Hello Everyone!

A brief introduction: I have been doing property caretaking (land stewardship) for many years (decades) and live a rather simple life with my dogs doing what most folks would consider to be an 'alternative minimalist lifestyle' but what I often just think of as a low-impact lifestyle where I get to homestead and spend the majority of my time alone with my dogs in the woods doing projects in the warmer months and taking some downtime during the colder months.

A little over three years ago I began sharing the adventures (misadventures) of my life via writing, videos, pictures and the occasional podcasts and although my intention was to simply share my life with some friends it undoubtedly grew into much more than that over the years and now I find myself doing what equates to a full-time job just 'sharing my life' which is not even all that glamorous or anything but hey folks seem to enjoy it so I just keep doing it!

The way that the Fantastica Chronicles came about is that I was living at another place when I started chronicling and sharing my days but eventually I wound up moving to a new place. The new place is a homestead named 'Fantastica' so I started with 'Day 1' upon my arrival here and just kept documenting my days much like I had done for the previous nine hundred and fifty-seven days at the last place that I lived.

I have mostly done that 'documenting' at Fantastica exclusively with words (and pictures) opting not to do the videos because as I learned at the last place, sharing videos over an intermittent and slow internet connection is horribly time consuming and what I often think of as an 'ulcer inducing' experience. All that said, I opted for simplicity with the documentation and have no real regrets for doing so.

The way that I look at it is that I give it all my best each day and while some stuff I write is better than others I think that for the most part I do a pretty good job at doing what I am doing which is simply 'sharing my life' as candidly as I possibly can and whatever folks get (or do not get) from it there is always the satisfaction of me doing what I set out to do... which is to simply share my life.

TL;DR: There is no tl;dr because you should have more patience and attention span than a gnat on a high wind.

[End Introduction]

The Fantastica Chronicles Day 334!

A Radical Haircut, Washing Mucho Laundry, Making A Clothes Line In The Greenhouse & A Bossy Rooster.

Finally I made some progress on waking up earlier in the morning and managed to rouse myself by seven thirty which was a marked improvement but damn it I was having such a wonderful dream and it was not one that I wanted to wake up from at all. In many of my dreams of late I am often a dispassionate observer and find myself 'going through the motions' in them and not being truly engaged in whatever is going on but in this one I was fully engaged and hovering in that wonderful headspace that is mildly lucid but not so lucid that it spoils all the mystery and fun of dreaming.

I did allow myself to drift off a little once I was awake but the dogs noticed I was awake and wanted their morning petting and belly rubbing which has been our routine as soon as I open my eyes (and sometimes even when I do not open my eyes) for many years now. Having thought about how they know that I am awake even without me opening my eyes (or even moving) on many occasions all I can deduce is that they notice the difference in my breathing and there is nothing that I can do to fool them that I am still sleeping!

First thing this morning I got my mirror setup outside and got my hair clippers from the camper where I keep them and gave myself yet another haircut. This time I decided to make it as 'radical' of a haircut as I could without going over the top and giving myself a true mohawk. I had been thinking about it for several days now and it sure felt good to not only cut my hair but to also shave all the 'shit off my face' as I like to call it when I get fed up with having a beard which has happened surprisingly often over the previous year.

For much of my life I was an extremely vain person as far as looks go and over the last many years I have gone to the opposite extreme where I just do not give a damn how the hell I look. Some folks would say that I have 'really let myself go' and they would absolutely be correct but hey it is not like the dogs give a damn how I look. Sometimes I sort of long to have even a flicker of that old vanity again just to motivate me to not 'let myself go' but there really is no point to it.

Anyway, today turned out to be productive or at least more productive than I have been for some time now and remarkably it was not the result of feeling manic or anything like that. If anything I felt a grim determination to start tackling a bunch of stuff that I have been neglecting to do like my laundry. A while back I had started to wash some stuff by hand in buckets outside and never finished the task so they just sat there and every week or so I would empty the water from the buckets and refill them then (wait for it) neglect to continue washing them. That happened repeatedly for the better part of two months and all I can say is that I just quit giving a damn about almost everything in life and no amount of brow beating myself would change that. I think that anyone who has ever dealt with severe depression can understand that and how such things happen and as for everyone else they probably have no idea just how crippling such depressive episodes can be.

Lacking a good place to hang my laundry near the shelter site except for on the fence to the dog yard has been pretty problematic especially given all the rain there has been here this year and today I finally had an 'aha' moment and strung up a clothes line in the greenhouse and hung all my washed laundry on it. The greenhouse not being sealed and always seeming to have a good amount of air moving through it makes for a perfect solution to dry my laundry rain or shine and hopefully the heat during the day will help dry them rather rapidly. I will see tomorrow how well it works out because it was quite late in the day by the time I got them all hung up in there on the new clothes line.

On a different note, just before dark I was herding the chickens inside to feed them and one of my two roosters pecked the hell out of me on the leg while I was carrying the chicken feed to the coop to pour it in their tray. Admittedly I was feeding them slightly later than the usual time but damn he was like 'hurry the fuck up' and after pecking me started flapping his wings at me in a rather comical fashion. He is a bossy little feller and although he does not seem to harass the hens that much he sure does challenge the other rooster almost every time that I let them out to roam around the dog yard. I really like having two roosters and two hens but that rooster might eventually wind up as dinner if he does not mellow out a little bit.

All the chickens are still rather young so maybe he is just being angsty or something as he is growing into adulthood but it has gotten to the point to where my boy dog routinely breaks up the two roosters from fighting and gives them that look that says 'hey I am the top male around here so you better behave accordingly' which is pretty damn funny because he does not growl or bark at them and just looks at them very sternly while holding himself in a very poised and alert fashion. I will have to try to get a picture of it so that folks can see what I mean because it is pretty damn funny.

Well, I have rambled on enough for one evening and it is once again much later than when I like to do my writing but hell I just had the most productive and refreshing day that I have had in fucking months so 'it is what it is' and I have no regrets even if it means the editing and posting will be made a bit more difficult because I am feeling fatigued and just want to unwind for the evening. I hope that everyone is doing well and has a nice day/night and all that feel good jazz.

My new haircut! Yeah I probably should have at least tried to smile for the picture!

Thanks for reading!

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