No Rest For The Technology Minded, Kenneled Dogs, Digging Fence Post Holes, Corner Braces & Beware Of Side Quests
I am getting off to a slow start this morning and although I awoke at a little after five... it is now almost six and I have just now begun writing. It was a bit of a late night for me because I at first started tinkering with why the sound software on my gaming system after it got broke by a routine upgrade and later still after fixing all of that I wound up doing a bunch of reading online about a few cryptocurrencies that I am not all that familiar with but seem to have a pretty 'low bar' for entry level mining. The whole reason that I started looking into the crypto stuff was because I had earlier been chatting with someone about setting up that solar power rig here for mining, keeping the mining machines at a cool temperature and what coins would be profitable to mine. Once my gears start turning about that kind of stuff it is often difficult to get them to stop turning but eventually I grew so weary and fatigued that I fell fast asleep regardless of how occupied my mind had become with all that technology jazz.
Anyway, with the weather being so cold it took me a while to get motivated enough to bundle up and get outdoors and I basically waited until the sun was high enough in the sky that the new shelter area was bathed in sunlight before I ventured out and began working at the new site. Since I was able to squeeze that second dog crate into the living quarters tent I kenneled two dogs in each one of the crates and decided to leave them in the warmth of the tent instead of bringing them with me to the new shelter site because they would have just been miserable in the PVC dog yard there due to how cold it was outside. Since the crates are large ones they accommodate the dogs rather well and although they all gave me a 'pouty' look about being kenneled they all cooperated and did not seem to mind it at all. Honestly it was kind of nice not having to worry about the dogs all day and finally have them secured in such a way that I did not have a bunch of anxiety about them.
Once I got to the new shelter site I removed the tarps covering the bar (workbench), got some music started playing, gathered all the tools that I would need, began digging more fence post holes and installing fence posts for the new dog yard fence in the area. For the most part the digging was about what I expected it to be and yup I once again ran into that densely packed clay at about half a meter down that is more akin to digging through concrete than digging through dirt. I must be getting the hang of it because with the use of the chisel head on my rock-bar I was able to penetrate the dense clay rather well even if it was painstakingly slow to do so!
I once again began working at that post in the lowest corner of the new shelter site and worked my way uphill from there (along that same portion of the fence-line) installing all the posts and even adding in the horizontal braces for the corners which I attached with some six inch landscape screws. Since the vertical corner posts are rather thick I wound up also toe-nailing the braces in place. I put the toe-nailed screws on the bottom side of the braces so that water and/or dirt (and leaf matter) cannot collect at the point that they pierce the wood and thus avoid rot to potentially be caused over time. Since all the posts vary in size (and some are curvy and some are curvy and tapered) getting everything plumbed up was a bit tricky but with the use of a two meter level and my string line guide the process was not all that difficult. I avoided touching the top side of each post to the string line itself and held them off of it by just a wee bit so that my line would stay straight and I would not accidentally get it 'drifting' by each new post pressing it outward away from where it should be. I had encountered that sort of 'drifting' before while building fences and over long runs those marginal errors can really add up by the time that I get to the final post of a fence's section.
Installing the horizontal corner braces was a bit tricky because not only do the posts (the same posts that I am using for the vertical fence posts) that I am using for them weigh a lot, they are also round and awkward as fuck to try to hold in place and get screwed off. I may wind up using a ratchet strap on the other corners to pull the two vertical post together to hold the horizontal one in place while I fasten it but for the day's project I just used two heavy duty angle brackets that I temporarily attached to the vertical posts and rested the horizontal brace on them while I got the level for the brace checked and ultimately fastened them into place with those six inch landscape screws. It assuredly was not the best method for doing the braces but it worked okay to get the job done and by the end of the day I got a total of eight posts installed and three corner braces installed. Building a fence on the sloped terrain has been interesting to say the least (and looks visually wonky because of all the various angles creating optical illusions) but I think that once the wire fencing material is installed that it will look fine and more importantly function as intended.
Since the fencing itself will be two meters tall I set the horizontal braces at just under two meters which should help mitigate the changes in terrain and more importantly not be a visual blocker because if I set the braces at two meters that would put them at just about 'eye level with my field of vision and honestly I would rather look out at nature every day instead of at the fence or its corner bracing! The way that the post installation has gone has also left a bit more than six feet of each post out of the ground so I have been thinking that perhaps once all the fencing itself is installed that I can utilize the tops of the post to string heavy gauge bare wire along them for those grape vines that I mentioned a few days ago. As much as the grape vines would also block the view that particular 'visual blockage' would only be during the growing season and in my opinion grape vines are rather pretty to look at especially when they have grapes on them!
Part way through the afternoon the sun went behind the trees and the new site got plunged into shadow and hence a good bit chilly and since the winds had died down (and having a fire was safe again) I decided to make a small fire that I could warm myself by. All of which sort of amounted to creating a 'side quest' for myself of tending the fire and hauling stuff to it to burn and at one point I was like 'whoa these damned side quests sure can get time consuming' because I realized that I was spending about as much time tending to the fire as I was digging holes and installing fence posts. I briefly considered making the fire really big just so that I would not have to tend it so frequently but then decided against that because it would require too much effort at the very end of the day to get it all extinguished and the last thing that I need to be doing currently is making more work for myself than what I already have which is enough to keep me busy for weeks on end already!
With all the stuff I do work-wise it is tricky to keep my morale high, enough calories in me to do the work and keep plugging away at as much as I can each day at an even pace but living in a tent is an excellent motivator because each day I know that I have 'given it my all' to make it another step closer to living in an actual insulated shelter again. I also know that eventually the 'novelty' of 'roughing it' will begin to fade and when it does it will be nice to look at the new shelter site and tell myself that I can move into it 'soon' and that I have done everything that I can humanly do along the way to make that a reality as rapidly as possible. In other words I remind myself to be patient, that everything is a process and that eventually I will be living in a much more comfortable scenario than a tent. Do not get me wrong though because this particular 'roughing it' scenario is rather damned swank and although I am in a tent it has been staying very warm inside of it (with the aid of the heaters) and I have a ridiculous amount of conveniences that I have not had over the last many years which makes doing all the stuff at the new site rather straightforward because my day to day life is not a fucking struggle!
Well, I better get to wrapping this up and hopefully by the time that I get all the editing and posting done I can make it over to the new shelter site just as some direct sunlight floods the area and things start to warm up a bit. I hope that everyone is doing well and has a nice day/night and I will undoubtedly do the same.
The first corner brace that I installed!
All the posts for that section of fence are now in place!
I finally found out who is laying eggs in the hidden nest!
Thanks for reading!
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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-15
