A Two O'clock Sleep Barrier, Filling Trenches, Cutting Kudzu, Body Limits, Site Layout, Coop Design & Mental Musings
I tried to sleep later than two o'clock this morning but managed to first wake up at a little after one before dozing back off and sleeping until three twenty-one. I actually awoke and dozed off again a bunch of times over that roughly two hour period but each time I would just snuggle a little closer to the dogs and drift back off to sleep thinking 'not yet' which seemed to work well enough even though I kept having this weird dream that I found simultaneously both fascinating and a bit disturbing but nonetheless I thought that it was important to see how the dream played out. My dreams of late have been quite intense which is probably the bi-product of all the recent upheaval in my life and my desire to wrap my head around both my previous scenario and this new scenario that I find myself in. Thankfully the dreams have not been all that stressful or anything but they have often left me wondering what the heck is really going on in them and hoping that they will slide back towards their usual surreal content.
I awoke on the eighth day feeling like my body had been pushed to its limits as far as working without a break goes so I decided to just work on filling in the trenches for a few hours and then taking the rest of the day off to rest and let my body recover a bit. I have been taking my two small girl dogs with me in the mornings when I work on filling in the trenches so that they can help socialize a young boy dog that lives here and although I usually do not bring water with me for them because we are only there for about an hour each morning, this time I decided to bring a jug of water and a bowl so that I could get in about three hours of work and not have to worry about the dogs growing thirsty. I have also been bringing those dogs along with me because the trenches are in a pine forest and there is a dense matting of pine needles on the ground (as well as fallen trees and tree branches) which all make for excellent rattlesnake habitat and the dogs are rather adept at noticing/finding snakes in an area.
The trench filling went rather smoothly and after filling the first main trench the rest of the way to the power pole I began working on the second trench that leads to a structure that I mentioned a few days ago. That particular trench was rather tedious to work on because there was a bunch of fallen tree branches in the way as well as a bunch of what looks like kudzu vines as well as another type of strangler vine whose name always eludes me. It was a bit of a mess but thankfully the serrated portion of my pocket knife's blade cut through the kudzu vine rather easily. With the other vines the shovel cuts them well enough but that damned kudzu is some fibrous stuff and requires more than hacking at it with a sharpened shovel-head to sever it! So far I have only seen the kudzu growing in that one area but knowing how invasive that stuff is it is probably growing in other portions of the property as well. I am thinking that once I finish filling in the trenches in that area that I will go back with some loppers, a pull-saw and my cane knife and hack all the vines back to their crowns if I can locate them. Given that the soil here makes for easy digging I may even try to dig up the actual kudzu roots and find a recipe for cooking them just because I have never eaten it before. Of course digging up the main roots will also halt their growth but I think that the effort is only worth it (when hand digging) if the edible root is small and not so big that using heavy machinery to remove it makes more sense.
By the time that I finished all the trench filling for the day I was really feeling the inflammation in my body and especially so in my hands because I have been constantly using gloves and the way they affect my grip on tools (or whatever) has left my hands both super inflamed and quite stiff. Fortunately the warm temperatures here have kept my hands from feeling arthritic or cramping so I am grateful that I just have some inflammation and stiffness in them as well as all my other joints. Wanting to do something to help my hands (and body in general) I made a really big lunch on my outdoor stove and then after consuming the majority of it I took one thousand milligrams of ibuprofen and went fast asleep in the cozy base camp tent. I wound up sleeping for much of the afternoon and awoke a few hours later with my body feeling noticeably less stiff and sore overall which was frigging nice.
With only a few hours of daylight left I got all the animals fed and then dug out from the storage tent everything that I would need to setup my on-demand water heater (outdoor shower) and that big black 'water feature' tub that I affectionately call my 'outdoor bathtub' which is pretty much all that I have used it for over the last six or seven years. Since there is water and electric already near the base camp it was pretty easy to get the shower setup and there was even a convenient tree to mount the propane water heater on and a little stub of a tree branch to drape the shower head over. While the tub was filling I wandered off and met up with the landowners and had one of them look at a sore spot on my back that I thought might be a spider bite but after closer inspection probably is not. By the time that I made it back to the tub it was full but the water had cooled a bit (because I did not turn the heat on the water heater up high enough) so I mostly took a hot shower (while standing knee deep in the tub) and just dunked myself a few times for good measure. Although I generally like to add a little bleach to my baths this time I just used water and scrubbed myself down vigorously with my incredibly calloused hands. I know that it is difficult for folks to fathom but the last thing that I want to do living in the woods is to smell like frigging soap and have my scent stand out (as the saying goes) 'like a sore thumb' in the wilderness environs that I often find myself in. Also just bathing with water (or diluted bleach water) makes for a lack of gray water to deal with which is always nice in my opinion.
I tried to stay up a little later into the evening so that I could mayhaps break this 'waking at two in the morning' thing but apparently I did not stay up quite late enough to do so. I have paced myself super well during the move and for the duration of my stay here but I am aware that I have a tendency to work every day for two weeks at a time (or longer) without realizing that I have not taken any days off along the way. I am actually okay with that sort of over-working myself as long as my morale stays high, I still have plenty of time to write each day and my body is not revolting against me with aches, pains, stiffness or cramps. As much as working like that is often a stress response on my part it is also part of how I subdued the chronic depression that plagued me for so long before I got put into a true survival situation nearly four years ago and just had to beat the depression or mayhaps perish along the way. The dynamics of all of that were not quite that simple but I think that faced with extreme adversity something in my mind snapped (in a good way) and I was like 'fuck this depression shit I want to fucking live damn it' and the only way that I could make my living scenario better was by putting in long hours and really 'doing the work' both internally and externally. Honestly I find being a workaholic way more productive (and fulfilling) than just being depressed all the damned time and although I generally work hard in the warmer months so that I can take the colder months off... I also am aware that with my relationship to work there is a heck of a lot more going on than just that.
On a different note, bouncing from one scenario to the next for all these years sure has left me rather flexible with setting things up and being able to work with all sorts of various obstacles along the way whether that be wildlife, water runoff, terrain, resource availability or what the heck ever. The one solace that I have found along the way is in my determination that no matter what I will undoubtedly 'rise to the occasion' and do whatever it takes to get my little homesteading area setup and get myself into a cozy dry shelter before too much time elapses. Currently I have that shelter in the awesome base camp that was setup for me here when I arrived but I know better than to get too damn cozy in it and 'drag my feet' with constructing an area/shelter for myself. Even this new shelter site will be a temporary one but it will undoubtedly get me through the winter and provide a hell of a convenient 'base camp' for working on the more permanent secluded site deeper in the forest. Basically I would do well not to get too damn settled into either my current living scenario nor the next one and I have been thinking that a good way to do that is to just stay busy and keep my eye on the long-term goals not just for my own area but for the entire property. One thing that is pretty cool is that I do not have any real time-frame restrictions for any of the goals and can work on the things that need the most attention first, do them well and move on to the next thing without a bunch of stress, anxiety or hurry. In other words I feel like everything will happen 'in good time' and do not feel some crazy pressure along the way aside from the pressure that I put on myself each day to be as productive as possible.
For the most part I think that I have my mind in a good place for doing what I am doing and my morale, mental well-being, sense of peace, attitude and physical fitness/health are at an all time high which is all kind of spooky for me to start with but I have been just embracing it along the way instead of 'over-thinking it all out of existence' so to speak. The 'mental game' is the most challenging aspect of this sort of lifestyle and honestly if all the previous mentioned items are not a result of something inside me then they are just a 'house of cards' waiting for the first breeze that blows to knock them all over and make a frigging mess. In more precise terms: deriving happiness from external stimuli or material possessions is to me a dead end road and true contentment and happiness is almost always an internal choice away so I should choose wisely. I guess that at this point I can look back to January 13th of 2017 and the experiment that I began with documenting my life and finally say that in regards to my mental well-being the experiment was anything but a failure and somehow it has propelled me to where I am now and my strongest suggestion for folks wanting to dive into this sort of lifestyle is that they should throw themselves into the fray of things with minimal gear, resources and infrastructure (even for a brief period of time) just to make 'learning the ropes' (the basics) of things much simpler. There is of course a wealth of knowledge in the world to aid folks in their journey but absolutely nothing teaches as well as direct immersive experience and practical application of said knowledge. My own journey has been fraught with failures and yet here I am still learning, still growing and still plugging along and enjoying the experiences (whether successes or failures) along the way in such a way that my life actually feels fulfilling each day.
All that jazz aside. I took some time last night to sketch out the new shelter site area and how I am going to do the layout of the various structures and features and I really like how the terrain in that area lends to the way that I like to set things up. I also had the realization that I can setup my chicken coop in such a way that all their droppings will fall through a wire mesh floor and be collected in a small depression in the land where I can easily scoop it up and add it to a compost mound just for it. What I am also thinking is that I can build the coop in such a way that I can easily wash it out with a water hose to keep it all clean and funnel that water into the compost mound to help promote worm growth by keeping it damp. I am pretty damn excited about not having to scoop poop out of the next chicken coop that I build and being able to maximize the chicken waste by growing worms and making new soil. Since I have only recently been including chickens in my life I am still learning a lot about them but I think that at this point I really understand what sort of things make having them much easier and how to best house them when they are not roaming around during the day eating bugs and vegetation. Just yesterday I also learned that there are ducks available in the area and I gotta say that I am now trying to figure out how to fit having some of them into my setup as well because I just love duck eggs!
Anyway, I should get to wrapping this up, get everything edited and figure out if I am going to really take the entire day off or not just to give myself a wee break before I dive into another long stretch of physical activity. Perhaps I need to set a limit for myself and every nine days just take the day (and night) off from everything that is physically demanding and simply breathe for a minute and plan for what the heck I will be doing over the next nine days ahead. Well, to crib the words of one of my favorite authors: May you have long days and pleasant nights.
Where I am filling in the trenches I am also creating awesome paths!
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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-8
