Apocalyptic Homesteading (Day 1033)
Hello Everyone!
So much dreaming, A weird jaunt into Web 2.0, Kudzu leaf meal as fodder & Leveraging HBD savings to buy the homestead!
It is another morning here and I am slowly waking up all the way after more or less just taking a nap instead of getting a full night's rest. At first I was just feeling rather 'wired' (perhaps from drinking too much late night espresso) but then when I fell asleep, I immediately slid into a semi-lucid dream that just got more and more surreal the longer it continued.
I guess that all total I got exactly three hours of sleep (one full REM cycle) which is plenty enough for me as long as I remember to take a real nap later today. Oddly enough, I awoke at the exact moment that someone sent me a voice recording and I was pleasantly surprised to see it and started my day off listening to their voice and the 'goings on' of their life at the moment.
On a different note I have been meaning to write about my recent experience of having to revert (devolve) back to using 'Web 2.0' social media over the last many months. Mainly having to do so was due to needing to connect with old friends and acquaintances in an effort to either find a place to move to or find folks interested in purchasing this place... which yeah is as arduous as it sounds!
Anyway, here are some of my realizations about that experience. First off let me say that I think that the vapidness of it is gut wrenching, appalling and gross! Secondly wading through a feed of 'content' which almost wholly amounts to people either shit posting, sharing lame memes or circle-jerking each other about their first world problems is downright nauseating. Third on my list is the interface itself being setup in such a way that nothing is in a truly chronological order makes it a rather disorienting experience, especially so when the feed gets populated with much the same posts... just in a different order... and again some might be posts from a month ago and some might be from a week ago but none of them are truly in real time!
If I were a more conspiracy oriented person (or just more paranoid) I would have to surmise that all the confusion (in regards to how the feed is populated) is intentional. To what 'end' I have no idea but even not being 'conspiracy oriented' I am left with little else to point at as to why things are being done that way. Honestly, is it that frigging hard for one of (if not the largest) social media companies on the planet to create a feed that actually makes some kind of sense!
Lastly, I want to touch on something that I found incredibly disturbing (aside from the inability to see all the posts made by my friends) and that is the fucking 'suggested' posts! Obviously their algorithms had gleaned from my own posts that I was looking for a place to move to... so my feed was/is constantly flooded with these 'suggested' posts for properties for sale. To make it even a worse experience (if that is possible) all of them were/are so absolutely high in price that even if I were looking to purchase a place like that it would be way outside my means to acquire.
Not that I have those 'means' even for cheaper places but my point is that the algorithm was 'smart' enough to catch on that I needed a place but too fucking stupid to realize that I was looking for a caretaking position... and that I am dirt poor to boot. I swear that seeing that over and over had an incredibly negative effect on my psyche and combined with the aforementioned things... the result was downright infuriating.
During that time I was actively avoiding Hive aside from reading a few people's posts and even then (when reading) I was not engaging. Mainly that was because I did not want to get 'sucked in' while on hiatus and also my mental state was not in the place it needed to be, to be interacting with a platform with a permanent memory. I did not even do any up-voting because I did not want to be viewed as only partially engaging with the Hive ecosystem. That was all my justifications at least but when it comes right down to it I really needed a break and the kind of shape I was in mentally could have easily undermined much of what I have worked towards these last many years.
To wrap all that up. It took a lot of effort on my part to get my mind back into the shape it needed to be in and while I was far from idle given that I was working with the AI(s) and doing my coding projects... I really did miss the folks on Hive and for better or worse I missed the Hive platform/ecosystem itself. I think that during that time I realized just how large of a role Hive has played in my life over the last many years and how it is 'something' that I could never really turn my back on given just how much I believe in not just it but the folks whom comprise it and make it what it is. Okay, I best move onto another topic before I get too sappy or sentimental on that subject! Suffice it to say it is good to be back at it again!
Alright, it is a good bit later in the morning and I just got back from taking a hike and gathering some kudzu leaves to feed to the chickens. I had gone a few weeks ago to do that and noticed the vines were covered in flowers and seeds... so I wisely decided against collecting any because I did not want to accidentally spread the seeds around.
Something worth noting is that in the future I really should wear gloves when I do that because I have now washed my hands twice and they still feel sticky. I am unsure if it is because the leaves have yellow pine sap on them (which is the main tree type they are growing on in that area) or if it is from the kudzu itself. Either way that stuff is frigging tricky to wash off and here in a moment I may attempt to remove it with some olive oil. Yup, the olive oil worked!
Anyways, that kudzu is really starting to get out of hand in that area and a few weeks ago I also noticed that it is growing along the road in several places... which is no damned good because if left unchecked it will rapidly spread like it has in that one area where I have been collecting it from for the last few years. If I do manage to somehow procure this property, getting rid of that kudzu is going to be really high on my list of priorities. Having seen how destructive it is... it is well worth doing whatever it takes to eradicate it.
Regardless of all that jazz... I do want to collect a lot of the leaves this year, dry them out and use them as fodder (leaf meal) for the chickens through the colder months when there is not much in the way of other vegetation (or bugs) for them to free range on. Last year I recall that I missed my window to do so by a week or two so this time around I really need to pay attention and start harvesting it the moment it begins changing colors from green to brown. What I am thinking of doing is just cutting sections of the vine, coiling them up, hanging them in the solar shack and letting it all thoroughly dry out before storing it away for the winter.
Inbound segue!
Wow... okay... how do I put this... I think I finally see the light at the end of the long meandering (often stifling) tunnel of stress that has been the previous thirteen odd months of my life! Bear with me because I never got that nap that I needed today... but I think I am going to be buying this land... in a way that it will be in my own name!
It is kind of spooky because I had just been writing about Hive and all. Anyway, during a discussion with a buddy of mine today they got super stoked over that twenty percent APR (Annual Percentage Rate) that HBD (Hive Backed Dollar) has at the moment... and offered to make good on an old promise to help me get land one day! To be clear they were already rather set on doing so but I think/know that the idea of leveraging the APR really excited them to the point of making it happen and getting the ball rolling!
Basically the plan is to dump a bunch of crypto into HBD, place it in savings and make the 'mortgage payments' (it is an owner financed deal) with the interest and then put anything that is left back into savings so that the amount grows. I think that as long as the twenty percent APR remains the same that it will all add up rather quickly that way and within a year or two I could have the place paid off in full! Heck even if the APR was slightly lower it would work but if the percentage gets 'too low' my entire plan could get wrecked.
As far as that last bit goes (about the APR percent changing) I am just going to have to wing it and hope that it stays at (or near) that twenty percent because honestly it is the best chance I have of making this all work out. I did recently see that the percentage might be going down in the future but hopefully I can squeak this land buying project through to completion before it does. In short I guess my 'Hive Homestead' idea is way more feasible than I ever dreamed it could be so wish me luck.
Okay, I better wrap this up because the hour is growing late and that three hours of sleep that I got last night will not hold me over indefinitely! At least it was a sound three hours of rest regardless of all that heavy dreaming that I did.
https://peakd.com/c/hive-114308/created
You have lifted my spirits to the moon, I Pray this works for you but if it doesn't, I was wondering what they want for the land and how many acres. I doubt if he will do it and Donny might get mad if I ask him but I am wondering if Steve will loan me the money. I could make payments to him. Do you know how much the taxes are on it?
Glad to lift your spirits! I sent you a message about it.
Wishing you luck on the Hive Homestead. That would be just amazing for you!