Apocalyptic Homesteading (Day 40)
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 40!
Writing the Morning Away, More Fencing Progress, Fixing Some Steps & A Few Thoughts On Growth
It is yet again a rather chilly morning here and although I am getting a late start with the writing perhaps I can churn out some words before things warm up outdoors and I feel the itch to hike over to the new shelter site and begin working for the day. For some reason I awoke this morning with part of my mind in a mild panic that I had somehow forgotten to fully drain the water system by not opening the spigot at the lowest elevation which effectively drains the rest of the system once the breaker to the well pump is turned off. Since it was very late when I drained the water system (and I fell asleep not long afterwards) my memories of doing so are a bit fuzzy and all that I really recall is getting a bit chilled while doing all the steps in the process and hurrying back to the warmth of the tent.
Thankfully after bundling up in a big jacket first thing this morning and hiking over to the spigot in question I found that I had indeed opened it last night and thus got the system properly drained which was a massive relief to see but left me puzzled as to why my memory of doing so is so damned foggy! I think that a big part of that is just the result of being fatigued and me hurrying while I was doing it so that I could get out of the cold and get back to the warmth of the tent. Perhaps in the future I will just double check everything when I do it just to be safe but that would require me to remember to double check everything regardless of adverse weather or tiredness so we will see how that works out.
I spent much of the morning (okay pretty much all of it) writing and waiting for the temperature outside to get up above freezing which it finally did by around eleven o'clock. At first I was just going to go turn the water system back on but after turning the water on I wound up hiking over to the new shelter site, grabbing a shovel and my rock-bar so that I could fix the way that a pre-built set of steps were sitting unevenly on the ground and causing the bottom of a door to rub across the deck boards of the steps' landing. Apparently one side of the steps had settled into the ground much more deeply than the other side and since the steps are all one interconnected (free-standing) unit it forced the other side (that did not settle) to rise up just enough that when it rained the wood would swell and the door would snag whilst being opened.
Stuff like that always grates at me and I have gotten better over the years at immediately applying a solution instead of just repeatedly being inconvenienced by the problem. The fix for that problem was rather easy and all that I had to do was leverage up the steps with the rock-bar, block it in place with some small pieces of scrap lumber and then use a trenching shovel to evenly dig out beneath the wooden frame before removing the pieces of lumber and letting the steps settle back into the ground. I did jump on the landing and the steps a few times just to make sure that it had all firmly settled into the ground and I was super stoked to see that when I tested the door that it swung freely and had plenty of clearance between its bottom and the decking boards of the landing.
After doing all that jazz (and getting the water system turned back on) I was feeling quite inspired to get to working at the new shelter site because the wind had died down and although it was still a bit chilly outside it was also super sunny and there was not much in the way of overcast skies. After hiking back to the base camp and throwing on some work clothes (over my pajamas) I grabbed my essential items and the dogs and hiked back over to the shelter site to start working. As a side note the dogs thoroughly enjoyed getting to hang out with me at the new site and were quite content to lay in the sun inside the temporary PVC dog yard. I briefly considered playing some music and building a fire but decided against both because my goal was to just put in a few hours of work (before the temperatures could start dropping again) and doing those things would have just eaten into my available time. The ambiance of the music and the warmth of the fire are always something that are pleasant and all but really they just amount to more work.
My goal for the day was to get more of the metal strainers installed on the 'H-braces' for the new dog yard fence but I rapidly realized that I still needed to dig the trench along the western fence line and that if I installed the strainers first that they would get in the way of the digging. So, I resigned myself to the digging and wound up getting nearly three quarters of the trench (for the western fence line) dug out and got all the necessary strainers for that section of the fence installed. I actually installed two strainers and made an 'X' with them on the H-brace where the hinge side of the main gate will be hung and whoa did that stiffen things up and will make for a really stout arrangement for hanging the gate from. Now that I have installed so many strainers I got the system for doing so down pretty good and can actually do them both quickly and well which are two things that seldom go good together.
The trench digging went quite smoothly even though there were a heck of a lot of roots in the way. While digging the other fence line trenches I dug them sort of narrow and that made cutting out the roots (and actually getting all the roots) a bit challenging so on this portion of the trench I dug it about twice as wide and gave myself plenty of room to use an axe on the roots and to make things easier when I later install the mesh fencing. Since the western fence line is at the top of the sloped site I was hesitant to disturb the ground there too much (because of the potential for erosion) but hopefully I can get the fencing installed and the trench refilled with dirt (and those plugs of loamy topsoil) before that big rainstorm arrives later in the week and can make a mess of everything.
It is worth mentioning that I still need to fill in the trench around the rest of the fence's bottom that already has the mesh fencing installed but what I have been thinking to do is to just do that part of the project all at once after the remainder of the mesh fencing has been installed. Like I said before I put the majority of the removed soil from the trenches on the outside of the fence line (before installing the mesh fencing) knowing that later I would have to haul it around to the inside of the fence before using it to fill the trenches back in and the main reason that I did that was that it would have been in the way of rolling out the fencing material and would have gotten extremely compacted (and made a mess of things) once I began working along the fence line installing the wire mesh. It created a little work later (I will probably wheelbarrow it all inside) but after all the rain and seeing what kind of mess that it made of all the soil and clay piled outside the fence line I am glad that I made that choice!
Anyway, I stopped working at the new shelter site a few hours before dark and basically told myself that I was compromising with my inclination to take the day off by putting in a half of a day of work. When it comes down to it I just have to use whatever fair weather days that I can to get stuff done and that includes days that may not be quite 'fair' but are at least tolerable for working. It actually got quite nice and warm while I was working but I am glad that I stopped when I did and got all the tools and materials put away because apparently that portion of the day was as nice as it was going to get and the temperatures started dropping rapidly not long afterwards but by then I was all warm and cozy in the tent playing my favorite video game and unwinding after work.
It is kind of disappointing that I never fully binged out on the gaming this season but I am hoping that I will have everything situated well enough by the next season that I will be able to take some downtime and really binge out to my little heart's content. I am just glad that I got to put in any amount of time playing this season and with everything else that I have going on currently it is a wonder that I have had the wherewithal to do so. It has been nice just having something to relax to and sort of balance out all the work stuff but it has also been nice communicating with folks on there and being able to tell myself that I am getting a wee bit of social interaction which as some of you know is not something that I get much of to start with.
Well, hell it has been a weird frigging year and pretty much everything has gotten skewed a bit in one way or another along the way but fortunately my day to day life has not changed all that much even though there have been plenty of things that could have altered it along the way had I let them. I did of course move to a new location and have to start from scratch again but that just seems like part of my pattern in life even though it is one that I do not really like all that much. In the grand (or not-so-grand) scheme of things it is awesome that I can somehow manage to maintain a continuity of lifestyle (and perspective) from one place to another and not get too damn frazzled by the upheaval along the way. Something that I noticed when I took a short writing break upon my arrival here was that much of that 'continuity' (both of lifestyle and perspective) comes from my resolve to have those things and my ability to adapt.
The less obvious part of that equation is that having been through this enough times now I know that having a good morale is priceless and maintaining that morale (especially in winter camping conditions) is not some vague idea but an active living on-going process that I have to engage in each day to ensure that my attitude at the very least maintains a pragmatic value and I do not get overwhelmed by all the little inconveniences that living like this presents. The mind game is real and I just cannot stress it enough to folks the importance of it and how nailing down a good morale and positive/pragmatic attitude (and keeping it) is the real linchpin that makes dealing with everything easier. Stuff is still going to be hard of course and the work will be difficult but it all comes down to facing the mental challenges and rising above things like impatience, anxiety, frustration and all the stuff that although 'makes good fuel for the fire' it also just gets in the way of real and lasting progress being done in a thoughtful manner.
All that jazz aside, life is pretty good and I (plus all the critters) are rather happy. Although the critters are undoubtedly accustomed to being happy... I on the other hand am not and yeah it sort of spooks me out and has me wondering what kind of shape I will be in once I reach the end of my ninety day adjustment period here. I am well equipped for dealing with stress and hardship and all of that but I dunno if the inverse is true and it makes me feel kind of like: Wow my life has come a long way over the last four years and in most ways for the better! I also think that if it is noticeable to me then probably other folks have noticed it as well. What seems to have occurred is that I used to have lots of 'highs and lows' and these days those 'highs and lows' seem to have grown further and further apart not to mention reduced themselves in the frequency of their occurrences. Do not get me wrong I am still moody as hell most of the time but the way I allow it to affect me and what I choose to do with it seems to have drastically changed. Yeah, growth has been uncomfortable and painful but looking back over the previous four years of my life all I can still say is that: The struggle has been surreal! The difficulty that I am having at this juncture is that the 'struggle' has begun evaporating (or I just deal with it all better) and I am concerned with what I will do without a bunch of angst to fuel me on!
Alright, I should get to wrapping this all up and try to get the editing/posting done early in the day so that I do not wind up doing it at night again but heck as long as it gets done I will be happy. 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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