experiences in such a way that folks enjoy it and mayhaps learn something along the way.
Why I put more emphasis on my physical activities than on my internal landscape is a complex matter and one that amounts to spending decades of only being able to write about said internal landscape and being absolutely incapable of writing about simple day to day things in my life. Wording those mundane daily activities down has been a massive challenge for me and although I have assuredly gotten better at it over the last four years... it still remains a challenge to this day albeit a much smaller challenge than it once was so I guess that all my practice at it has paid off to one degree or another. Creating a routine with it all has been very helpful and although the application of the routine is... well 'routine' at this point I also try not to take it for granted and there is usually nothing more daunting that I do each day than stare at the blinking cursor in the text editor and pressing the first few keys to begin forming words. Words which become sentences whether they are complete, incomplete, run-on sentences or whatever as long as they form sentences that turn into paragraphs and paragraphs that turn into daily entries. The reason that during the writing process that I do not quibble over sentence structure is because the proof-reading and editing process makes all of that irrelevant as long as the sentences are relatively coherent to begin with. Surprisingly I do not omit much of what I initially write and the editing process itself includes a 'clarification' step where I add in more explanations where needed or try to catch any of the more dastardly colloquialisms that I use which is a heck of a lot more difficult than it might seem!
Anyway, I have been thinking a lot lately about what I want in life and more specifically (already knowing what I want) how to word it all down into something that would make sense to folks. I guess I should start by saying that I have an incredible 'sense of purpose' to start with so I am going to gloss right over all that jazz by saying that generally the land that I am caretaking provides plenty of that with its various needs and projects. Largely I actually have what I want in life and it often seems like ninety-nine percent of that I can find within myself in the form of a sense of well-being, peace of mind and genuine care and attention so with that under wraps I am pretty good on a personal level. The things that I want beyond that though are fucking challenging like medical/dental care, shelter, finances etcetera. Generally speaking that one percent of stuff presents a massive obstacle and yeah I am not all that good at getting those things for myself but that does not mean that I do not want them. My point with all this though is to paint a picture of what I want when I am on a property doing what I do.
I want shade in the summer and sun in the winter at a site where my shelter is. I want the water runoff of a site to go where it is useful and not cause erosion, swampy areas or standing pools of water. I want enough of a fire buffer around me in an area so that I feel safe but not so much that I push the woods back too far and feel like I am living in a field. I want a place that can accommodate loud music and the sounds of doing construction projects (which often coincide with each other) not to ruffle any feathers with the locals. As far as that last bit goes folks in the country are generally rather tolerant and want to make their own noise usually with guns and explosions but also with the sounds of heavy equipment and/or construction projects of their own. I want a place where if the dogs get loose (which all dogs from time immemorial seem to do) they will not encounter anything (or anyone) that will harm them aside from things usually found in the wild like coyotes, bears, snakes and so forth. I want a secure stout fence around my shelter where the dogs and chickens can live out their happy lives. I want four to five hours of good direct sunlight each fair weather day for solar power and if possible a strong source of flowing water to generate electricity with but hell just the sunlight alone is plenty and there are less moving parts to boot. I want cleanly sourced water and the peace of mind that the source is well protected from contamination or infiltration by surface water. As far as water goes anything aside from utilizing creek water is preferable but ugh is rainwater collection, filtration, sterilization and storage a chore and one I would rather not do. I want to have the indoor space to be able to work on my more creative projects and more or less have a studio to work in that is not also part of my living space. Divorcing those two spaces from each other (and from my shop space) would make life a hell of a lot more productive and I could actually unpack and use all the stuff that I have been lugging around with from site to site over the last few years since getting it out of storage.
Well, I could go on and on there with the 'I want' items but really they are super basic things and I guess that probably the biggest reason that I want them is because I see the potential of what I can do with my life if I have them all or at least enough of them to make a meaningful difference. In my current scenario my needs are well met and I am actually very pleased with how everything is going because the trajectory of the projects will lead to the majority of my 'wants' getting fulfilled as long as I continue putting in the work for them. Some work is easy and some work is not but no matter what it all amounts to taking the time to do the work and if there does not seem to be any time then making said time because otherwise what the hell am I doing. I mean that I am always my own secretary, foreman, quality control, inspector, safety team and manual laborer so it all just falls on me what the hell I do with my time each day. Getting to that point of things where I am disciplined enough to 'do it all' each day was no 'easy row to hoe' but like the saying goes 'practice makes perfect' which although is not always true it is at least applicable in that regard.
Alright, daylight is burning and it is finally getting up above freezing outside and I need to put on my warm clothes and get the water system turned back on again which is not all that difficult but does require a good bit of hiking as well as bleeding all the air out of the lines. For now I just have to get to it and depending on how cold it is (and especially how windy) I may or may not take yet another day off! I actually think that with one more day of rest that all my aches and pains will be gone so it is rather damn tempting. 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.
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