The Fantastica Chronicles (Day 134-141)

Day 134 & 135. (TFC A Couple Of Chilly Days Spent Indoors & Enjoying My Winter Downtime)

Well here I am again combining a few days into a single post. I really need to avoid making this too much of a habit but honestly I have been feeling a bit weary of writing every day especially since I have not been doing much that is actually worth writing about in the first place.

Nonetheless here I am tediously pecking out words on this phone in an effort to continue chronicling my days without any lapses. Considering that in a few days I will reach three years of writing something (and sometimes several 'somethings' each day) I guess I should not give myself too much grief about not feeling all that inclined to write the last few days but regardless of that achievement I still feel awful about it. There is probably some fucked up psychology behind such feelings but I am equally un-inclined to figure out what the hell it might be.

Anyway. The last two days have been rather chilly both during the day and especially at night so I have pretty much just stayed indoors and out of the weather. The shelter has been staying nice and warm except for when the wind is gusting and I open the door which as I have stated before often sucks the warmth out of the room. Although a small entry room would solve this I do not have the resources to build anything at the moment but I have been considering hanging a curtain inside the door to block the wind.

It did actually get rather chilly inside late last night because I failed to run the heater for a little while before going to sleep and I also failed to leave the light on which actually helps keep things warm throughout the night.

I awoke in the wee hours of the morning feeling deeply chilled with my blanket thoroughly tangled around one leg. How the heck that happened I have no idea but the room being chilly was mostly because a strong wind was causing quite the draft by blowing in through the exhaust fan vent and out through the window in the door. Fortunately after untangling myself from the blanket and covering me and all the dogs with it and getting a second blanket off the shelf and putting it over us as well I got warm rather fast and was soon sound asleep again.

Mostly I have spent the last few days just binging out playing that video game where I earn some cryptocurrency (as long as I actually win) and it is both repetitive enough and enjoyable/profitable enough to keep me interested in it. It is assuredly not as enjoyable as playing my favorite video game online but nonetheless I keep playing it anyway.

Well I guess that is about it for now. I hope that everyone is doing well and has a wonderful day/night.

Although it was mostly a grey day there was a little blue to the sky as well.

Day 136. (TFC Making Black Locust Stakes, Stiffening Up The Dog Yard Fencing, Making More Ash From Waste Cardboard & Doing A Bunch Of Small Tasks At The Shelter Site)

There is nothing quite like the chance of severe weather to motivate me to do some stuff even if I am in the midst of my winter downtime and thus feel un-inclined to do all that much physical activity.

Although this morning started off quite frosty with a brisk chill wind it eventually warmed up rather nicely and I spent much of the day outdoors doing a bunch of odds and ends around the shelter site. I basically did a mixture of severe weather preparation, routine chores (like shoveling dog shit onto the compost) and a good bit of things that I have been procrastinating doing like removing a big fallen tree branch from the dog yard (from the last storm) and finally fixing that section of dog yard fencing that my boy dog recently scaled over and malformed.

I wound up breaking the fallen branch up into small pieces and burning it (as well as a bunch of cardboard from the homestead proper) in the new fire pit and produced a nice pile of ashes for applying to my ever growing compost pile.

Since I had one fence post left from those ones that I made the other week I decided to finally take the three minutes it would take to dig a hole for it and stiffen up the portion of the dog yard fencing that got 'crumpled' by my boy dog. I cannot recall if I actually wrote about that when it occurred but his nemesis (one of the free range male dogs of a neighbor) was roaming the woods (of the homestead property) and my boy dog scaled the fence and chased the other dog off the property. As a side note as soon as the other dog left my dog immediately returned and wanted back inside and hasn't tried to 'escape' again even though the fencing has been crumpled in that spot ever since then.

Anyway it was good to fix that part of the fence because every time that I let the dogs out I have been worrying about them seeing something and going after it or do what is more their style which is to just chase things away. I really should have fixed it sooner and spared myself all that damn anxiety but meh.

On a different note the folks here recently got a tent style greenhouse and installed it in the yard of the homestead proper a few days ago and although it didn't come with any stakes they used a bunch of tent stakes to anchor it to the ground. In all but the most severe of storms the stakes would probably hold it in place but just for the really strong storms I made some nice long stakes for the corners with some black locust. I even hammered the stakes in for them and afterwards one of my fellow homesteaders tied the greenhouse frame to them with some stout cord.

All in all it was a rather productive day and although I did several other things around the shelter site I am going to just wrap this up so that I can unwind for the evening. I hope that everyone is doing well and has a wonderful day/night.

The black locust stakes that I made!

Day 137. (TFC A Day Of High Winds Mixed With Unseasonably Warm Temperatures & Feeling Worn After The Previous Day's Activities)

The wind was gusting rather strongly when I woke up and it continued to gain strength throughout the day. It also got quite unseasonably warm and even the strong winds did not diminish the heat. Although it was quite overcast and there were lots of looming black clouds it never stormed or even rained.

Surprisingly I didn't hear any trees or branches falling from all the high winds. The winds also gave the stakes tethering down the greenhouse at the homestead proper a good stress test and they held up to the task.

For the most part I just stayed indoors and did my best to avoid being under the trees with all the wind. I didn't really accomplish anything other than lots of brooding and zoning out playing that blockchain game.

How things have worked out so far with that game is that each day that I play I earn just enough Steem to keep playing and enough to Power Up (basically put into savings which increases my vote value) so as the saying goes 'so far so good.'

All in all I am making more Steem on average than I do by curating content with that account and although I keep running out of Resource Credits (the number of actions I can make on the blockchain) that does not affect the account's ability to also keep upvoting content and earning curation rewards. Hell I probably make more Steem on average playing that game than I do with my actual posts even if it sure is rather time consuming to do so.

All that jazz aside I had a rather pleasant day even though it was not all that productive. I guess that is about it for now. I hope that everyone is doing well and has a wonderful day/night.

Just a random picture of the woods beyond the dog yard.

Day 138. (TFC More Unseasonably Warm Temperatures, Crazy High Winds Tossing Stuff Around, A Big Fire Down The Road & An Intense Rainstorm At The End Of The Day)

It was quite the day to say the least. The winds were already gusting when I woke up and gradually increased throughout the course of the day. The winds were pretty insane because there were lots of cross-winds which is pretty intense when the gusts are constant and blowing between forty to eighty miles per hour. This time I even heard several trees falling but they were thankfully on an adjacent property.

At one point early in the day a small micro burst occurred near the shelter site which lifted my umbrella (that I should have taken down before the winds picked up) and tossed it about thirty feet away from my coffee cart. Luckily the umbrella was undamaged and I put it away before it could get blown around anymore.

At the same time the winds caught my pile of unused roofing metal and tossed it over a sixty foot span from where it was piled. One of the sheets of roofing metal smashed into my little art installation (the one with the stick man) and completely wrecked it which was the only real damage done. A few other pieces of metal collided with trees and got wrapped around them but I was able to mostly straighten them out by laying them flat on the ground and stomping on them.

I am unsure how exactly it happened but the roofing metal (all dozen or so pieces) somehow flew either over or around the unfinished greenhouse and although a small piece got blown inside the greenhouse none of it collided with the structure itself. Considering where the roofing metal was stacked and where it got tossed to all I can think is that it got caught in a cross-wind and dumb luck accomplished the rest.

Not long after all that stuff the grid power went down for a short time but having stocked up on water and having a few charged deep cycle batteries on hand it did not really phase me all that much. During that time the winds subsided a bit and I went along the main trail leading from the shelter site to the homestead proper and removed all the branches that had fallen along it.

With the high winds and the big storm system there was a high chance of both fires and tornadoes in the area and early in the afternoon (around the time the grid power went down) a large fire broke out about a mile down the road from the homestead.

Fortunately the local fire department got it contained rather quickly which was commendable especially given the winds and that the fire was originally around fifteen acres in size. Had they not been able to contain it the homestead would have been in jeopardy because the predominant winds were pushing it towards this location with not much in it's path except lots of woods.

By late in the afternoon it finally started raining (which assuredly helped with putting out the fire) and although it at first only sprinkled it steadily grew in strength until it was quite the heavy rainstorm. By the time it actually got dark a full-blown thunderstorm was raging outside but thankfully the dogs remained rather calm considering the storm's intensity.

The weirdest thing about the day's weather was that it stayed around eighty degrees Fahrenheit until the rain settled in and cooled things down a bit. It definitely felt more like springtime weather than winter weather but I am assuredly not going to complain about a heatwave amidst the dead of winter.

Anyway that is about it for now. I hope that everyone is doing well and has a wonderful day/night.

A rainbow that formed very close to the homestead.

Day 139. (TFC An Uneventful Day Of Relaxation & Pretty Much Nothing Else)

After several days of much warmer weather the temperatures abruptly shifted back to ones more akin to the winter and although it did not get super cold or anything it did get quite chilly early in the morning and equally chilly late in the afternoon just before the sunset.

Aside from doing my usual Sunday Steemit post I really did not do all that much today other than shoveling dog shit from the dog yard onto the compost pile and picking up a bunch of small branches that had fallen during the recent stormy weather.

These winter days are really starting to blur together and although I have been thoroughly enjoying the downtime I also can't shake the nagging feeling that I need to be doing something more productive with my time.

Being in a cozy warm shelter really does not help much as far as motivation goes but after the last several hard winters I have endured it sure is fucking nice to not be freezing my ass off and struggling to meet my meager needs...so perhaps I should just enjoy it while it lasts because who knows what the hell the future holds.

Mostly I think that I should get to seriously working on this book about my last 'adventure' and treat it like a job where I spend six or more hours on it per day until it is finished instead of doing what I have been doing which is working on it in 'starts and fits' which ultimately will get it done but who knows how long doing it that way will take.

Part of me absolutely abhors the notion of delving into the past few years and sort of 'reliving' it because holy fuck was it both stressful and for lack of a better term downright difficult. Then there is the whole aspect of all the work I put in at the last place and it turning out to be just a big loss and my mind starts sort of cartwheeling away from the whole notion of exploring the past not so much as an act of self-preservation but an act of not wanting to pollute my current mindset which by the way is not that bad at all.

Currently I have been in a sort of mental limbo where I avoid dwelling on the past and equally avoid thinking about the future and find myself more often than not just cherishing the moment I am in for what it is...wholly uneventful and rather damn mellow. It is a nice change of pace but at the same time I am not planning for future projects or doing any number of things that I generally spend my winter downtime doing.

I guess that I am just sort of re-evaluating what I want from life and pretty much everything else has taken a backseat or is in a 'holding pattern' until I sort things out one way or another. Thankfully I am not feeling overly depressed or stressed out or anything so at least the thinking that I am doing is rather clear headed and if anything I am excited to see what comes of it all.

Anyway I do not really have much else to write about currently so I am going to wrap this up and call it good enough. I hope that everyone is doing well and has a wonderful day/night.

The moon through the trees early in the morning.

Day 140 & 141 (TFC The Dreary Days Of Winter, Reflecting On The Past & Doing Some Writing)

The last couple days have blurred together as the dreary winter weather has settled back into the area. Although yesterday was rather nice (but overcast) it eventually turned to rain late in the afternoon and this morning a big thunderstorm rolled in. Thankfully the storm was rather short-lived and the dogs did not get overly perturbed by all the thunder even though it was rather loud and accompanied by a lot of lightning.

I have been trying to avoid combining these daily posts but here I am doing it once again. Yesterday was the three year anniversary of when I got dropped of at that old farm and I spent my 'writing time' working on an 'afterwards' article that I posted to Steemit. I will include it at the bottom of this post if anyone is interested in reading it.

Mostly I was just trying to come to some sort of terms with how that whole 'adventure' worked out and although I did not hedge on my explicit language very much in it I think that it is a pretty good summary of things or at least good enough that I could perceive the frustration that I feel about it all and make some headway on getting it out of my system.

Anyway. It has been a rather mellow few days and I have not really been doing much aside from doing a lot of reading online and sort of brooding over what all I can do to make my life better. I haven't really come up with much in regards to that last bit but as things are now I am at least 'getting by' and do not feel like I am struggling.

Well I do not really have much else to write about so I am going to keep this one short and sweet. I hope that everyone is doing well and has a wonderful day/night.

Here is that Steemit article that I wrote: https://steempeak.com/homesteading/@jacobpeacock/afterwards

Ah the overcast days of winter!

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