Good times are coming

Today, I bought 10 bags of top soil and stacked them on the side of my porch. My wife and I have been planning on a little gardening project in the front yard and today she got some good news, so I’m more hopeful that the project will be a lot of fun. I mean I already had fun today getting the bags of dirt. I don’t know if we’ll need this much dirt, but I have frequently run out of landscaping material half way through projects. I know I’ll use up any dirt eventually and it’s dirt cheap. HA! The farm humor is gonna be off the chain. I watched a video of a guy who did some logging humor and I’m so going to steal his joke some day. I’ll be the coolest guy in the sawmill. I thought about how I would go about building a second story building today. I need to read this house building book, it will probably teach me literally everything. There’s more a matter of in my head preparing vs. getting out and doing. I’ve got myself under some control, but everyday is a mystery for now. I’m going to revisit the site and look for a For Sale sign tomorrow. Then maybe April 2nd I’ll contact a realtor to view it. There are actually 3 listings on the same lot. I’ve been looking at the cheapest which is still six acres, but the listing shows a pond and a barn. I gotta know what’s available. I also thought today about getting pre-approved for the loan and then when I find the lot I want, I say, “I’ll take it.” The price I’m willing to pay in order to not talk to people is embarrassing, but if I take up a mortgage for a couple acres of grass and am allowed to do what I want. I think I’m getting the deal of a life time.

Fiery Fever for few and far between

I’ve spread out my Irish moss to grow more

I got dressed up to write this today, not that it matters to the reader. Contrary to what most people’s believe, bloggers don’t wear full suit and tie to work. I wouldn’t classify myself as a blogger though. I’m often opposed to anyone giving me a label. What would my political stance be labeled as? When I first told my friends my opinion was changing on religion, one of them asked if it was a bit. I told him “I don’t know what I believe, so everything is a bit.” Labels are too static for my ever shifting perspective. All that said, I do like the label “farmer”. I think it’s because they’re in some sense the bottom of the social pyramid. In this example, the top would be the wealthiest 1% who are the furthest from growing and cooking their own food. Even disconnected from living their lives. My life consists of doing the tasks that if I was a billionaire I would pay someone else to do, so if I did pay people to do everything for me then I don’t know what I would have left to call “My life”. That’s what being a farmer is, every bit of your life is making your life, no bells and whistles between point A and B. I made cinnamon rolls this morning and brownies last night, I had macaroons on deck when I realized we have a mountain of sweets. I don’t know how to cook many savory meals, so I’m making it my mission to buy chunks of meat with one intended recipe to cook them, that way I will have a foundation to cook hardy meals. The hardiness is long lasting energy and that’s what I need. I’m over here thinking that I can eat a can of chicken everyday for lunch. You heard me right, I said a CAN OF CHICKEN.

I’ve taken 5 steps forward

Strawberry flowers

I watched a video of a guy who started development of his “Dream Game”. I made at least one video game in my time, so I have been down that road. He’s made a couple video games before, so he’s not out of his comfort zone. It’s also a pixel art game. My game was 3D. A third dimension means you’ve basically increased the work load of the game by 50%. I think there’s a good chance the guy will make a game, but it’s really a question of when do you walk away, because you can always add “one more thing”. Then I get into thinking that’s what my idea to buy land is. Starting a homestead is basically devoting my life to taking care of myself and not depending on anyone else. Surviving in the woods without sacrificing 21st century comforts. I would love to put up some sort of WiFi that covers acres of land. Today I started to think about being able to run speaker cables through every room while building it. I can have speakers in every room. The cool step from that is being able to switch sound in rooms by an app on your phone. Then I’d set up speakers on the farm so I can listen to music way in the fields. My friend Brad said something about a video he saw about a woman using a scyth and keeping up with a gas mower. We were talking about how mowing of lawns emits massive pollutants due to so many gas mowers, and there were statistics that the amount of fuel spilled in relation to lawn mowers out weighed those of oil companies in the oceans. If it requires maintenance, then it doesn’t belong in that environment, and if it’s as common as a front lawn then a lot of waste gets produced. I also consider getting sheep to eat the grass, especially if I could scyth it when the time comes.

Very Therapeutic

Mein, rough day on the farm. I spotted some birds beginning to nest on our rafters. Every year we can expect this nest to build a couple inches taller. Looks like today’s bachelors are deciding their fate. It’s beautiful to watch chicks grow on our front porch(enter Mathew Mcconaughey meme here). I try to teach Winnie(my dog) to see the birds and recognize them as friends. An idea I liked about having a farm was a farm cat, then I thought if I was working there very regularly, I could get a farm PARROT! Are you listening to me folks. An African Grey Parrot can live to be 50 years and can speak 100’s of words. My dog has a deep relationship with me and he can speak 0 words. Anyway these birds will build their nest and start their family. Hopefully turning to my garden to feed their young, and the well fed children will leave the nest. Here’s today’s rub, there will probably be five babies that were born from last year and still only one nest they could return to. Where are the other birds that couldn’t return home? I’m at my home and boi does that feel good. Obviously times are tough for the entire world and I know I’m a bit of a masochistic when it comes to survival, but there is no one I care for more than my wife. I’m having so much fun. Going through stressful situations with her has become our norm and it’s where our bonds were forged. We made it through residency which was figuratively hell. Residency sucked, no joke, and I didn’t even have to do anything, but watching my wife I thought, it probably felt a lot like basic training for the Army. Now in basic you had to do five pull ups to walk in the cafeteria and five dips when you walk out, but that was only for 15 weeks. Residency lasted three years. When I say that out loud I can’t believe we made it out. It’s like when I imagine my first Army contract as three years, I don’t know how I kept my poop together for that long. Boi after thinking about some of the rougher times of my life, I’m thankful for having so much right now. I’m gonna hug my wife. 

Cheap Meat and Bird Words

Thank you Mary for today’s title. Today has been down right groovy. Although it did start off a little rough. After getting my wife’s breakfast ready, I fell back asleep and had a sleep paralysis dream. This is the second one I’ve had lately and it makes me feel like everyday I’m treading for water with the occasional gulp too large. It’s that fear that drives me, like I have to know death in order to fight for my life. So I wake up and stretch my back. I’ve been running more frequently and I went for a run today! Thank you, hold the applause, you can return the roses. I’ve got a nice every other day streak going that I hope to continue. I continued to work on my outhouse today and may do some more work on it tonight. I think I’m going to be doing a nicer door than I had originally imagined because I’ll probably build this in my backyard and I need to figure out how doors work. At the very least it will give me a play building to test plumping and electrical work on. I’ll spend so much time experimenting that I’ll have an electric power hot water bidet for my outhouse. Today I also took the plastic off the windows. The plastic is put on around fall to act as another layer of insulation. I like them and feel they decrease draft. I was looking in my text book(De Cristoforo’s Housebuilding Illustrated) about installing a window and this book does everything so tight that I guarantee most houses aren’t up to snuff. The house built from this book won’t have any drafts. I poured over the book for awhile today. I definitely want to read it from cover to cover. That could possibly teach me everything I need to know, but it would be enough to know how to properly ask the question for things it doesn’t teach me. I need to finish that permaculture book.

Mesmerizing Seismographing Photorealizing

My new fern frond opened

Oh boi, a journey of a thousand miles starts with tying your shoes. Actually it would start with making a packing list of what you’ll need to get there. Before that it would be helpful if you knew where the journey was going to end so you can figure out what is needed. Researching land sucks. There’s so much back and forth of checking maps because ultimately there’s a reason people live on all the other pieces of land and not this one. I have to figure out that reason with every plot I think looks good. That’s why I decided to only search for my perfect plots of land. If I did this level of research into every piece of land out there, I’d be lucky to to finish what’s available now, when I’m 70. In the end there will only be one piece of land that I do all the research on, right now is the time when they get tested on how many levels of weight they can support. This also improves the testing system because frankly I don’t really know what to ask a person when that time comes, so I’d like to talk to somebody and figure out some sort of language. I’m going to email this county building inspector to see what sort of information I can get. I figure now is a good time to email people because everyone is working from home anyway. Today I also did my first sketch of the building part of my outhouse, and I don’t mind tooting my own horn, but it looks pretty nice; I mean for me. Maybe tomorrow or the future I’ll get down all the specs and redraw it to scale. Not only does taking the time to make a superb drawing ease the buying and building process, but when it comes time for permits I think these drawings will be load bearing. Construction puns.

Hearing hallow howls, seeing secret seals

One day I hope this fern is as wide as I am tall

Against all the odds, I redrew my toilet today. Of course it went way faster than it did yesterday because I got most of the kinks out. That’s exactly what I’m setting out to do now, work out kinks. Everyday I’m gonna set out to find kinks and go to work on them. I won’t stop kinking until I’m satisfied. Sorry, got distracted by something. The toilet is only one part of the out house. Next I’ll work on the house part of it. The big lesson I’ve learned and actually with my mistake yesterday it was the second time I had to learn was that I have to imagine the end result and work backwards. Yesterday I forgot to take in account the thickness of the outside walls. 

Moving on, I also pulled a couple ferns out of the green house today. It’s been so rainy lately that they could enjoy it, but wouldn’t you know it, as soon as I pull them out and check the weather there was no rain on the 10 day forecast. One way to get rid of the rain is to start hoping it rains. I put a couple other plants in new pots today. There’s this wild one that I could call a purple cousin of Pathos. The plant is super hardy and looks like it wants to grow roots all over. Breaking some root heavy parts, I either put them somewhere else in the same pot or in its own pot. Life seems to be calming down, but there’s a graph I remember seeing from the 2008 recession. It was quarterly real GDP, there was an initial dip into the negative one quarter, then it recovered to the positive the next quarter. The third quarter was down at the dip again, the quarter after that was three times as low. For Americans, there are a lot of ladder rungs we can fall before hitting bottom. I’m thankful for that and sorry for the people who aren’t able to do it.

Sure she should show shocked shots

Fresh sprout of asparagus

I suppose my day started like any other, jolted awake by the sound of thunder. I don’t understand why we have thunder and lightning, can’t we say the sound of lightning. We’ve gotten so much rain this year, I don’t know how to feel about it. I love the rain, but it’s like partying in my 20’s, too much of a good thing can be exhausting. All days have sort of blurred together for awhile now, part of that I’d blame on not writing in my daily planner. I keep track of what I’m doing during the day, but hadn’t had the motivation to do it lately. I also haven’t felt like I’ve done anything since the night before we were supposed to go on vacation. That was 10 days ago I think. My hopes have been high with my land idea, but I need to be aware that at times I’ve been mentally unstable. I was supposed to have a therapy appointment on the 20th that was cancelled because of the virus. I don’t think there’s anything I need to be worrying about, but I want to keep an eye on myself when I’m falling out of routine. I have been running and trying to keep that regular. Exercise is good, I have to remember to do my back stretches daily. 

Today I worked on the sketch for a toilet. The first thing I’d have to do on a fresh plot is make room for a fresh plot. I drew up the plan and then realized I forgot to account for the thickness of the exterior, so tomorrow I will redraw it. Going through the process is good though and I think the best thing for me would be to draw out everything my mind can come up with. I suppose that will be my distraction, with the benefit of acting as instructions when the time comes.

Good to see ya again

Autumn fern frond

Today is going pretty well. I cooked up a pizza and will eat that, then I’ll have a lot more energy. I put my turnips in the ground. They had grown their first set of true leaves, so there’s a good chance some will survive, but I shouldn’t have put them all in the ground. I’ve been a total fool. I’ll have to start a new one and watch it’s growth to adulthood alone. I also put some more corn in dirt, but my first corn still hasn’t sprouted, so it got me a little worried. There’s still plenty of seeds, but I think I’ll move the first batch into the green house so it’s getting plenty of sunlight when the seeds open. Those corn seeds are like a ticking time bomb, when they sprout, I’ll have about two weeks to deconstruct the greenhouse, move out all the plants, and mulch the area the green house was in. I’ve also got to start saving up cardboard to lay down before the mulch to help deweed the area. While planting the turnips I had to break through the eyeball fungus, I posted a picture of it a little while back. I’ve become accustomed to sticking my hands into dirt, but a hand full of fungus was a bit of a shock. That reminded me that I don’t have any more plant photos, so as soon as I’m done typing this, I’ll run out to the greenhouse to get a picture of a new fern frond. Funny story, while walking the dog on a new street I saw a house that had nice curtains on the porch and was staring at them, then I noticed a girl in a hammock staring at me staring at her. I told her I liked the curtains, but by then I had also noticed their ferns, and complimented them as well.

Hand in the Honey Pot

Thanks for joining me. Today was a wild day. Not in the sense that anything worth noting happened, but rather my head was a swirl. I was sort of fighting with my friend Brad and wife, but not real fights. I feel cooped up and annoyed at everything around me, so I threw a little tantrum. Then I needed to take a nap around lunch time. Now My wife and I are watching Winnie the Pooh cartoons while listening to jazz, and that’s dandy with me. On the business side of things, I went to the hardware store to get a visual of the materials I’d be working with to make my farm. I needed to walk through the aisles and take a mental inventory of what is out there, took notes on the price of items I’ll need in the future, and most importantly I could see how pieces will come together. It’s got me very excited because the prices of getting everything on my wish list would be well within my budget. Patience is still my most valuable commodity. The slower I take things, the more effective I’ll be and more cost effective. Next step is to draw a schematic for my outhouse. I suppose it doesn’t need to be a schematic, but the better job I do with the first drawing, the better future drawings will be. I’m gonna need to be exact in the future too, I’ve been studying rafters and boi are they a pain. I think I’ve got a major concept of the roof and rafter figured out, the good and bad news is that basically I have to build two roofs. That’s good for structure and longevity, bad because of cost and work. That’s later on down the road though, I’ve already decided my outhouse will have a flat roof.