Passing Sassy Sally while wild Willy puts pudding somewhere

Me and pup gardening

Hey Mary, sorry I didn’t write you last night, my wife gave me the idea of not writing and calling it an April Fools thing. I didn’t really feel like doing this yesterday, so I took it. I’m back now though because I don’t want to drop the ball. Crazy to think that if I’m lucky I’ll write here everyday for the rest of my life. I’ve already kept this up for over a year and that is more dedication than 99% of the other stuff I attempt. It’s hard to know what you will enjoy doing until you jump in. I talked to my friend Joshua about moon landing conspiracies recently. The context was along the lines of conspiracies in general because I was talking about Mike Tyson and a different friend, Brad, he said Tyson only became the champ because he had connections to the ruling class; Tyson chicken anyone? I’m sure I’m over simplifying Brad’s argument and I don’t disagree with him. The point is I said I’d rather live in a world where Tyson’s rags to riches, fighting his way to he top, story is true. I will often argue humans have never landed on the moon, whether or not I believe that, I don’t care, what I do is point out how little evidence it takes to convince a person that something happened. Joshua said he prefers to live in a world where the moon landing did happen because it represents the coming together of different people to solve a global problem and that inspires him. I had never thought of the moon landing as inspiring. Probably the root of my dismissal is that I don’t find value in it. I do find value in a guy being a good fighter though where Brad had never considered that. These opinions and thoughts are what make us individuals, and if we stopped talking to everyone who didn’t see eye to eye with us on every topic, then we might as well start pouring gasoline all over Main St.

I snap my fingers

Tomorrow is April 1st, maybe I’ll think of some sort of prank, but I think there will be very bad news coming out tomorrow because a lot of people are not going to pay bills. I suppose nothing will happen of it tomorrow because it will be the end of the first and beginning of the second that companies will have anticipated that money and wont have what’s always been there. I’ve been a doomsday sayer in the past and now I try to be optimistic that everything always works out. I do think everything will work out, but if everyone who has a service job in NYC, NOLA, and Vegas don’t pay their bills, it will cause a strain on the country that translates to a lot of deaths. They’re not big news deaths because they’re the bottom of the food chain that goes first; the people who are already hanging on by a strand. Sorry that’s so sad, I just want to have it written down because if I’m right and for the right reasons, it’s nothing showy. Media instead puts on a show in one hand to distract from the other.

Alright enough of that trash. Maybe in a couple days I’ll talk to a realtor because after this crunch, people looking to sell land will become a little more desperate. Maybe they’ll take a price cut because they need the money. Before I do that though I need to figure out how to get a soil testing kit because when I go with a realtor, I’m going to want to take samples. I actually drove out to the property in the morning and then in the afternoon I prepared the flower beds that we’re gonna have in the front. I’m very tired and my back is sore. The best part is the feeling like you earned a chance to relax.

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.