Adventures In Homesteading (Day 1-14)

Hello Everyone!

Arriving at night, So much sloped terrain, The joys of bad neighbors, Making do however I can & Plenty of what did I get myself into!

Alright, I am now fourteen full days into my adventures (misadventures) at the new place and I gotta say that it has been quite the slog! The move itself (that I failed to document) was rather smooth and quite enjoyable given the good company of the folks that assisted with it... but from the moment that I/we arrived here it has been one challenge after another.

Maybe I should backtrack slightly to the night that we pulled in with a fully loaded fifteen foot moving truck and cargo trailer... after I miscalculated what it would take to get the remainder of my setup at the old place packed down... and loaded up on the final day. To be clear here we were trying to get here long before sunset on May 31st... but instead it was long after sunset!

Getting the truck pulled in and backed up to the area that we wanted to unload it went rather well... but the extra flat area that I was trying to have created (when the driveway was put in) was not quite as large as I intended it to be. The main reason for that is because the neighbor's driveway (that I was continuing my own from) received a lot more gravel than I intended it to... which is something that was necessary given the shoddy condition it was in.

So long story short the gravel (crusher run) intended to create my flat spot for unloading got used elsewhere... and the flat area that I wound up with was very small and not even all that flat given the circumstances around its creation. All of which of course meant that when we parked the truck and trailer... they were at quite the slant to say the least.

Of all the things that I had accounted for the truck being tilted was not one of them... and since it was 'loaded to the gills' I had to climb into it in order to start handing things out (to get stuff out of the way) so that we could get to the tents and whatnot that I needed for my initial camping setup. If it all sounds kind of wonky that is because it absolutely was... and somehow I immediately found myself sliding off the mattress (that was on top of everything) and out the back of the truck in a very awkward and wholly unintentional manner.

Part way through the process of falling out of the truck... I managed to catch myself on something (I think that it was the roll-up door) but all that amounted to was slowing my fall... and forcing me into a very odd twisted pose that I cannot quite describe accurately. Suffice it to say that in the process of all that... I did something to my left shoulder (or a nerve near or under it) and my left arm and left hand would work for a few seconds... and then just 'go dead' for several moments before it would start working again.

It was actually one of the other folks that wound up doing the bulk of the unloading (of the initial gear) before the three of us headed off downhill with the big tent (and a few other things) to setup camp in the dark. Two things worth noting here are that I immediately stepped in dog shit... and the trail that someone had road a four-wheeler on was slick as heck from all the rain... which was not too awful to cope with until we reached the big gulch that we needed to traverse to get to the 'flat' area.

In other words I am unsure if I have ever cussed that much while setting up a camp... and although I did my best not to cuss at anyone (including myself) I was still cussing nonetheless. Aside from the constant reek of dog shit, the uneven terrain (that the tent was being setup on) and the entire clusterfuck of it all... my left hand and left arm kept stopping of their own accord mid-motion... and I would have to either wait to regain control of them... or pass off what I was doing to one of the other folks to finish.

Thankfully, we just had to setup my own tent, get the mattress tossed in it... and get all the dog crates and chicken pens setup for me... and the other folks could head off to a nearby campground that has all the amenities like a hot shower and all that jazz. Given the late hour and them missing their check in time (due to my error on timing) they were lucky to arrive just as another person at the campground was entering the locked gate... and were able to slide in right behind them!

That night is assuredly a bit of a blur... but what I do recall is freezing my butt off in the cold mountain air... and if it were not for the dogs snuggling up to me (and the one blanket we were all sharing) it would have been way worse than it was. The bed itself was also lumpy and uneven (which it still is) because to 'level' it I shoved both my disassembled sawhorse parts under the downhill side... to make up for the change in elevation.

The following morning was a bit of a doozy because upon waking I realized that I was basically camped right on top of my friendly neighbor (who I of course woke up with all my cussing, barking dogs and crowing roosters) and although we initially got off on the wrong foot... by the end of that first day we had made progress on getting along better. That story in and of itself could be its own entry... so suffice it to say that we are now both very amicable with each other and although neither of us really want neighbors... we both seem to be okay with having each other as a neighbor.

Anyways, night two was another saga in and of itself because it rained... and of course the shoddy tent I am in leaks like a damned sieve... but I had at least had the foresight of staging a tarp in it just in case it leaked. Basically, I found out that it leaked by me and my boy dog getting quite the 'shower' just as I was drifting off to sleep after a very grueling day of unloading stuff from the moving truck and trailer.

I am unsure how many days that we wound up having the moving truck parked here... as I hemmed and hawed over where to put everything... because lacking a shed we had to find places that tents could be setup and be unloaded into. Those tents all wound up being setup on slopes and of course damn near every one of them had a tree stump in the way that poked a hole(or many small holes) into the floors of the tents.

The only truly flat spot on the entire property is the area near the road where I had the gravel (crusher run) laid down... and whoa I am so glad that I decided against setting any of the tents up there... or storing any of my gear there! In short the road has limestone gravel on it, lots of traffic (both day and night) and there is a constant cloud of road dust billowing onto the property with every passing vehicle.

Well, I intended to try to recap each day thus far in this entry... but I do not think that is going to happen given just how long-winded of a story that would turn into... and I just do not have it in me at the moment to do so. In essence the place pretty much sucks due to a total lack of privacy (let alone seclusion), there is constant traffic on both the roads that border the place... and to top it all off I have a loud and angry neighbor (that broadcasts their domestic horseshit at full volume) on not one but two damned sides of me!

To be clear neither of those bad neighbors are my immediate neighbor... but since he is elderly and living his off-grid dream I have been courteous and respected his wishes not to hear loud music. Which of course equates to me playing no music because I just know that given how I am... that if I set the music rig up... I will wind up blasting it in an effort to drown out the domestic horseshit from the other neighbors.

So it has been two weeks of neither of my two main tools for therapy (writing and music) and although I built a very shoddy deck (to put a tent on) to do the former (many days ago) this is the first time that I have actually sat down and tried to write anything. To say that my morale, enthusiasm and all that jazz have hit an all time low... would be a massive understatement and essentially I would rather do anything except live here.

Here I am though... and considering that I wiped out all my funds to get here... I am at this point totally stuck and although I have tried again and again to give things my best effort each day... my heart is just not into it. What I realized a few days ago is that no amount of work or money put into the place will change the privacy scenario, the constant vehicle traffic... or the bad neighbors.

For the folks that have tuned into my little side show of reality during my other adventures... you know how much I love to build things but aside from this shoddy deck that has my writing tent on it... I do not want to build anything here. Honestly, I do not even want to be here and am kicking myself in the ass for getting my own hopes up about the place.

That said, in the end I will probably build a fence of some sort because I have already seen two big dogs walk across the property... and one that walked right through my camp! For now I have the temporary dog yard setup for my dogs (with a tent in it) but I can already tell that they are getting bored with being in there... and are like "Where the fuck did our six thousand square foot dog yard and climate controlled cabin go!"

There have been a few bright sides to things... like a fella down the road giving me around a thousand sweet corn seed that I immediately planted to create some privacy if it grows... and also getting fifty flower pots dropped off (today actually) to plant black locust seeds in. I think that as far as the latter goes I used all but six of the pots today... and was able to harvest all my soil from the bottom of the massive gulches that traverse three quarters of the property.

Another kind of cool thing is that of my first six pilot holes that I dug (on day two and three) looking for spring water... one of them had water in it after it rained. I am still unsure what is going on with it... but it seems to be a wet weather spring (or maybe a very slow seep) and although I have been slowly developing it over the last few weeks... it is going to take a heck of a lot of work (and a massive amount of luck) to turn it into a viable source of water.

Okay, the sun is beginning to crest over the horizon... and although I really did plan to spell a lot more things out here... I am going to just have to call it good enough and get on with the editing and posting. I am going to try to get back into making daily entries... but am really unsure on how that will work out because of a whole slew of factors that I best not get into at the moment.

I sincerely hope that everyone is doing well. I am hanging in there by a fingernail... but at least I made it this far! Ta ta for now.

My dodgy deck and writing tent!

My quick and dirty rainwater catchment system!

My camp in the woods!

The wee bit of water that I hope to turn into a functioning spring!

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Cheers! & Hive On!

All content found in this post is mine!