Goal Stewing, More Farming More Work, Another Hydrant Installed & The Hot Tub Agenda
It remained chilly and breezy for most of the day and given how my back was still quite sore I spent the majority of the day resting in bed. I did manage to do all my usual daily chores which is good because I can get quite frustrated when I am injured to the point that I can not do them. I swear that it is the little daily routines that are the glue that binds my perspective and memory together and overall makes my days enjoyable. The consistency of those little things sure brings a smile to my face more often than not and as 'mundane' as it may sound... doing those things each day brings me great joy as well as a sense of fulfillment. Perhaps it is the mere simplicity of doing something/anything each day and hell once I am in motion doing them it is easy to transition into doing any other projects or tasks for the day without too much procrastination along the way.
With all the laying around that I have been doing the last several days I have had plenty of time to not just let the rest of my aching body heal but also let my mind relax. Of course I have been doing a heck of a lot of thinking and just sort of mulling over where I am at in life and what the heck I want to accomplish with my time on good ole planet Earth. That probably sounds much more daunting than it really is but what I am getting at is that I am looking towards my own future and asking myself the tough questions of what strategies and tactics will I need to get to where I want to be.
In other words I get enthralled in the process of 'steps' involved and for the sake of my own sanity I begin making plans and formulating contingencies where necessary. As of now all that I really want to accomplish is having a little homestead area dialed in to the point where I can turn my full attention to the land and see if I can help cultivate it into what I think that it can become given some old fashioned tender love and care. I am fond of saying 'it is just time and calories' in regards to doing stuff but I often wonder if folks fully understand that it really is that simple as long as my morale and attitude do not dip too low which of course is a different topic entirely.
In regards to thinking about the future my mind keeps drifting towards farming being a larger part of my lifestyle and I guess that is the sort of gradual conclusion that occurs once anyone does homesteading long enough. The other thing that probably occurs is folks realizing just how much work farming entails and then shying away from it... which is absolutely why I tend to shy away from it myself. I try to be careful not to 'create too much work for myself' because I always have other land management duties to contend with and farming in my opinion requires a level of commitment that I have already pledged towards land management so I guess that it just comes down to how much time that I have to personally invest in one thing or the other.
Assuredly each year I grow (or attempt to grow) a variety of things and I think that I should just build on what I have learned and try to scale up the volume of what I grow. What I am thinking of doing is to plant at least twice as much corn and potatoes as what I have done the last few years and more than likely do the same with the black locust trees just to cover all my bases. Hobbyist farming is fun and all but I keep picturing how useful larger crops can be even if I use their bounty to feed livestock and poultry with or even the local wild game. There is really no downside to planting a larger scale crop than what I have in the past given that their is little maintenance involved with potatoes or corn and they both can be stored rather easily not to mention that they have a long shelf life.
Anyway, late in the day we got the freeze-proof hydrant installed at the top of the shelter site which is a more or less 'all purpose' location for it because it is near the road, outside the dog yard and convenient for use at the future sites that have yet to be developed. We once again submerged the base of the hydrant in a column of gravel and then simply poured in concrete above the gravel in another column. We also used a torpedo level to make sure that the hydrant was plumb before the concrete could begin to set. It is not a super high pressure hydrant or anything but it does about two and a half gallons per minute at a reasonable (and useful) pressure rate. Considering that there is quite a large slope below the hydrant I can always create more pressure by running it further downhill and if my fuzzy math is correct I can add another twenty PSI to it if I extend it to the foot of the slope. If I put a water tower near the hydrant I could undoubtedly double or triple the PSI via gravity feeding it downhill but as of now that is a low priority goal. Just to sort of fill everyone in I keep thinking of a secluded hot tub setup at the foot of the hill deep in the woods and getting water downhill to the spot is a part of a larger project including powering my micro hydro turbine array with it... so a water tower would be quite convenient especially to preheat the water with.
Well, I think that I am going to keep this one short and sweet because although it is still chilly outdoors 'daylight is frigging burning' and I want to get to doing stuff. I hope that everyone is doing well and has a nice day/night or something like that.
These little hydrants are awesome!
The little concrete paver disperses the water well!
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That Is All For Now!
This post was originally posted to the Hive Blockchain here:
https://peakd.com/homesteading/@jacobpeacock/apocalyptic-homesteading-day-106
