A Rainy Day, Political Spam & A Janky Fence Is Better Than No Fence
It was quite the rainy morning but thankfully the rain slacked up a bit just long enough for me to brew some espresso on the outdoor stove before it began pouring down again. Since a big tropical storm was making its way through the area I thought that there might be high winds and thunderstorms but there was merely some minor wind gusts accompanied by dark overcast skies and plenty of the previously mentioned rain. Per usual the rain brought with it some warmer temperatures as well as a bunch of humidity but overall it was not all that bad of a storm and the majority of it had blown over by the afternoon and the sun actually came out and began the slow process of drying everything up.
I once again spent the early part of the day cooped up in the shelter with the dogs waiting for the rain to stop and although I was not all that productive with my time aside from doing my usual daily writing and reading stuff online which was mainly just the news or what passes as news these days. Election years always seem to be such a shit show when it comes to the news but this year has taken that 'show' to new heights of posturing, preening and useless predictions and I can barely stomach reading (let alone watching) most of it without my mental firewall going into overdrive trying to filter out all the horseshit propaganda. The news is bad enough but these shitheel politicians seem to have no problem with sending unsolicited text messages and making equally unsolicited phone calls which is so fucking invasive that I just report them as spam and add the numbers to my messaging block list. Considering that all the messages address me by various names (none of them my own) I have to wonder just how much of that 'political advertising' truly is spam in its purest form!
Anyway, once the sun came out and it looked like it was going to stop raining for a while I checked the weather and the forecast said that there was more rain on the way and although at first I believed it... I eventually went outside and looked at the sky and there was absolutely no sign that it was going to rain anytime soon! So, I got my usual daily chores done, let the chickens out and began this sort of familiar routine that I have gotten into of late where I roam around the shelter area looking at everything and wondering how the hell I can make my setup better with the limited materials at my disposal.
The way that I had a section of my dog yard fence setup has been nagging at me to be changed almost since the day that I first got that section of fence installed and I dunno how else to say it but the way that it was installed often made me feel like the dog yard was cramped (for me not the dogs) and that I could never truly 'relax' in it because of how confining it felt. I probably could have gone on indefinitely without moving the fence but when I was looking for a good spot for my solar panel I noticed that the location that I wanted to use (probably the only good location for the solar panel) was being shaded by the dog yard fence and although I cannot change where the sun shines... I can damn sure change where a fence is located!
It was rather late in the afternoon when I began to move the section of fence and I almost did not begin the process because I only had a few hours of daylight left by then but I had finally reached a point where I was totally fed up with the arrangement and was going to do something about it and if I had to scrap together more fencing from chicken wire then so be it. I wound up repositioning the existing fence and fabricating about an eight meter section of fence out of PVC pipe and several pieces of chicken wire. Of course I had to lash the chicken wire together because the rolls of it I have are only one meter tall and the existing fence is nearly two meters tall and since I was racing against the setting sun I did it all as fast as possible and used some aluminum wire to tie everything together and make it secure enough to contain the dogs and chickens.
The whole section of fence that I built is sort of janky (and kind of ugly up close) but it blends in rather well with the rest of the fence when viewed from afar. Once I can afford to do so I think that I will get a large bag of zip-ties and anchor all the chicken wire more firmly in place because using the wire created a lot of little sharp snags. The 'snags' are all on the outside of the fence where they will not affect the dogs but knowing how clumsy that I myself can be I know that I will undoubtedly get plenty of my clothes hung on them especially since that section of fence borders one of the trails to the greenhouse.
By the time I got all that jazz with the fence finished it was nearly dark and I was able to let the dogs out of the shelter where I had them put up while working on the fence. Upon letting the dogs out I walked over to the now expanded section of dog yard with them and whoa did they seem to love it and began running around all over the place sniffing at everything. I immediately noticed just how much better the dog yard felt and the lack of it feeling like it was too damn confining for me and even considered having a fire just to relax in it and enjoy it some but decided against it because by then it was looking like rain again and I still had to put up all the tools, fill my water jugs for the day and feed all the animals. The only thing that I noticed that I may have to further change is to move my bat house because late in the day the shadow cast by it lands exactly where I am thinking of installing that big solar panel but that should not be all that difficult of a process.
Well, I am just going to wrap this up and call it good enough so that I can get the heck on with my day and see what emerges from it. I hope that everyone is doing well and has a nice day/night.
The janky section of fence that I fabricated!
Thanks for reading!
More about me: I have been doing property caretaking (land stewardship) for many years (decades) and live a rather simple life with my dogs doing what most folks would consider to be an 'alternative minimalist lifestyle' but what I often just think of as a low-impact lifestyle where I get to homestead and spend the majority of my time alone with my dogs in the woods doing projects in the warmer months and taking some downtime during the colder months.
A little over three years ago I began sharing the adventures (misadventures) of my life via writing, videos, pictures and the occasional podcasts and although my intention was to simply share my life with some friends it undoubtedly grew into much more than that over the years and now I find myself doing what equates to a full-time job just 'sharing my life' which is not even all that glamorous or anything but hey folks seem to enjoy it so I just keep doing it!
The way that the Fantastica Chronicles came about is that I was living at another place when I started chronicling and sharing my days but eventually I wound up moving to a new place. The new place is a homestead named 'Fantastica' so I started with 'Day 1' upon my arrival here and just kept documenting my days much like I had done for the previous nine hundred and fifty-seven days at the last place that I lived.
I have mostly done that 'documenting' at Fantastica exclusively with words (and pictures) opting not to do the videos because as I learned at the last place, sharing videos over an intermittent and slow internet connection is horribly time consuming and what I often think of as an 'ulcer inducing' experience. All that said, I opted for simplicity with the documentation and have no real regrets for doing so.
The way that I look at it is that I give it all my best each day and while some stuff I write is better than others I think that for the most part I do a pretty good job at doing what I am doing which is simply 'sharing my life' as candidly as I possibly can and whatever folks get (or do not get) from it there is always the satisfaction of me doing what I set out to do... which is to simply share my life.
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That Is All For Now!
This post was originally posted to the Hive Blockchain here:
https://peakd.com/homesteading/@jacobpeacock/the-fantastica-chronicles-day-425
