Hello Everyone!

Apocalyptic Homesteading Day 420!

Almost waking early, Creating habitat, Another storm, Compost progress & Being productive!

This morning I woke up a few minutes after six, looked at the clock and felt triumphant that I had finally woken up early... to then promptly fall back asleep and not wake up again until nearly three hours later. I never mentioned it but on Saturday I felt ill throughout the entire day and burned a fever until later in the afternoon today. So that may have had something to do with drifting back off to sleep this morning.

Even though I was feeling pretty wiped out from digging those post holes and carrying logs the day before I got outside early in the day. I once again transitioned from doing my routine chores to doing stuff around the shelter site. Later in the day I dug another post hole and put a post in it for that new compost that I started on the other day. After thinking about it a lot last night I decided to make the compost a triangle shape instead of a square. So that newest post is the last one that I need to create the center portion of the compost. I have to still trim some short limbs off two of the posts but after that I can wrap chicken wire around all three posts. I am still debating on whether to wrap it in irrigation tubing (for hot water) but I have not fully decided one way or another as of yet and keep mulling it over!

Anyway, since I have been wanting to do a little fire prevention stuff around the outside of the dog yard I began collecting a bunch of the fallen branches in one of the more open areas. This time instead of just stacking the branches (like I normally would) I intentionally set about making a sort of above-ground burrow or shelter. Basically I did my best to mimic an inviting natural habitat with all the ideal conditions for something to live inside of it by layering the sticks, weaving in living vines and tossing on a bunch of leaves and pine needles as weather-proofing. I even placed a few logs on the uphill side to keep the water from flowing into it when it rains so it should stay mostly dry in there and make a cozy den.

There has been a lot of times where I have written about bolstering the existing wildlife in an area and so far it always seems like creating small habitats, having safe watering holes and not disturbing the wildlife works really well. Sure having edible vegetation like grasses helps as well as things like fruits, nuts and even mushrooms but I think that animals that feel safe and have water will figure the food out one way or another. I try not to directly feed the game and instead focus on getting plants and grasses growing that they can eat instead. The other thing is tending to the fruit trees (or grape vines) or whatever that is already growing in an area which produces something that the critters can eat. There are usually a lot of things like that when I really start looking at stuff. Heck, even invasive plants like kudzu can be an abundant food supply.

Okay, a big storm rolled in during the time that I have been writing of late so now I have been doing it while fatigued. That storm had so much lightning and thunder it even had me spooked out. The dogs did not get too crazy over it but as always it was not easy for them either. The few times that I saw the sky light up from the lighting it was super neat looking but whoa some of that thunder rumbled for a long time and was not all that long after the lighting which means it was way too close! It has been pouring rain too so I am sure that by the time the wind dies down everything will be a mess again as far as sticks and branches in the roads and trails go. On the bright side everything will be damp tomorrow so I might just have a fire and make more ashes for the compost.

On a different note, getting back into having a more productive daily routine and sleep cycle has felt really good. I have not been pushing myself all that hard or anything physically but each day I can feel myself getting a little bit more in shape. Not that I ever really get all that out of shape but I definitely have those long periods of time where I am not all that physically active. I always get a little exercise each day no matter what even if its just walking on the hillside, fetching water, feeding the critters, playing with the dogs or cleaning up the dog yard but overall that stuff is more my baseline of physical exertion. In other words I am going to wind up doing all that and usually more (like when tree branches fall everywhere) whether I really want to do it or not. Some stuff just has to be done each day and although no single thing is all that taxing it all adds up to a good bit of exercise.

Well, I made some espresso so I would not lose focus here... or at least that is the excuse that I used to break my no coffee at night rule yet again. Compared to the tea it does not seem to keep me up until all hours of the night and there is a good chance that the few sips of it that I took will be sufficient to get me through this entry. It is kind of wild that I have been making these entries for one thousand eight hundred and twenty-three days now. That is four years, eleven months and twenty-eight days including today just to put it in perspective. The entries themselves have gotten longer and more involving but the editing and general media management is still a big chore. It is definitely way less since I stopped making videos and podcasts but overall it is one of those things that is just necessary especially for looking at things that I have built (or did) that I want to reference the pictures of. Sometimes seeing what I did before comes in super handy and often helps me innovate in one way or another.

This winter and the overall scenario that I am in now sure makes me appreciate going through all the steps that it took to get here. Even the difficult ones. What an absolute journey it has been and no words that I use can adequately sum up my 'total thoughts' on it (I guess that is what these entries help do) but if I were to try to break it down to its simplest form it would be: Lots of struggle learning things both the hard and the easy way, more struggle doing things, some stuff working well, some stuff failing to work at all, more struggle, have I mentioned any struggle yet, oh by the way there was struggle.

Then I realized that if I was struggling that I was probably doing it wrong and started giving things more 'concentrated effort' than broad 'general force' and things eventually got slightly easier and now I have most things that I do down to a science and stuff just works. It took me the better part of frigging twenty years to get there though and those years were spent living much like I do now and to this very day it still is not exactly 'easy' for me to live this lifestyle. The routines are vital, the discipline to do the routines is utmost and the ability to maintain the morale to bolster the discipline to do the routines is key. Once my attitude shifted morale became much easier so I kind of always have that to fall back on but it always amounts to a head trip of some kind.

From there it is just a matter of removing all procrastination by immediately doing whatever I am dreading the most. If I am putting off doing it 'then it is time to do it now' has become my thinking of late. Even if I do not go and physically work on a project 'immediately' I start gathering the tools or supplies for it and figuring out if I have everything that I need. More or less I do something that helps get me closer to doing the task even if its something minor. Anything that I can 'pat myself on the back' for later does the trick for me and it makes doing other things easier because I do not have it lingering in my mind.

Alright, I have once again come to where the words have begun to elude me and I have to get to editing and work on getting this posted. I hope that everyone is doing well and has a nice day/night.

The three posts that will make the compost triangle.

That is how much topsoil that I have caught with the corner of the fence!

This is how I started the little wildlife shelter.

Then I kept layering stuff on until it looked like this.

As you can see there is a lot of room in there.

Once I fill in this side of it the overall size will be pretty large.

Thanks for reading!

That Is All For Now!

Cheers! & Hive On!