The Fantastica Chronicles (Day 241-247)

avatar

Hello Everyone!

A brief introduction: 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.

A little over three 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 the Fantastica Chronicles came about is that I was living at another place when I started chronicling and sharing my days but eventually I wound up moving to a new place. The new place is a homestead named 'Fantastica' so I started with 'Day 1' upon my arrival here and just kept documenting my days much like I had done for the previous nine hundred and fifty-seven days at the last place that I lived.

I have mostly done that 'documenting' at Fantastica exclusively with words (and pictures) opting not to do the videos because as I learned at the last place, sharing videos over an intermittent and slow internet connection is horribly time consuming and what I often think of as an 'ulcer inducing' experience. All that said, I opted for simplicity with the documentation and have no real regrets for doing so.

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.

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]

The Fantastica Chronicles Day 241-247!

Day 241 (TFC Another Foul Weather Day, Trading Cryptocurrency & Pretty Much Just Staying Inside Out Of The Weather)

Once again it was quite the rainy day and this time it was a good bit more chilly than it has been of late which was not all that bad until it got dark and the temperature dropped even further. I doubt that I will ever be much of a fan of cold damp weather but it sure makes for nice napping conditions!

Although it is currently quite the sunny morning (as I am writing this) the chilly temperature outside is enough that I find myself turning on the propane heater and warming the shelter up just to make it comfortable enough that I can take my heavy coat off and not find myself more or less huddling over the keyboard pecking out words with aching hands. It was of course warm and cozy inside until I opened the door this morning and left it that way to air the place out while brewing my morning espresso.

I was up pretty late the night before watching the price of Hive (the cryptocurrency used on the Hive blockchain) because it had been steadily climbing for a few days and I was eagerly awaiting for it to reach a point where I could trade it for Hive Backed Dollars (another cryptocurrency used on the same blockchain) at a price as close to 'one for one' as I could. Just to explain things a bit, the HBD price has been hovering around one dollar USD and the Hive price has been staying under twenty cents USD but after a big crypto exchange listed Hive a few days ago the price of Hive has gone up and up until it reached nearly the same value as HDB.

So what I decided to do was to convert my Hive (while it was near the price of a dollar) into HDB because the HDB will probably retain (or at least stay close to its current value) and the Hive will probably drop again in price and when it does I can do another round of trading and hopefully double, triple or quadruple the amount of Hive that I originally converted to HDB. The way I see it is that it is a pretty safe investment unless Hive shoots up in price beyond one dollar a unit and stays that way which it probably will not even though it would be really nice if it did and even under those conditions the HBD would also go up in price so I look at it as a win-win either way.

The whole 'cryptocurrency thing' has been the only way that I can see to balance out my financial situation because I actually earn it every week via posting to the Hive blockchain unlike how most folks get cryptocurrency which is by buying into it. Now that I am getting closer to having all my phone, banking and whatnot all sorted out I will be able to turn any cryptocurrency that I get into USD and thus hopefully make up for a good bit of the two-thirds of my monthly income that I recently lost because of all the economic upheaval.

The irony of something that has been historically volatile (cryptocurrency) becoming perhaps the most stable thing to invest in currently is not lost upon me and although I think it is pretty amazing that it is finally getting the credit (and albeit recognition) that it deserves it also leaves me wondering about what it is signaling about (and what is in store for) the non-cryptocurrency economy in these rather uncertain times. Economics have never been my strong suit but at this point I think that the proverbial 'writing on the wall' is pretty clear on just how downright 'fragile' our economy in this country is and on a bit of a collision course with either having to re-invent itself entirely or flounder along perpetually 'bailing' itself out just enough to keep it afloat while it continually sinks dragging down the less fortunate (most of us) with it.

All that jazz aside, I mostly just stayed indoors out of the weather and spent my time watching the crypto prices and reading a bunch of stuff online which mostly amounted to 'taking the temperature' of what is going on in the world and especially of the folks I know. As much as I am inclined to be shrewd and pragmatic when it comes to other humans and their activities it is pretty cool seeing just how many folks that I know are working on sustainability projects and gardening which seems to be one of he most common things that I see folks investing their time and energy into.

Perhaps it is some sort of deeply psychological response in times of upheaval to grow food or just the one thing folks see that they can do to sort of 'guard against' (or prepare for) the fallout from what has been happening but either way I think it is frigging awesome to see and it sort of pushes aside that lurking dread that things will descend into chaos.

All too often I think that folks confuse the potential of 'hard times' with 'chaotic times' but I think that in this particular moment of human history that we are more taking a collective deep breath, having some interesting self-realizations and just settling in for a long uphill struggle to maintain a decent quality of life as we redefine what 'normalcy' is whilst admitting to ourselves that the previous system has always been deeply flawed and utterly broken because it places profit as something more valuable than life. I hope that is what is happening and although my more pragmatic side says to 'buckle the fuck up' I also recognize the potential for us to all emerge into the light of a better, kinder world where life itself is valued above all else.

Well, I have meandered on enough for one morning and now that it is finally a sunny day I better get to doing a bunch of stuff that I have not been able to work on of late and getting some routine chores done (like cleaning up the dog yard) that I have not been able to do for the last several days. As a side note the small break that I have gotten from physically demanding stuff the last several days has absolutely helped my sternum to not ache so much and hopefully it can 'stay on the mend' as I get back to working on things. I hope that everyone is doing well and has a wonderful day/night.

IMG_20200427_090052a.jpg

Some actual blue sky this morning!

Day 242. (TFC Pouring Concrete In Sonotubes, Getting My Studio Setup More & Spreading Grass Seed In The Dog Yard)

Besides it being a bit chilly early in the morning it turned out to be a really sunny day and although there was a chill to the slight breeze that occasionally blew strongly it really was not all that bad or noticeable unless I was in the shade which thankfully was not all that often. All that considered I will take the sunny chill over the rainy chill any day! It is looking like there is more foul weather in store later this week but at least it was really nice to get a break from all the rain and actually be able to get back to doing stuff outdoors. It is also nice that my dog yard and the trails got a chance to dry up some and are no longer so damn slippery!

Once I got all my morning writing and some chores around the shelter site finished I headed down to the homestead proper with my big wagon and a few tools so that I could finally continue working on those concrete pillars that I started on several weeks ago. That whole project has been a bit screwy because when I started it I thought that I would have all the materials (concrete and metal hardware for mounting the posts) rather quickly but it took some time to get everything delivered and by then I had injured my hand (and sternum) and it was raining every day which all amounted to me having to play the 'waiting game' which is not something that I enjoy doing on those types of projects.

My preference is always to have all the materials, start the project and work on it until it is complete and absolutely avoid having to 'start and stop' on it. The delays were all things beyond my control so I just sort of shrug it all off but still it grates at me... and it especially grates on the part of me that likes having my 'ducks in a row' and following through on the careful/thoughtful planning that I put into things. I won't rant and rave too much about it here but suffice it to say that I am glad to be working on it... fucking finally!

With the aid of two of my fellow homesteaders we got enough bags of concrete moved to where it needed to be used, made sure that the rain dampened sonotubes were still lined up and figured out what height to cut some of them down to so that they all matched. We then mixed and poured the concrete and set the metal hardware that will hold the six inch by six inch posts at the top of the concrete pillars. Even with getting everything measured and lined up beforehand once we added the concrete to the sonotubes they shifted out of plumb a bit because they were so damp they had lost a good bit of their rigidity so we wound up leaning cinder blocks (concrete blocks) up against them to hold them plumb while the concrete was setting.

All in all the concrete pillars came out pretty good and hopefully the rain holds off again today so that I can get some (or all) of the six by six posts installed and move onto digging more footers and installing more sonotubes. There are a total of twelve pillars (and posts) that need to be done and so far I only have four of the pillars done and none of the posts. The posts themselves are going to be a bit tricky because the roof they are attaching to (and will be supporting) is decidedly out of plumb, square and level but that is always something that I encounter when doing any sort of renovation or retrofitting work and I know to just get everything as close to being 'true' as I can and call it good enough.

Late in the day I continued consolidating some of my stuff in storage and getting that studio space that I have been working towards creating a little further along. I finally got to the point with it that I had enough room to setup a countertop (work table) in the rear of the camper and now I just need to figure out how to run some electricity to it so that I can begin utilizing the space. I think that what I will probably have to do for the electricity is get a few hundred feet of heavy gauge extension cord but I have no idea when the next time I will be able to afford something like that so who knows when I will actually be able to start using the place for its intended purpose.

At least there are plenty of windows in the camper and it gets enough sun that I can work on some things in there without electricity (like dreamcatchers) and there is also twelve volt lighting which I can possibly utilize if I can figure out the pre-existing wiring scenario. The twelve volt wiring does not look like it is in bad shape or anything but there is a lot of it and the main leads that connect to the battery are not labeled nor properly color coated so it is just going to take me following them and seeing where they go and figuring them out the best that I can.

Anyway, just before dark I filled a coffee can with grass seed and heavily seeded a large part of the dog yard that is currently 'churned up' from all the recent rain and the dogs' foot traffic. I am unsure of just how much of it will actually grow which is why I over-seeded it but hopefully some of it takes because all the muck is not just annoying (because the dogs track it into the shelter) but it is also treacherous to walk on and I am tired of slipping and sliding around every time that it rains. Some of those falls that I have taken were pretty damn bad and I do not like the idea of taking one that really injures me. It would not be quite so bad if the dog yard was not so sloped but there is not much I can do about the terrain. Having the new porch has assuredly helped a lot and at least I am no longer having to navigate that dodgy metal ramp to enter and exit the shelter.

Well, I have rambled on enough for one morning and better wrap this up so that I can get on with my day and see what I can accomplish. I hope that everyone is doing well and has a wonderful day/night.

IMG_20200427_162908.jpg

This is the shortest of the four concrete pillars. The rest are much taller.

Day 243. (TFC Getting Some Rain Early In The Day, Spending Too Much Time Watching The Cryptocurrency Market & Setting Posts On Those Concrete Pillars)

By the time I finished my morning writing routine it started to rain a bit but thankfully it did not last all that long even though the sky was overcast and the clouds themselves were rather dense and dark. Besides that small amount of rain the day eventually got quite sunny and even working in the shade it was not all that chilly or anything because there was not much in the way of wind.

For the majority of the morning and well into the early afternoon I pretty much just did some reading online about current events which was mostly disappointing stuff that amounts to our government flailing/failing and the populace suffering because of it with more suffering to come as science, logic and rationale are disregarded and the economy is given more value than human life. To say it is all nauseating would be an understatement because honestly it is sadly pathetic that the populace allowed for all of this mismanagement of governance to occur in the first place which is not something 'new' but something that has been going on for decades now and in this moment of true crisis folks are acting like it is actually surprising that greed, profiteering and infighting takes more precedence than ensuring the well-being of actual people.

I do not want to get off on too much of a tangent here but whoa the question that should be being asked is: As a society are we suicidal? It seems like failing to fulfill that suicidal tendency we are engaged in making as many folks as possible suffer instead of simply doing the 'correct' thing and ending/alleviating the suffering, shifting our values towards the preservation of life and just admitting that as a society we are (and perhaps always have been) deeply flawed and in dire need of reinventing ourselves in such a way that avarice can never again lead us into a blind alley nor off the proverbial cliff.

As much as 'reinvention' is a pleasant thought the tendency unfortunately seems to be to just continue on the one-way path that we are currently on even though we know that the ominous cliff is at the end of it. In other words it seems like we have chosen the 'known' (in all its ugliness) instead of embracing the 'unknown' and its potential to create a beautiful and flourishing society where love and compassion are authentic instead of superfluous.

All that jazz aside, I spent way too much time watching the cryptocurrency market and the recent trades/investments that I made hoping that I could make some more exchanges and bolster my marginal portfolio. There were several times throughout the day when the numbers were looking really good to make some swaps (and a decent profit) but I decided to just be patient and see if something better comes along. I probably totally missed my 'window of opportunity' but it is not like I am losing anything by just watching the market and being patient.

Mostly what I want to do is make just enough HIVE to cash a little of it out into USD (to help make up for my loss of the majority of my income) and also make enough so that I can 'stake' some of it in my Hive accounts to make them have more voting power. I am also trying to simultaneously make enough profit to be able to continue trading because to be blunt I really like the thrill of doing it! Something to keep in mind is that all the cryptocurrency that I have is from rewards that I received from original content that I created and I have invested zero fiat money into it ever which in and of itself is a pretty damn good feeling!

Anyway, late in the afternoon once the rain stopped and the skies cleared up I went back to doing that recent project at the homestead proper that I have been working on of late and although I got a late start I (with the help of some fellow homesteaders) got a good bit accomplished. Those four concrete pillars (that were poured the day before) were dry enough to receive the six inch by six inch posts that mount on top of them so with lots of measuring, cutting and getting them stood up and in place we got them attached to the framing for the roof and all the fasteners in them at the bottom where they rest in those metal hardware 'buckets' that we installed at the tops of the pillars when we poured the concrete. All in all the posts went in rather easily given just how out of square, plumb and level the building is and will undoubtedly provide more load bearing capacity than the previous four inch by four inch posts that were holding it up and were just buried in the ground without any sort of footers or concrete.

Although I really like how that project is coming along I am definitely glad that I chose to start the project at the rear of the building before moving to the front of the building where the ascetics will be a bit more important. There is always going to be a bit of a learning curve involved and I think now having learned what I have on the posts (and concrete piers) at the rear of the building I can do an even better job on the front of the building. Do not get me wrong here because all things considered the ones at the rear of the building came out pretty damn awesome but alas there is always room for improvement.

Well, I better wrap this up and get on with my day and see what I can accomplish before the rainy weather moves back into the area later this evening and tomorrow. I hope that everyone is doing well and has a wonderful day/night.

IMG_20200428_183541.jpg

That ready-mix concrete does not look pretty but it does the job!

Day 244. (TFC Catching Up On Some Chores, Looking At The Workload Ahead On The Homestead & Doing Some Hiking)

It turned into a rainy and sort of dreary day by late afternoon and the weather forecasters made planning for anything outdoors tricky because they kept changing the time of when it was supposed to begin raining and I had the misfortune of actually thinking that they were going to be accurate which just amounted to me hemming and hawing over when I should start working on stuff for so long that I wound up not really getting much done at all!

I did manage to get some of my usual daily chores accomplished but all my larger projects got little to no attention except for that current odd job I am doing at the homestead proper which just amounted to me looking everything over really well and getting a mental to-do list going about the next phase of things with it.

At this point on that project I have to re-install a bunch off the old soffit and patchwork the holes in it (from the old four by four posts) and cut new holes for the new posts. I also have to seal a few holes in the framing that were revealed when the old posts were removed which is not that big of a deal aside from needing to cut away some old nails with my angle-grinder and adding some blocking for the soffit to be fastened to. Although it will all be a tedious task I am looking forward to at least getting everything in that area 'buttoned up' and looking good.

Early in the day I hiked across the creek and checked out how the corn gardens over there are doing and I am very pleased to say that 'so far so good' and that lots of the corn kernels have sprouted and some of the plants are even several inches tall! Given their location I hope that they grow really well and actually get tall because having planted that same strain of silage corn in the past I learned the hard way that it does not do all that well in the shade or even in semi-shaded areas. Given how the sun is not all that many degrees away from being directly above the corn patch at noon this time of year I think that it will probably get sufficient sunlight but I am hesitant to get my hopes up too much because the leaves are still returning on the trees here and that will assuredly affect how much sunlight the corn patch will get.

While I am on the topic of the corn growing I should note that the corn patch across the creek does not have nearly as many plants popping up versus how much seed was planted in the ground which makes me wonder just how much of it got eaten by wildlife and how much of it might have failed to germinate altogether. It seems like the corn seed that I planted in the gardens around the shelter site has a much higher germination rate and it makes me wonder if the dogs being here (and there being less wildlife activity) is a large factor in that. For how heavily the corn patch across the creek was over-seeded I would think that I would have more plants so perhaps in the future I will need to over-seed it more than I did this particular time.

Anyway, I do not really have much else to report and am just going to keep this one short and sweet. I hope that everyone is doing well and has a wonderful day/night.

IMG_20200429_122733.jpg

Some of the corn plants growing in the garden across the creek.

Day 245. (TFC Another Dreary Weather Day, Working On The Hive Blockchain Survival Guide, Enjoying A Day Indoors & Testing A New Blockchain Game)

The day started off a bit rainy and although the rain let up rather quickly it stayed very overcast and chilly throughout the entire day. With all the rain that there was the day before everything was still pretty soaked outside and the sky looked like it was about to dump more rain at any moment so I decided early on to just stay indoors and make the best of my time doing stuff online which mostly amounted to working on a fourth version of the Hive Survival Guide that I have been steadily adding to as I find new articles, information, tutorials and tools related to Hive.

The survival guide itself has become quite the project and although I never intended to have it turn into its own project... with the rapid adoption, development and albeit growth the Hive blockchain has been undergoing since its launch (a scant month ago) there is a lot of information that (in my mind) is sort of necessary to consolidate under one 'umbrella' to help new users and for users that have migrated from the Steem blockchain that is now being censored and has become centralized since the majority of users abandoned it for the Hive blockchain.

Honestly the story of the creation of the new blockchain and the following mass migration onto it is pretty damn amazing because so many people set aside their differences, banded together and absolutely rejected becoming part of a centralized entity that endorses censorship and was/is completely indifferent to open dialogue, transparency and the 'will' of the community. In short, I am proud to see what has emerged with the new blockchain and am very excited to participate in its evolution.

While I am on the topic of blockchain technology, I noticed a new game being launched on Hive and after doing a bunch of research on it I discovered that it is pretty unique because it incorporates elements of role-playing games, collectible digital assets (cards) that can be bought and sold, space colonization (which is pretty interesting because the game begins with having to evacuate an exploding space dock and colonizing a new planet) and the 'fuel' that is used in the game is a cryptocurrency token that is located on a Hive sidechain. If you do not know what a sidechain is it is simply a secondary blockchain connected to a main blockchain which in this case happens to be the Hive blockchain.

With the Hive blockchain being so new and most of the development on it going into the user experience and tools there are currently not a whole lot of options for gaming on it and although there is the popular card game Splinterlands (that utilizes multiple cryptocurrencies) there are not any games on Hive yet with the breadth and scope of this new game named Exode.

All in all it is pretty interesting to 'get in early' on such a potentially successful game (and market) as what Exode has the potential to become. In the past I have always kicked myself in the proverbial arse for not 'getting in early' on stuff that I thought would be successful and I feel like the small cryptocurrency investment that I made by purchasing some of the cards for the game has the possibility to make a small profit and even a bit of prestige because I will possess some unique alpha cards and if I am really lucky some of them will be in high demand later on as the game evolves.

Anyway, as you can undoubtedly see I am pretty stoked how things on Hive are going and although I keep telling more folks about it I wonder just how effective that has been. Of late I have seen so many posts on other social media sites about folks disliking the censorship happening (especially in regards to information concerning the novel coronavirus COVID-19) and I just have to wonder if perhaps folks are so 'cozy' (or just familiar with) the centralized and censored social media options that they fail to grasp the significance of one that is neither of those things. It is assuredly amusing (in an albeit twisted way) to watch folks complain about censorship (and even rage against it) whilst doing absolutely nothing to sidestep it nor help those who have sidestepped it to foster mass adoption but hey I think that folks might get around to it eventually... or not!

Well, this post has pretty much turned into a musing on blockchain related stuff but having spent the entire day being heavily involved in the topic at hand I guess I should not be all that surprised by it. I better wrap this up though so that I can get an early start to my day and see what all I can accomplish because supposedly it is going to be nice and sunny with very little chance for rain. I hope that everyone is doing well and has a wonderful day/night.

IMG_20200430_101507.jpg

The potatoes that I planted in the corner of the greenhouse are doing awesome!

Day 246. (TFC Re-installing Some Soffit, Doing The 'Crypto Shuffle' & Testing A Cellular Repeater At The Coffee Bar)

The weather was absolutely awesome throughout the day and we finally got a break from all the rainy, cold dreariness which was much needed especially since all the muck around here finally dried up and the plants got some good sunlight. May is always the month in the mountains here that the weather seems to finally start staying more consistent (and warmer) so having a day like that the very first day of it was super nice and long anticipated to say the least!

Per usual I spent my morning hours writing, editing and posting but this time I also squeezed in some time to continue what I have been thinking of as 'the crypto shuffle' where I move around cryptocurrency (converting it, trading it and whatnot) and ultimately investing it into more of the cards for that new game that I mentioned yesterday. I know that it is probably difficult for folks to wrap their head around but I am basically just investing in digital assets (the cards for the games) on the purely speculative notion that they will increase in value which they already have because I got in on the fifty percent off pre-sale so that is pretty awesome. I am also selling the cards on the player market and so far I have earned a modest profit for my endeavors even though there are not a lot of people utilizing the market yet.

More or less I have created (another) job for myself to do each day and although it eats into my narrow schedule I think that it is time well spent especially since I am primarily approaching it from an investor/business perspective. Do not get me wrong I will probably even play the game some but I have never really made many monetary investments in my life and most of my investments have been of the 'blood, sweat and tears' variety that amounts to investing in gaining skills, investing in tools and materials which amounts to then taking those things and then further investing my time and labor into projects. So with this digital asset investment (the cards) I am applying what I have learned doing more labor intensive projects and letting my ethos sort the rest of it out.

Having been doing the cryptocurrency thing a few years now and learning about blockchain technology (as far as how it works and how to use it goes) I think that at this point I should start doing something more than just my usual writing/posting thing with that knowledge. I have been consistently writing/posting now for something like the last one thousand two hundred and three days and to say it is now a 'habit' would be an understatement. Thankfully I enjoy writing so that makes staying consistent pretty easy. Now though I think it is time to do something 'more' and it looks like this card buying/selling thing is going to be it. Who knows how the hell it will all turn out but I will assuredly keep folks posted along the way.

Anyway, during the afternoon I loaded up the big wagon with tools and hauled it down to the homestead proper and got to working on getting the soffit re-installed there where I recently added the concrete pillars and new posts. As a side note the concrete pillars are looking a bit better ascetically now that the concrete has dried up. I still think that they will look good with stucco on them and hopefully the folks here will opt to have me stucco them in the long run.

The plywood soffit was really dirty and had nails and staples in it so I spent some time cleaning the pieces up, de-nailing them and also figuring out the 'puzzle' of how they were originally installed. Someone else had removed the soffit pieces and stored them in an outbuilding so it was indeed a bit of a 'puzzle' to figure out but after taking lots of measurements of where the old (deleted) posts were I figured it out. One of my fellow homesteaders helped me get the pieces of soffit lifted into place (and installed) after I cut new holes in them for the new posts. Overall it was not all that difficult of a task but it sure was time-consuming!

Very late in the day (it was almost dark outside when I started) I moved my cellular signal repeater antenna pole from the shelter to the coffee bar which is located at the highest elevation of the property. I will spare you all the tedious details but I tested my 3G repeater and was able to get a pretty steady signal for the phone connection (the voice and text part) and a 1X connection for the data but I could not actually do anything online with the 1X data connection.

While I was testing it I did get a 4G connection because the other radio band (for voice and text) was not struggling to connect. The 4G data was slow but it did actually work so that got me excited. My next step is to take the antenna pole down and install my 4G antenna on it and test my 4G repeater and see if I can get a usable connection that way. In the past I had given up on the 4G repeater after testing it at the shelter site and it not working but I think that since my phone was able to get 4G with no 4G repeater at the coffee bar... it might perform awesomely with the 4G repeater! I do not want to get my hopes up but maybe I will finally solve my internet connectivity problems and be able to start posting videos and audio again! Fingers-fucking-crossed!

Well, I think that I am just going to wrap this up and get on with my day because I am already a little behind schedule and it is so nice outside that I just want to get out in the sun and start doing stuff! I hope that everyone is doing well and has a wonderful day/night.

IMG_20200501_101456.jpg

My blueberry bush has more blueberries than it has ever had!

Day 247. (TFC Spending A Perfectly Beautiful Day Indoors Writing & Then Writing Some More)

It figures that on the first day that it was warm outside from sunup until sundown that I would spend it indoors writing! I did keep the shelter door wide open throughout the day just so that I would 'almost' be outside while sitting at my writing table and working so it was not like I failed to enjoy the nice weather or anything like that. Sometimes when inspiration is strong it is best to (as the old blacksmith saying goes) 'strike while the iron is hot' and not waste the opportunity.

I did have the full intention of working on stuff outdoors and specifically spending some time continuing that recent project at the homestead proper where I am adding concrete pillars and posts to that roof but once I got started writing I had a hard time breaking away from it even though my usual morning writing was finished and I was free to do whatever the hell else that I wanted to do with my day.

Like I have previously mentioned I have been keeping tabs on that new EXODE game and familiarizing myself with not just the game, its cards and overall interface but also with the human element behind the game in the form of the developers and the fledgling community forming around the game. One of the things that I really love about utilizing the Hive blockchain is that open, transparent communication is more the 'standard' rather than some mere social fluke and the ability for an ordinary user like myself to be able to directly communicate with a developer is pretty fucking awesome to say the least. I guess that what I am saying there is that I enjoy the very 'personal' nature of such interactions and tend to be just as interested in learning about the actual people behind a project as I am in a project itself.

After one such exchange (with the main EXODE developer) early in the morning I got super inspired to write a 'getting started guide' for new users to help ease the account setup and card acquisition process. Although it was not all that difficult to figure out the process on my own I realized during it that given my level of understanding about utilizing the Hive blockchain I might be slightly (okay incredibly) biased and that for new folks it might not be all that simple and they might feel too intimidated to try it. Hence my desire to painstakingly write out a guide to help folks and especially folks that are unfamiliar with Hive even though in my perspective Hive itself is pretty damn easy to get started on regardless of the learning curve involved.

Anyway, I spent something like nine to ten hours tediously taking screenshots, editing images, writing out instructions and formatting the guide in as simple (and straightforward) of a fashion as I could and whoa doing all that stuff left me feeling rather appreciative of my more 'run of the mill' writing where I am basically just chronicling my days, their events and my occasional thoughts and insights. In other words I definitely do not want to spend all my time writing guides/tutorials/instructions for folks and came away from it with a new appreciation for the folks that write/create such material.

It has been quite some time now since I binged out for so long on just writing and although I did not really get anything else accomplished it sure was nice to just indulge myself especially considering that I was working on something that will assuredly benefit others. The one thing that I do sort of dislike is that I always feel so weird when I get super passionate about something (in this case that new game) and then while sharing my passion about it I feel like it gets (or could be) interpreted as 'hawking' or 'pitching' something when in fact I am just fucking stoked about it and have a difficult time containing the enthusiasm that I feel.

Well, I do not have much else to write about and am going to curb my desire to keep rambling on because I can already see that I will do exactly that and I have yet to do my Sunday morning routine and the day is already warming up and looking quite beautiful outside. I hope that everyone is doing well and has a wonderful day/night.

IMG_20200430_101444.jpg

The potatoes that I planted in the floor of the greenhouse are looking super healthy!

Thanks for reading!

woodbanner.png

Please check out the Homesteading Community:
https://peakd.com/c/hive-114308/created

My new Hive Survival Guide Third Edition can be found here: https://peakd.com/hive/@jacobpeacock/hive-survival-guide-third-edition

Please consider becoming a patron on my Patreon page!!!
https://www.patreon.com/jacobpeacock

woodbanner.png

That Is All For Now!

Cheers! & Hive On!



0
0
0.000
2 comments