Early Morning Thoughts, Brush Clearing For The Shop, Installing Fencing The Tricky Way & It Will Be A Rainy New Years
It is a little after three in the morning and although I could probably fall back asleep I made some coffee instead and fired up the old text editor in the hopes of getting all the writing done long before the sun comes up. Apparently today will be the last day of the week that the weather will be nice before the storms roll in and the rain begins. The only real bright side to the change of weather is that for a few days it is going to become super warm and stay that way throughout the evening hours which will be nice even though I will probably be cooped up in the tent and out of the rain. In other words there will not be much of a celebration for the arrival of the new year which means I most likely will not have an outdoor fire nor any loud music to drown out all the inevitable fireworks, gunshots and explosions. I have considered just setting up the music at the base camp but honestly I do not have enough room to accommodate it indoors at the base camp unless I shuffle a bunch of stuff around between now and then (and manage to have time to work on the dog yard project as well) which basically means that I would have to do everything today and I am unsure if I could manage squeezing all that work into a single day.
Anyway, I made an early start on the day by heading over to the new shelter site much earlier than I have been getting over there and given how nice the weather was I did not even have to bundle up in a bunch of layers of clothes to do so. Once I got over there I got the dogs situated in the temporary PVC dog yard and then did all the usual stuff that I do first thing upon arriving there like un-tarping the music rig, pulling out the tools and going over in my mind all the steps involved in what I would be working on for the day. Since the tasks for the day would involve installing the rest of the fencing on the western fence line I dismantled the 'tripod' that I had pulled the other section of the western fence line's fencing taut from, finished digging the trench for that section and moved a bunch of stuff out of the way so that I could 'walk' the roll of fencing between all the trees and the fence posts.
As far as that last bit goes there was not a place to roll out the fencing on the ground at along that section so that I could cut it to size before standing it up, pulling it taut and securing it in place. Honestly, getting that section of fencing in place was a real bear and at first I moved the roll of fencing to the corner and was planning to start 'walking' it from there but once I got it over there I realized that in order to have the smooth part of the woven wire fencing facing inwards I would either have to put the red wire at the top (unlike how I had done the rest of the fence) or I would have to carry the roll back to the gate and start 'walking' it from there. After a very brief amount of contemplation I opted for the latter even though it would make for a lot more work because I know how my mind works and that one section having its red wire at the top would nag at me forever or at least every time that I looked at it.
So, I moved the roll to the gate, attached the stretcher boards to it, positioned the stretcher boards (and sandwiched wire fencing) between the two gate posts, stood the entire apparatus up and then secured the stretcher boards to both the posts with a length of rope so that it would not fall over while I tediously walked the roll of fencing between all the trees and the gate posts. If it sounds like a complete clusterfuck it damn sure was and at one point I just had to walk away from the entire affair because I got so aggravated with the middle of the fencing roll telescoping out and getting stuck in the trench which effectively stopped me from 'walking' the roll along the fence line each time that it happened. Of course during the entire process I was trying not to malform the fencing itself before I could get it pulled taut and attached to the posts which was no easy feat and in a few spots the fencing got a bit bent up but overall I was successful at it.
To accommodate pulling the fencing taut I had to dig a trench between the two gate posts so that I could pull the fencing evenly inside the trench and not have the very end of it (where the stretcher boards attach) dig into the ground and thus interfere with the bottom of the fencing resting at the very bottom of the trench. As a side note it made the ground between the gate posts quite the mess but since there is a cluster of three tree stumps that I have to remove from there anyway I guess that the ground there was going to get disturbed anyway. Once all that jazz was done I built another of those 'tripods' by utilizing a small tree stump and one of the fence posts on the section of fencing that I installed the day before and got the steel cable and come-along (hand winch) attached and was finally ready to begin the slow process of pulling the fencing taut, nailing it in place, stripping the horizontal wires and wrapping them around the gate post. As much as it all sounds like it was a rather straight forward affair it was not and I wound up having to use a ratchet strap to pull the bottom of the fencing taut because for some reason the come-along (where I had it positioned at the center of the stretcher boards) just was not doing the trick. I have no frigging idea why that was the case but I think that it was perhaps due to positioning the steel cable (that I hooked the come-along to) too low on the 'tripod' for it to pull the fencing evenly.
Anyway, the day was anything but easy and by late in the afternoon I was pretty wiped out both physically and mentally so I wrapped everything up at the new shelter site about two hours before dark, made some espresso and stayed awake long enough to help unload the materials for building the gates as well as a second one of those big storage tents. I failed to mention it but first thing in the morning I did a bunch of brush clearing at a flat area just above the new shelter site (beside the access road) so that the tent could be setup there. I am unsure if I mentioned it in the past but I have been waiting on getting that tent for some time now and it took the landowners several weeks to find one in stock and they wound up driving to an adjacent state to get one because the local store did not have one in stock and after weeks of saying they would have one 'soon' the folks opted for a different solution than waiting! Which by the way I am entirely grateful for because once I get the tent setup I will have a nice dry area to store building materials, tools and probably my music rig inside of because I am really fed up with having to un-tarp and re-tarp it all each time that I work in the area. Basically the tent will act as a temporary shop space as I finish off the fencing project and begin working on constructing the new shelter.
Overall, things here are moving right along and gods damn it being in a situation where I actually have a decent temporary living scenario while I build things, have access to the materials that I need to do the projects and being compensated for work that I do at the property (aside from my own projects of course) is fucking epic not to mention that there are zero shitheel people to deal with along the way! Of course I am still working off the debt that I incurred when I moved here so I have yet to reach the point where my financial scenario has truly changed but each week I am getting closer and closer to clearing out the debt so that I can start having an influx of finances which will be an absolute game changer especially considering that I have been barely eeking out a living via writing and the occasional donation. For the first time in many years I feel like my contributions to a property are being met with real appreciation and even gratitude without any mealy-mouthed horseshit merely 'paying lip service' to those things. I cannot express the difference all of that makes for me enough but suffice it to say that my optimism is fully intact and I keep finding myself smiling at odd moments and wondering if I can adequately deal with having a 'good life' once I get the new shelter built and get moved into the new area.
Well, it is now a few hours before sunrise and I am planning on beginning the 'working outdoors' portion of my day super early this morning so I better wrap this up and do all the ulcer inducing editing/posting so that I can make the most of the day and not waste any of the last fair weather day of the year dicking around on the computer. I hope that everyone is doing well and has a nice day/night and I will more than likely do the same.
The remaining section of the western fence line fencing is all installed!
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-42
