The Gaming Rabbit Warren, Staging Fencing Wire, A Pleasant Chat & Thoughts On Firewood Storage

  I slept in until nine o'clock this morning which makes for two days in a row of sleeping in late and although I should feel quite rested... I am feeling only slightly rested and a bit 'rough around the edges' after gaming late into the evening but I guess that there are worse things in the world that I could spend my time doing. I almost convinced myself to go back to gaming this morning instead of doing my usual writing but the idea of doing it (the writing) late in the day is not all that appealing to say the least and my desire to stick to my routines is apparently stronger than either the inclination to game or to procrastinate. As much as I want to dive into all the psychology behind my spending some time gaming each year (especially during the early winter) is not something that I want to delve into here because I have extensively detailed it in the past and honestly I am feeling a bit slow witted this morning to begin venturing down into that particular rabbit warren. So suffice it to say that for the brief time I game each year I not only have some real enjoyment and social interaction but I also quite enjoy the introspection time that it gives me where I can sort of take my eye off the proverbial ball of my life in general and notice things that I would not notice otherwise. I guess that what I am saying there is that I tend to slip off into the gaming world much like other folks go on sabbatical or vacation and I think that the positive impact of doing so outweighs all the alterations to my sleep cycle and the slight skewing of my usual routines.

  The day was not all that productive of one in the sense of 'getting stuff done' because by the time that I got over to start working at the new shelter site (by almost two in the afternoon) the landowners had shown up and after one of them and me got the heavy rolls of fencing (for the new dog yard) staged where they can be rolled out easily along the sections of fence for installation... afterwards we spent a bunch of time talking about all kinds of stuff and going over some of the current factors of the scenario and some of the long-term ideas/goals for the place. All of which is always time well spent for me so no complaints there or anything but by the time we were winding things down the sun had already dipped to a point where the new shelter site would be fully shaded and like I have said before once the sun gets to a certain point on the horizon the area gets shaded and quite chilly of late which is part of why I have been trying to wrap up my days working over there an hour or so before dark each day.

  I am kind of looking forward to seeing what the site is like during the warmer months and hopefully if my thinking and observations are correct the area (being shaded) will be quite cool in the late afternoon when the temperatures and humidity are high. Like I have said before I do not think that heating the shelter in the winter will be nearly as problematic as cooling it in the summer because I am much further south than I have lived in roughly two decades and so far (if this winter is any indication) the winters here seem quite mild to say the least. It is still a bit too early in the winter for me to get too cozy with that notion (that the winters are extremely mild) but here I am almost a month into living in a tent during the winter and I have been staying quite warm and cozy with just the aid of a recirculating oil heater and a small small propane heater. The irony of being in such a mild climate and having my heating expense rise (via both volume of propane required and the usage of electricity) is not lost on me but I am sure that it will be a 'one off' situation and things will be much different once I am living in a well insulated building instead of a tent.

  My morale is still holding up but I reached a point the other day where I started noticing myself getting fed up with the little annoyances of camping and more especially all my stuff being packed away and me only having the vaguest idea of where stuff is or even worse realizing/remembering where something is and it being under, behind (or both) a bunch of other stuff which results in me having to do 'the stuff shuffle' to get to it which honestly at this point I have been avoiding doing unless I absolutely have to just because it burns off too many calories and can really eat up my time. Aside from all that jazz and those 'compounding annoyances' that I have mentioned a few times of late my body has gotten one heck of a workout over the last many weeks and the perpetual stiffness and soreness sure can influence my attitude if I fail to remind myself to recognize the physical discomfort for what it is which always comes down to me telling myself something along the lines of 'Hey man this is what you signed up for by choosing to live this lifestyle' and my other go to self-advice of 'This is just the beginning of things and the beginning is always the most difficult so just keep going because it will be well worth it' which seems to work well enough for my purposes and keeps me trudging along.

  The real key to me dealing with my own morale/attitude is not so much my ability to bullshit myself but my ability to cling to my fortitude, rely on my resilience and incorporate the coping skills that I know to do from past experiences to sort of guide my way as I treat each day as a new day and above all else remain flexible and adaptive (mentally, physically and emotionally) to the changes that I encounter along the way which of course (like the old saying goes) is easier said than done.

  On a different note. Late in the day (once I was done chatting with the landowners) I went to the new shelter site and picked through that firewood pile that I made a few weeks ago and staged a bunch of it at the entrance to the shelter site so that I can pick it up later with the cart and haul it to the main fire area so that the folks here could have a fire with it. They generally get a bunch of well seasoned firewood from a local source delivered to the site but the deliveries are backed up a few weeks so I volunteered to stock the main fire area with wood from the stack of freshly cut (two weeks ago) cherry and oak as well as with some of the cured cherry and fat lighter that I had gathered while clearing the new site.

  While I was staging the firewood I had the realization that I should probably look into building a small lean-to structure in a central area here so that when folks are camping (or when there is a fire in the main area) there is always firewood available to do so with. It would also make for a good location for me to deposit all the fat lighter that I have been collecting as well as a good place to put all the firewood that will be created as I clean up the deadfall from around the site. I am honestly a bit dumbfounded that I had not thought of that earlier nor even considered the need for a good 'wood lot' here for processing firewood down from logs and branches. As a side note when I have those kinds of realizations I just do my best to add it to my 'site assessment' list so that I do not lose sight of it later.

  Well, I am going to get to wrapping this up because 'daylight is burning' and it is starting to warm up outside and I have to see what all that I can accomplish with the time that I have available. I hope that everyone is doing well and has a nice day/night.

I found some delicious cactus fruit growing here!

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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-24