A Rainy Day, Lots Of Rest, Rattlers Or Eastern Black Kingsnakes & Musings On The New Shelter Site
I awoke a little after three thirty this morning and it has taken me until almost four to begin writing this. I do not know why I am getting off to a slow start to things this morning because all that I have really done aside from letting the dogs out and brewing some espresso is to more or less stare blankly at the computer monitor as my mind drifted and I tried to recall everything that I could about the dreams that I was having before waking. As far as the dreams go they were rather surreal per usual and this time they seemed to be centered around a train that I owned in the dream getting stolen by some ne'er-do-well train hoppers. It was a bit humorous even in the dream that the train had been stolen because after all it was on a set of lone railroad tracks that only went so far in length both north and south. Lets just say that the folks who stole the train were not all that bright and I was more annoyed with having to retrieve the train than with them stealing it and I clearly remember thinking in the dream something along the lines of: stupid is as stupid does.
Anyway, the day started off very rainy and with the wind gusting on and off every few minutes I did not feel all that inclined to get my work clothes on and begin working outdoors so I just did a bunch of writing and then played my favorite video game for a bit before dozing off for a nap and getting more rest. That actually sums up how most of my day went because all I did was nap, eat and do short little periods of gaming in between doing the other two things. The weather actually got rather nice by the afternoon and although it remained quite overcast it was also warm outside but not quite as warm as it was the day before. By around two in the afternoon (after waking from one of my numerous naps) I finally admitted to myself that I probably just needed to take a day off and let my body recover a bit from all my recent activities and the resulting aches and pains thereof.
Even though I have slowed down and been slowed down by the inclement weather I have still been engaged in a lot of physically demanding activities over the previous many days now since my arrival here and of course I have not taken nearly as many breaks along the way as I should have. It is nice to know that I can still rely on maintaining a single minded focus to get a dog yard built and then a cabin built shortly thereafter so that I can get moved out of 'camping mode' and thus improve my quality of life in such a way that I can then focus solely on the larger project of the property itself and the goals for it. It would actually be all too easy to grow comfortable in the awesome base camp setup that I am currently in so perhaps some of that 'pushing myself' and thus remaining physically uncomfortable (and/or worn out) is my way of ensuring that I do not 'settle in' and basically maintaining just enough 'discomfort' along the way for good measure to ensure that outcome. I am also pushing myself out of necessity because hell it is winter after all and unless I want to spend the entirety of it (and then a rainy springtime) in a tent then I have to continue to 'buckle down' and continue putting in as much time at the new site as possible regardless of all the aches and pains along the way.
One thing that does not so much help along the way is having to hike over to the new site from the base camp so that I can work on things and often the process involves leaving the cozy comfort of the tent (and recently since I have been kenneling them... the dogs) and make the trek to the site with everything that I will need for the day's activities so that I do not wind up having to hike back and forth a bunch of times getting the stuff (usually tools or fasteners) that I need and more or less just wasting time and burning off calories that I need to be using elsewhere. For the most part I have gotten it down to where I have all the stuff that I need already staged at the site each day and all I wind up needing to bring with me is some water to drink, chapstick, some snacks, my work gloves, safety glasses, pocket knife, a bandanna and a lighter in case I decide on a fire. I also bring with me a phone that I can keep in my pocket while I work to take pictures with and a phone for communications purposes that I can leave on either the table or one of the shelves that I have built at the site. The reason that I do not carry the second phone on me while I work is that I do not want to accidentally damage it and in an emergency I can always use the phone that I use as a camera to call out to emergency services if the need arises because even phones without a service provider can call the emergency services number as long as they can connect to a tower.
As far as all that stuff goes there is one thing that I have not been taking with me to the new site and that is a first aid kit which is something that I will probably place there once I have somewhere dry to store it. Once things begin to warm up I should probably start keeping a stash of children's liquid benadryl and a snake bite kit at the new site not so much for me but for the dogs. Given that I just went and created an area in the woods there are more than likely rattlesnakes brumating underground in close proximity to it and there are even a few holes inside the dog yard that look quite accommodating for such activity. Do not worry I have plans for dealing with those holes and inspecting that cavity in the ground that I accidentally found with the rock-bar while digging that fence post. My best option for keeping the rattlesnakes at bay in the long run (given how much habitat and readily available food supply of squirrels there are here) is going to be in getting and introducing at least one large Eastern Black King snake and making sure that it sticks around the immediate area which I could probably do with some of the chickens' eggs and creating somewhere for the snake to inhabit like a small greenhouse or even better a small woodshed. Of course one snake alone would not address things with the rattlers on the rest of the site so it would probably be prudent to introduce a dozen or so of them of various sizes and of both sexes and let nature run its course from there. As a side note those black snakes sure will help keep the rodent population in check also which is always a nice bonus to having them around.
On a different note. I have been thinking a lot about how to build the new chicken coop and whether or not I should attempt to use some of those oak poles that I created during the site clearing process to build it with. The major obstacles to utilizing that material is that de-barking it would be a bear (especially since it was cut so late in the year) and with the termites being as they are around here the coop would only last a handful of years at best no matter how well-built that I made it. So given those obstacles I have been thinking to perhaps use some fat lighter posts where the coop contacts the ground and de-barking the poles with a circular saw (hence roughly milling them) and then fire treating them to keep the termites (and other such pests) away from them. The downside to all of that is although I will have a cool looking long lasting chicken coop... it would all be quite labor intensive and require a heck of a lot of firewood and also fire tending to boot! The one thing that makes me want to do the coop project (one way or another) is that before I put the birds in it I can use it to stage my tools in while I build the cabin and have a place to get out of the rain while I am working in the area. I also keep fantasizing about perhaps living in the coop once the dog yard is finished but I think that putting that much effort into it (to make it livable) would be better spent on building the actual cabin instead.
Like I have said many times before: if I have to I could camp indefinitely but after the first few weeks of it I am absolutely over it and want something better for myself. What happens for me is that I begin eyeing all the materials at my disposal (and ones that I could easily acquire) and begin mentally trying to assemble them in various combinations until I land on something that I could feasibly build and would also be inhabitable. Now what is 'habitable' by my standards is of course wholly subjective but I have learned that if at all possible to make at least the inside of a shelter out of completely new materials and have a solid barrier between it and all the recycled and re-used oddball materials that are utilized in the construction because if not (minus lots of paint and caulk) mold and dust will always be an issue and living in the woods already has plenty of both to start with so it is best to just do what I can along the way in preventative measures. In other words I can always hack together some shelter and just begin inhabiting it but in doing so I have to avoid lowering my standard for living conditions and ensure that it is 'up to snuff' and actually inhabitable in a 'more than camping' kind of way because otherwise a tent will do just fine.
Where I am at with it all is that if I build anything whether it is a chicken coop, a shed, a woodshed, a pole barn or whatever I am going to be looking at it as something to move into once the fencing gets installed on the new dog yard. That all of course depends on whether I build a small building before the fencing gets done and it seems like if I work on anything else besides the fence at this point that I am deviating from the primary mission at hand. So priorities really come into play here and I have to work on the fence as much as possible and any side projects along the way really should take a back seat but damn I sure do want to at the very least deviate a little and get a chicken coop started just to be building something with all that material that I recently harvested and is currently air drying. No matter what I wind up doing over the coming weeks I think that I just want to wrap up the fence project and be onto the cabin building phase of things before the end of the month. Ideally I would wrap up both projects at the same time and get moved in but realistically the fence will get finished first and I will then look at setting up a tent in the area and moving into it while I work on the cabin project. The main thing in it all is the dogs need a place that they can be secured in and once that is accomplished I can make the necessary steps to relocate us all into the fenced area.
Well, the morning is dragging on here and I better get to working on getting all this edited and posted. I hope that everyone is doing well and has a nice day/night.
Eggs keep appearing in that hidden nest!
The layer of the eggs in the hidden nest!
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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-27
