Adventures In Homesteading (Day 31)

5 months ago

Hello Everyone!

Waking in the middle of the night, Dodging the disappointment, Extending a berm, Water thoughts & Not bothering to gold leaf a turd!

Alright, I have put off doing the writing as long as I can today... and it is now a mere few hours away from sunset... and me running out of energy for the day. I undoubtedly could have started earlier than I did... but every time that I think of having to do anything with the internet (which I will need to do once I finish writing) makes me cringe at this stage of things.

It is such a horrible scenario with my internet connectivity now that my cellular repeater died (and having my bandwidth throttled) that it is making me more than a little crazy. Like I was saying yesterday, it is such a frigging hassle to do anything online... even if it is the simplest of things like checking the weather... or trying to find a pre-owned replacement repeater from an online retailer!

Anyways, last night I could not wait for the sun to set... and went to bed a good while before it had crested over the western horizon. At least I slept well aside from waking in the middle of the night... with my stomach aching and having to scramble to go to the bathroom before I crapped my pants... which yup was as unpleasant of a way to wake in the middle of the night as it sounds.

This morning my stomach was still feeling queasy... but I dove right into working on stuff in the hopes that moving around (and profusely sweating) might help me to feel better. Whether my strategy worked or not is debatable... because my stomach continued to bother me throughout the day... and although I did do a heck of a lot of sweating... I dunno if it actually helped.

Given that my mind is not in the greatest shape at the moment... my morale is total trash... my diet is awful... I am feeling incredibly stressed... and my anxiety is in a heightened state due to no privacy and bad neighbors... it is a total wonder how I keep plugging along each day. As a side note, I am so glad that I did not let myself get to pumped up about this place before moving here... because I think that the disappointment would have crushed me by now.

Instead I have begun to embrace the place like the 'turd' that it is... and while I still do not want to build anything here... and am very unsure on whether I even want to live here... it is a place that could use my assistance as a land steward. In other words, there are plenty of things that I can do for the place itself... without crossing the line into 'gold leafing a turd' or wasting resources on a place that I do not really want to be at.

My big project today was to work on that spring site that I mentioned in my last entry... so that I could see just what I am in for when it comes to forming that pool that I was wanting to create. The pool creation actually wound up taking a backseat for the day... because I realized that... if I extended the berm that I have been building near it... that I could maybe get a lot more surface water (runoff) flowing into that area.

Basically, what I am attempting to do with the new berm is to interrupt several shallow gulches where surface water already flows... and get them rerouted into the spring site. There are I think three such shallow gulches that previously flowed from the driveway, through a wee bit of woods (where my writing and storage tents are) before running across a small finger of land (that has gulches on three sides) and dumping into those gulches further downhill.

If it sounds like a mess... it is... because it absolutely is... and in all my years of doing water management at places this one presents more challenges in one tiny area than many places did in their entirety. The real kicker is there is not a single damned drop of water to be found anywhere on the site... so all the impact I am seeing is from rain and/or snow melt.

At this point I have dug in enough places to know that there are no active springs here... and the water that is here is way further underground than what I feel comfortable digging for. To be blunt, I could absolutely dig a vertical shaft... and probably hit water at three to ten meters down (if I found an opening in the bedrock) but then I would have a giant hole in the ground... that I would have to somehow secure against things falling into so that it is not a major hazard and liability.

On a similar note, my rainwater catchment is still not doing all that great... and if it was not being used as a visual block between my camp and the road... I would probably be looking at moving it into an area without any trees. It is not just that the trees are blocking the rain from hitting the tarp... but also that I am getting way too many tannins in the water from all the leaves and cedar needles.

For now I am just going to have to keep filling water jugs at that nearby spring... and continue rationing it the best that I can each day to make it last. I would love to continue exploring the bulk water delivery option that I previously mentioned... but at the moment I have way too many other things that my limited funds need to go towards.

Well, I think that I am going to call this entry good enough... and get on with the editing and posting. If I am truly lucky then doing the latter will only take me around an hour to complete... due to my dodgy internet connectivity! I hope that everyone is doing well. Until another time... ta ta for now.