Apocalyptic Homesteading (Day 645)
Hello Everyone!
A dreamy fugue, Literary grist, Ripening persimmons, Communication compulsions, A molting hen & Kudzu as fodder!
When I first awoke this morning it was long before sunrise but since I had been dreaming so vividly and the dream did not seem to have reached any 'conclusion' I let myself drift back off to sleep. The dreaming, waking, going back to sleep happened repeatedly until some time after sunrise when I awoke one last time and just laid there in a sort of fugue mulling over the dreams, my thoughts and more or less consulting my half-asleep mind in regards to my life.
I am probably not doing the experience all that much justice wording it all out that way but overall I guess I did a sort of 'deep dive' into where I am at mentally and emotionally and sorted through everything in such a way that when I did finally awake... I felt incredibly calm and for lack of a better way to put it... my thoughts were very 'still' which is way better than the runaway freight train they have been!
The sheer scope of the difficulties that I have been facing has put my resolve (and everything else) under so much strain that if I had not had these entries to both spell things out in and read (and re-read) later it would all be a quagmire of confusing emotions, thoughts and overwhelming frustration. There is assuredly something to be said about 'seeing' my internal process in an external way that is rather liberating (and insightful) but whoa can it be a tricky affair!
One thing that I have absolutely noticed is that during these kinds of high stress, high anxiety and I guess what could be called 'high angst' times... I have no real shortage of 'literary fodder' and tend to turn it all into grist for my writings. I know it is a silver lining and all but yeah I am aware that some of my most 'focused' writing emerges under such conditions.
Which yeah it should go without saying that, I could do without such pressures/conditions but at least I am able to do something with it all and 'channel' that upheaval into something creative. It is not like I enjoy it or anything but making good use (and minorly freeing myself) of such turmoil sure is better than the alternatives of just bottling it up and letting it compound, complexify and grow infernally confusing/difficult to navigate!
Anyway, the morning is dragging on here and I once again found myself taking care of some correspondences and having to check through everything to see if anyone has been trying to get in touch with me. I am still struggling against the old phone addiction habits being able to get a toehold in my mind and whoa I have to admit that I am losing at it! The times sort of dictate that I have to use the damned thing but ugh I liked it better when I had the habit fully broken!
As much as I complain about having to use the phone and communicating with other folks in general I also have to admit (like I did in a previous entry) that it is nice that I have folks to communicate with and yeah feeling slightly less isolated sure goes a long way towards keeping me on an even keel. Which is odd considering how frigging uncomfortable that I find it to be wording things out to other people outside these entries.
I guess that a big part of that is just how much I cherish my solitude and being alone with my thoughts (like I expressed the other day) but on some very base level I am after all quite human and know that 'humans need each other' and being too damned 'alone in the world' is never a good thing. Thankfully I do not have so many conflicting feelings over it all that it stops me from engaging... but it sure is close to that!
Alright, it is now later in the day and once again my nap time... which yup I will be skipping again so that I can do more writing. Spending so much time each day in the text editor is not exactly getting old but if I think too much about those 'pennies per hour' I start to reassess the wisdom of doing it regardless of how therapeutic that I find the process!
I know that most folks fail to grasp the concept of putting so much time into something, getting so little from it and continuing to do it anyways... but hey that is called dedication! The only way that I can really justify investing time for such a paltry 'reward' when looking at it from a purely financial perspective (which yeah I do not really do that often) is by finding said 'reward' somewhere else.
What I mean by all that is: Learning to write better, sharing knowledge, imparting insights, building a reputation, indulging in something I am passionate about, cultivating a relationship with folks who are readers, as well as the aforementioned therapeutic value... is an incredibly rewarding prospect in and of itself! Like anything... doing all that stuff is a gradual process and yeah it takes a heck of a lot of commitment and more so at first when just starting out!
On a different note. I just got back from doing a good bit of hiking and per usual it did wonders to clear my mind and help me relax which yeah both of those things have been challenging of late! While I was hiking I visited a different section of the persimmon grove (the sunniest area) and found a bunch of ripe persimmons on the ground and yup that was a pleasant sight.
I have no idea why I failed to think of looking there first but it is a lesson I am going to try not to forget about fruiting trees and even grapevines! Anyway, most of the fruit on the ground was super ripe and although I left the bulk of it for the wildlife I did eat a few of them and whoa were they tasty!
Over the coming days I really need to keep watching the grove because I have a feeling that when the fruits start dropping en masse it will be fast and yeah I totally want to collect as many seeds as I can. As I was saying a while back, having removed all those vines from the trees last winter did wonders for the fruit production and they even seem larger this year!
Anyway, I meant to write about it earlier but this morning when I first went outside I could not help but notice that there were small white chicken feathers strewn all over the dog yard. At first I was sort of freaking out that maybe a predator had gotten one (or more) of the chickens (because yup I failed to close the coop last night again) but then I was relieved to see that all four of them were fine.
Which should have put the concern to rest but instead I began thinking that they might have pests (lice, mites or fleas) and that got me way more concerned than some predator prowling around! It was such an odd site to see the feathers everywhere (and the hen doing it still dropping them as I watched her) that I had to do some research online to try and figure out what might be going on.
Being rather new to having chickens I had no idea that in (or near) the autumn time that they do a 'seasonal molt' or that molting was even a thing to start with! It was an eye opener and really helped explain why I saw so much feather loss around this time of year previously! They can apparently also do 'mini molts' for a number of reasons but I think it is a seasonal one.
This evening when I feed the chickens I am going to try to catch her (without stressing her out) and make sure that it is not mites or any other pests that are causing it just to be safe and make sure it is definitely some form of molting. If she does have pests I still have enough diatomaceous earth to treat her and the rest of them but maybe not enough to do like I did before with spreading it in the coop, under it and in the nesting boxes.
On a similar 'chicken related' note, while I was hiking earlier I finally remembered to harvest some of the kudzu leaves and vine tips and brought them back to the shelter site with me to give to the chickens. I hung one section of vine in the larger coop but none of those chickens have even touched it yet which is no surprise because they avoid the coop most of the day because they are ranging around the dog yard. So, we will see what they do later when it is feeding time.
The other two sections of kudzu vine I hung in the pen for Bob Backwards (the ornery rooster) and whoa he absolutely loves the stuff and has really gone to town eating it! All of which is pretty cool because there is lots of kudzu available and I can cut down on how much feed I need if I harvest some of it each day during my hikes.
I guess the real test would be if I can dry it out, store it and whether they will eat it dry... but heck they are chickens after all and will eat almost anything no matter what state it is in! That experiment should have been done months ago and I just kept failing to remember to do so! Now I know though and yeah while a diet of purely kudzu is probably not a good idea... as a supplement to the rest of their diet... it is a very fine idea indeed!
Well, it is now very late in the day and the sun is starting to set so I best get to wrapping this entry up so that I can get onto the editing and posting. All I can say about the day is that I am glad that it was a heck of a lot better than most of the days that I have had of late... and I am grateful for the reprieve! I hope that everyone is doing well and has a nice day/night.
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We get these caterpillars, I forget what they are called, I am thinking webworm or something like that.