Hello Everyone!

Apocalyptic Homesteading Day 417!

Taking A Long Hike, Finding A Suspicious Clearing In The Woods, Wacky Dreams & To Sleep Or Not To Sleep

My new sleep schedule is still a bit of a thorn in my side as I continue to try to get back on track with falling asleep early and waking up early. No matter what I do I just cannot seem to fall asleep before midnight and as far as naps go (aside from that recent accidental one) they just have not been happening. Some of it might be due to the weather given it has been quite chilly in the mornings and how warm and cozy I am in bed but I think that the real cause may well be stress related. Whatever the reason is, it is getting rather annoying and more often than not I find myself in not all that awesome of a mood for much of the time that I am awake and when I am asleep I keep having these super wacky dreams that hover at the edge of what I would consider being nightmares. Considering what all is going on in the world (and my predisposition not to stick my head in the sand and ignore it) none of it is all that surprising or anything.

Anyway, after doing my usual chores I decided to go on a much longer hike in the woods than the ones that I have recently been taking. I initially considered doing some more 'treasure hunting' (looking for junk that needs cleaned up) but discarded that idea in favor of hiking the property boundaries instead. Admittedly cleaning up junk would have been more productive but the idea of wandering about in the woods was vastly more appealing. Last year on this day when a bunch of asshats were engaged in an attempted coup on live television a number of the neighbors began shooting off their high caliber firearms. To what end they were firing off their guns I have no idea to this day what their motive was but considering the kind of redneck fuckery that goes on in some parts of the south I can only surmise it was in support of the failed insurrection.

All that said, I did not think it was a bad idea to roam the edges of the property and since no one was shooting their guns off all that quiet made me a heck of a lot more suspicious than the sound of guns going off all over the damn place. As a side note I also wanted to get a good look at that one area of the property that has the majority of the standing dead pine trees in it to see if that recent big storm had knocked a bunch of them down or not. Anyway, the hike was really good until I eventually came across an area that just did not look right and it took me a few minutes to figure out that someone had driven a piece of heavy machinery several hundred feet into the property and apparently used it to clear out an opening in the woods. Given how dense the woods are the only reason that I can figure that they would do such a thing was to clear out a place to hunt at.

None of it was super recent but having walked that area numerous times last year I definitely would have noticed it so I am thinking that the machine work occurred sometime over the previous year after the last time that I hiked there. Let me be clear here and just say that there are no actual roads leading into that area and anyone doing such a thing would have had to go through one of the neighbors properties to get to that area so I feel safe in my thinking that it was probably one of the neighbors or someone that they know that did it. Poaching on other folks land is one thing (not that I have proof of that or anything but that is the only logical reason for making such a clearing) but driving heavy machinery onto someone else's land is a whole other level of ballsy behavior.

Since I am not one to go banging on folks' doors and basically looking to cause problems I just made sure to leave as many boot prints there as possible (right beside all the deer tracks) and maybe whoever did it will notice and quit doing whatever the hell they are up to in that area. I also plan on going back to the area and scouring it for game cameras, tree stands and feeders to make sure that none of those things are there. I am also considering going over there with the battery operated chainsaw and filling that entire clearing with pine tree logs just so the deer will no longer use it. Honestly if I had seen something like that at the edge of the property I would not think all that much about it but like I said this was several hundred feet on this side of the property line and there just is no damn excuse for that kind of behavior.

I am not as fired up about all that jazz as it may sound but it did get my hackles up and reminded me of all the damn trespassers and bad neighbors that I have had to deal with over the years. When it comes to poachers (which by the way is armed trespassing) I have heard the excuse of 'folks gotta eat' so many damn times that I think that if I hear it again I am going to scream. What I would scream I have no idea but it always has been and always will be a weak excuse at best and a flimsy justification at worst. When it comes down to it folks often over-hunt the game in an area (which is why there is not an abundance of game in most places) and why I tend to do my best to leave the frigging game alone and provide it with a place where it is not hunted at all in the hopes that the population can grow.

Okay, I got off on quite the tangent there but the trespassing stuff always gets on my nerves in such a way that it makes me wonder what else those kinds of folks can (or will) justify doing. I also do not like the idea of either me or one of the dogs getting 'accidentally' shot by some clown hunting where they have no damn right to be hunting at in the first place. I know a lot of folks would tend to get the law involved over that sort of stuff but in reality that is just a quick way to make a lot of bad blood and more than likely nothing would come of it (unless I caught them in the act with a deer carcass) because I am after all an 'outsider' to the area and like I said a few days back it is the backwoods and I have no illusions about 'how things work' in such areas.

I just look at it all as a 'sign of the times' we are in and if folks are that damned desperate (or thick-headed) then I just need to remain vigilant and perhaps do stuff like piling logs in the area to send a clear signal to them that someone has noticed the activity. Hopefully it will be sufficient enough to deter them from any such further activity but who the heck knows these days given how un-civil some folks in this country have become. Sadly though, I think that things will most likely get much less civil in this country than they already are and the idea that unreasonable folks will eventually (at the very least) begin 'acting' reasonable again is nothing but a pipe dream that helps me sleep at night... or not.

Well, I better wrap this up and get on with the editing and posting. I hope that everyone is doing well and has a nice day/night.

There was a crescent moon in this picture but it did not really show up!

Thanks for reading!

That Is All For Now!

Cheers! & Hive On!