Some Windy Woods, Making A Podcast, An Elusive Electric Blanket, Fence Post Installation & Site Layout
I am up rather early again today and although I am still a bit groggy I am slowly waking up all the way as I sip my morning espresso and enjoy the quietude of the predawn hours. It is always a bit strange starting my days trying to fumble through my memories about the day before so that I can write about them especially after I have been dreaming a lot (like I was last night) because all the memories of the dreams are swirling around in my head as well and although I often just brush them aside so that I can get to writing some mornings they are a bit more difficult to shake off than others. Considering that I just slept for ten hours straight I am still feeling a bit 'worn around the edges' and my mind is in slow motion so just bear with me as I type out my ponderous thoughts and reflections.
My day began by staying inside the camping tent to avoid working in the high winds and honestly I was feeling a bit stir crazy so I made a short podcast, got the audio from it remastered and then shared it to Patreon which was all a rather simple process. After doing the podcast my mind felt a bit clearer and I felt that I had gotten 'it' (whatever 'it' was) out of my system. The writing is neat and all but I think that occasionally I just need to speak my thoughts out as well and in hindsight I guess that doing so routinely has been lacking from my life for the better part of a year and a half now. I have made a few podcasts along the way but making those daily videos (like I did for that nine hundred and fifty-seven day period) actually was quite beneficial for me mentally and a habit that I should try to get back into even if just for the sake of thorough documentation. The idea of doing so always 'sounds good' to me until I start thinking of having to manage all the video files, archiving them and sharing them which adds several new items to my to-do list each day that I am unsure if I really have time for especially considering that at this juncture I have so much to do anyway if I am going to get a dog yard and shelter built before winter really sets in here and the weather turns non-conducive for working outdoors.
I spent some time early in the day sorting through stuff in the camping tent and making things a bit more organized and consolidated so that I can squeeze some more stuff into it (like those totes of books and journals) that I currently have in the storage tent. I also shuffled stuff around in the storage tent and tried to locate where the heck my electric blanket is. The tote that I thought that the blanket was in turned out to only contain the power cord and controller for the electric blanket which was kind of funny because for the better part of four years now I had it in my mind that both the blanket and the cord were in that tote and that turning out to be untrue left me scratching my head (and searching) for where the heck the blanket actually is! Undoubtedly the blanket is 'somewhere' in all my gear but I eventually gave up looking for it because I would have to move about five hundred pounds of stuff to look through the stacks of boxes, totes and bags for the blanket and I just did not want to spend that many calories on a wild goose chase for something that I could undoubtedly get by without having the luxury of in the first place.
Once the wind died down I bundled up in several layers of clothes and headed over to the new shelter site with one of the dogs. In the wee hours of the morning when I had let the dogs out to go potty three of the four had wandered far from the base camp and did not return for the better part of forty minutes which earned them all a 'time out' for the day stuck in the tent (of course with several more potty breaks) while I brought the dog that stayed (like a good dog) with me as I did my daily activities. She quite enjoyed the special treatment and the other dogs seemed to have gotten the message because they have returned promptly from going potty ever since then. It is always tricky living in a tent with dogs and lacking a good fence around the place I have to be stern with them so that they do not get to wandering off too far and 'making their perimeter secure' which is pretty much what happens when they do that sort of wandering off.
Without setting the perimeter myself with a fence I cannot get too upset with them because they are after all doing exactly what they have been trained and conditioned to do. They really do well at understanding the dynamics of situations and tend to shy away from neighboring properties and the animals and humans that occupy them so I do not get too neurotic when they get out of sight unless they are gone for a really long time which does not happen all that often. It is hunting season this time of year though and I would feel awful if the dogs upset anyone's hunting or disturbed the game a bunch. Since no one hunts this particular site that is not all that big of a deal but they could still easily disturb things just by running around this property's borders which would just be inconsiderate on my part so I do my best to keep the dogs close and not let them wander off all that far but dogs will unavoidably be dogs and without a secure fence I just have to do the best that I can do for the time being.
My big goal at the new shelter site was to get the four corner posts in for the new dog yard, get the guide strings pulled between the four corners and get a measurement of exactly what size the dog yard will be. In order to line things up the way that I wanted to I had to move the PVC dog yard out of the way and get it setup a little downhill from where I previously had it at which was not all that big of a deal and I did not even have to dismantle any of the fence to do so and was able to just 'walk' the whole thing downhill by rotating it and dragging it between the trees when necessary. I may wind up having to move the PVC fence again later but for now it should be out of the way of building the permanent fence and perhaps even the cabin building process.
Anyway, the first post that I set was the northeast one that is the furthest downhill corner of the new fence and basically where all the surface water from the shelter site naturally sheds. The entire layout of the fence will aid in shedding water off the site and helping to channel it towards that corner so when I dug the post hole for the corner post I dug it quite deep and used the largest diameter post that there was available. I was also super critical of how well I compacted the soil around the post and made sure that the post was perfectly plumb in all directions even after all the compaction was applied. The red clay here compacts super well but whoa can it be some difficult stuff to dig through even with all the recent rain saturating the ground. Out of the four corner post holes that I dug one of them was like digging through concrete and I had to use the chisel head on my homemade rock-bar to break up the clay before extracting it with the post hole diggers. On the bright side of digging a hole into such densely compacted clay is that once the post is embedded in the hole and the back-filled clay is tamped down the post sure is not going anywhere!
All the digging eventually wore me out and after getting the strings pulled and taking my final measurement I was rather happy with how the new fence project is turning out. The layout of the fence amounts to eighty-two meters (two hundred and forty-eight feet) and will be much larger than any dog yard that I have previously used or constructed so I am pretty stoked about that even though it means that I will have a much larger area to walk over each day to do my morning ritual of shoveling up all the dog shit from the dog yard and adding it to the compost mound. As far as the new compost goes I am unsure if the place that I was originally making it is going to work out after all and I think that I found a much better spot for it slightly downhill (outside the new fence line) but I am still undecided because I like the idea of the chickens having access to it. We will see how all that works out but for now I just have to keep chugging along and getting the rest of the holes dug and getting all the posts for the fence installed so that I can add all the corner bracing, pull the fencing wire taut and get it all stapled into place so that I can move onto building the gates and ultimately using the new fenced area for the dogs and chickens.
After doing all that jazz for most of the afternoon the wind began to pick up and the temperature began to drop so I spent some time at the new shelter site tidying the place up and putting all the tools away. I did pause with my one dog before leaving just long enough to give the site a good look over and yet again weigh all the factors involved to make sure that my overall layout and design for the place was not critically flawed in some way but after many moments I eventually had to acknowledge that things were 'right on track' and looking pretty damned good for the brief amount of time that they have been being worked on combined with the 'suddenness' of the entire move to this site and the rapid site selection upon my arrival here. It seems like each time that I do one of these homesteading area setups that I have a clearer vision of how everything 'fits' together (or does not fit together) and how to adapt my ideas to the existing terrain in such a way that nature does the bulk of my work for me which is pretty damned nice when it comes to runoff water management, animal impact and of course my own impact. All of which really is a delicate balance and always a 'work in progress' but overall I think that I have a rather sound layout/design for the various structures (that comprise the little homestead setups that I do) as well as things like the hand washing station, the compost mounds and the inevitable fire-pit.
With the drop in temperature I retreated back to base camp and I did it just in time because the wind picked up again and while I was walking back to the camp I heard and saw a bunch of branches falling out of trees. As a side note I also found several tall dead pine trees behind he base camp that might need to be felled before they can fall on the tents! Anyway, once back at the camp I cooked a big meal consisting of an entire onion, six store bought eggs, three eggs from my hens and a bunch of pasta and yup I ate it all except for one bowl of plain pasta which will be my lunch later today. After that I was in a straight up food comma and fell asleep well before four o'clock in the afternoon and did not wake fully again until two this morning. Since it was going to get to freezing temperatures (and I failed to find my electric blanket) I ran another extension cord to the living quarters tent and plugged in my oil recirculating radiant room heater and left it on to keep the room warm without it also being damp from the propane heater. It seemed to work well and after physically feeling the short extension cord several times to make sure that it was not getting warm I deemed the entire setup rather safe before falling asleep. Having been using just the propane heater I had noticed that on a few mornings while doing my writing that when the temperature dips just before dawn that the air in the room although warm was also damp and made for heavy breathing and a change from that was rather nice to say the least.
Well, I should get to wrapping this up so that I will have plenty of time to do the editing and posting before the sun begins to eek its way over the horizon and I have to get to working outdoors in the chilly weather. The wind is beginning to gust again though so who knows how the heck the morning will turn out because I already need to hike around all the roads and make sure that they are clear of fallen trees and branches after the fierce winds there have been here over the last few days. Also with all of this rain I need to give the place a good walk around and see where the erosion is occurring, where the water is pooling and begin wrapping my head around the overall surface water scenario with the site so that I can figure out how to manage it which is always a long and drawn out process but one that is well worth it to prevent water damage to infrastructure like roads and structures.
Alright, the day is already dragging on and I gotta get to waking up all the way and getting on with doing stuff. I hope that everyone is doing well and has a nice day/night or something like that.
The podcast for Apocalyptic Homesteading Day 13 can be listened to or downloaded from here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RYkYYCK5cl0njU0s31xYSsA8CBrQ3HdY/view?usp=sharing
She was so happy with all the special treatment!
The first fence post that I installed.
This is how close to plumb it was the very first time that I put the level on the first post!
The compacted red clay at the base of the first post.
Some of the things that made doing the fence layout much easier!
Thanks for reading!
Follow me on the Hive blockchain here:
https://peakd.com/@jacobpeacock
Please check out the Homesteading Community On The Hive Blockchain:
https://peakd.com/c/hive-114308/created
A playlist of my Jacob Goes Off Grid Videos can be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8CsWYxlqp36dEFkg5mnlzgY41bE761oK
Please consider becoming a patron on my Patreon page!!!
https://www.patreon.com/jacobpeacock
Contribute via Paypal:
https://PayPal.me/jacobpeacock
That Is All For Now!
This post was originally posted to the Hive Blockchain here:
https://peakd.com/homesteading/@jacobpeacock/apocalyptic-homesteading-day-13
