Apocalyptic Homesteading (Day 1056)

Hello Everyone!

Not-so-pesky special weather statements, Drums and horns, Cleaning lumber & Making a wooden border!

I dunno why (or even how) I am up this early but I at least got five hours of sleep last night instead of the three to four hours that I have been getting lately. Even though I wrapped up working on that coding project rather early in the evening... I still could not fall asleep until nearly two in the morning.

More than likely I will be squeezing in some napping time today but for now I am awake enough to enjoy what remains of the time before sunrise and hopefully get a good bit written here. Failing that I will probably shift gears and get some more done on that same coding project that seems to be occupying so much of my brain power lately.

My plans for the day's activities may have to get adjusted because apparently there is a 'special weather statement' about increased fire danger throughout the day as a mass of colder dry air moves into the area. I swear that being in the habit of checking the local weather each morning is a routine that has yet to disappoint me and probably saved me numerous 'headaches' over the years. Not that I exactly need the 'warning' about the fire danger (since I only burn stuff when the conditions are favorable) but it is good to know about the drier air... which is harder to detect than say a bunch of high winds.

Alright, it is now a while after sunset and I best try to get this entry completed before time slips by and I fall fast asleep! I am unsure if I even have it in me to spell out all the day's activities so I may well have to focus on the ones that I can manage to spell out in a simple manner. I brewed some espresso to help fortify me so we will so how it goes.

First off I should maybe backtrack to last night when I had turned the music off and stood listening to the silence... like I am wont to do after listening to hours and hours of music on end. I clearly had this thought (just before I got too chilly to stand comfortably in the cool night air any longer) that it would be nice at some point if I heard music coming from somewhere else and what a shame it was that there was not more music lovers around.

Having that thought is nothing new to me and I often think it in the moments when I am 'listening to the silence' but it is never a big deal or anything and more or less is something I shrug off as par for the course. Well, this morning as I was getting setup to have some coffee on the deck with my aging dog... and I hear a drum not all that far away. For a moment there I thought I was frigging hearing things so I decided a morning hike would do me good... and walked towards the sound.

By the time I began to get even remotely close to the sound... I figured out that yup it was a real drum (or maybe two) and then horns joined in... and whoa it was a whole frigging band practicing off in the distance. I listened for a good long time actually and could tell that they were practicing a bunch of various tunes and some of them were even familiar ones.

Not to muddy the water here too much but hearing that music was frigging epic and it was like something in me 'woke up' that I had not realized how much I had missed during its long slumber. Playing my fun mixtapes versus the sounds of live well coordinated drums and horns... is not even a comparison as far as how such music makes me feel. In short it was good stuff and I hope that it happens again because I could really get used to listening to that as background music while I work!

Anyways, I did not lurk in the woods (or go venture closer to the music) but I did let it reach a lull before I headed back to the coffee and could spend some time sitting in the sun with my old dog. It is worth noting that she seems to be doing better and is rather content to lay around on the deck until the sun comes out super bright and then she wants to head to her usual spot under the deck.

Since the deck itself is not the best location for a dog having the kind of challenges she is I took the time to build a wooden border around the area she likes to lay in. That way if she gets up and wobbles she will not topple off the deck or roll off of it while sleeping. It also makes it so that her water and food bowl will not get pushed off the deck... so all things considered I think it was well worth the time that I put into doing it for her.

Getting the lumber cleaned was the most challenging part because I pulled it from that stack near the shop tent where I keep having to eradicate the vermin from. It was some rather foul stuff so I used my broom with the synthetic bristles and multiple small buckets of bleach water to scrub all sides, edges and ends of the lumber... then rinsed it all off with a high pressure hose... then scrubbed it with the broom again... then rinsed it... then called it done after pouring the used bleach water over it all and rinsing it off one more time... just for good measure!

I even considered painting the lumber but decided to skip it for now because I would never get everything painted, dried and constructed into a border by the time the sun went down. Most likely I will be painting it over the coming days when I have another painting project that I have scheduled for myself to be working on. With all this cool dry air it is almost perfect painting weather so I may well wind up tackling numerous such projects before the rainy weather moves in again.

On a different note. While walking one of the dogs earlier I spotted what looks like maybe some 'chicken of the woods' mushrooms growing on the west side of an oak tree just over head height up the trunk. I am not absolutely sure it is the mushroom that I think that it is because it has a good bit of road dust on it making the coloring hard to determine... but it looks promising and I even remembered to go back there later and take some pictures!

I did a bunch of other chores today but mainly focused my efforts on finishing some laundry that I started yesterday and washing all my socks. As far as that last bit goes... they are the frigging worst as far as 'things to hand wash' go and although I have done it for enough years not to complain about it... it is always a process (to say the least) to get them fully clean. I kind of hope that it rains soon and spares me having to do the second wash and I can skip straight to the third wash... which is usually what it takes to get them fully 'clean'... or close enough to it for me. Like I am fond of saying: I aim for the laundry to be 'sterilized' and if it gets 'clean' in the process that is okay too!

Okay, I best wrap this entry up and get on with the editing and posting phase of my evening. I hope that everyone is doing well and has a nice day/night.