Hello Everyone!

A wonky writing schedule, Waking early, Land best left alone, A quick privacy fence, Making kindling & Sticks have so many uses!

Alright, I missed my writing window earlier in the day... because I took a nap that I was really loathe to wake up from. It now being the very end of the day (with a mere hour and a half of daylight left) puts a bit of pressure on me to spell things out... but it sure beats trying to do it at night when I need a flashlight to see the keyboard.

My sleep schedule has been remaining the same... and I keep finding myself hard pressed to keep my eyes open after the sun sets over the horizon. I am also still waking long before dawn each day... but not truly rousing myself from bed until a few moments before sunrise or shortly thereafter... which is fine by me because doing anything earlier in the day (in the dark) seems like more hassle than it is worth.

Perhaps one day I will feel more motivated when I wake that early... but for now I am kind of like 'ugh' every time that I wake up. Which seems to be my overall sentiment about nearly everything at the moment... and especially anything to do with this place.

I know that I should be 'making the best of it' and honestly I am doing just that... but given the constant traffic, the lack of privacy and all the other malarkey (with bad neighbors and such) it has become really challenging to feel enthusiastic about my endeavors here. Sure, it is cool that there is good soil... and that my black locust trees will grow well here... but I was hoping to be able to create a home... and do more than simply setting the place up for farming.

As much as I have crawled (hiked) all over this place... I have yet to find anywhere that would offer even the illusion of privacy... unless I built something underground. Which admittedly would be really tricky to do without back-filling a bunch of gulches... and forcing the water that sheds into them to go elsewhere.

In other words the bulk of the terrain is not exactly ideal for doing nearly anything with... besides leaving it as is. On the other hand, it might be worth it to continue on with my permaculture endeavors... in regards to getting the place to retain more water... but given how most of the water has been diverted away from this property (at the road) I am really unsure how worthwhile even that will prove to be in the end.

The thought has of course crossed my mind to get the water flowing back onto this property from the road... but at the moment I do not understand how the surface water flows well enough to feel good about making any alterations to the landscape. Once there are some heavy prolonged rains here... a few times (during which I can hike around looking at stuff) I will have a better idea of what all is going on with the water... but for now it is all a guessing game.

Anyways, early in the day I had an 'aha' moment about how to create a bit of a privacy fence near the driveway where I have some tents setup. Long story short is that I picked through a bunch of brush piled in a gulch... and trimmed up a bunch of the straighter sticks... so that I could lean them against a horizontal pole that I strung up between a few trees.

Overall, it does not provide a heck of a lot of privacy (given that the road is higher than my driveway) but it does make the tents (and stuff) a bit less obvious and less visually jarring to passersbys. The way the sticks are leaned also makes a nice little triangle shaped storage area below them... and I am thinking of stacking up either kindling, firewood or both there to help keep it out of the rain.

I am unsure if I ever explained how several of the gulches here have had a lot of 'tree debris' piled up in them in various spots (mostly at the bases of large tress) in what appears to be an effort to control the erosion. All of which is fine (and a good idea) but some of the piles are in my way... some of the material is useful... and some of it would make great kindling for fires.

So as I was harvesting sticks for my little privacy wall... I also cut up (or broke up) a bunch of the smaller material into kindling... and began a stacking up a few piles of it. I have no idea if I will wind up using the kindling this year or not... but figured that I may as well do what I can with the stuff before it has a chance to start rotting away.

Another good use for that material is for making wooden stakes, poles for gardening... and for use during the construction of dams, berms and water diversions. In short, my efforts today with it all produced quite the nice amount of kindling, gave me lots of material to work with on other projects... and gave me a wee bit of peace of mind towards having some firewood on hand for the winter.

Well, on that note I am going to wrap this entry up... and get on with the editing and posting before the sun sets over the horizon. I hope that everyone is doing well. Ta ta for now.

I have a feeling that I am going to take a lot of pictures of this big hemlock!

One of my larger kindling piles!

My little wall of sticks!

One of the brush piles in a gulch!

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All content found in this post is mine!