Apocalyptic Homesteading (Day 1057)
Hello Everyone!
A morning hike, Burning the burnables, Black locust musings, Planting potatoes & Domestic tranquility!
I never wrote anything today and it is now about an hour and a half after sunset... so I best get to work here if I am going to stay in my nightly posting routine. Having awoken from a nearly four hour long nap just before dark I am feeling wide awake... so I at least will not have to struggle against the fatigue to spell out my ponderous (or not-so-ponderous) thoughts. The day is a bit of a blur because I rested quite deeply during that nap but I will see what all I can summarize here.
Early this morning I went on a brief hike instead of doing any writing and immediately dove into turning the rest of that partially burnt debris in the fire pit into ash once I returned from the hike. Thankfully the conditions remained favorable for a fire until late in the afternoon when the winds picked up but by then the fire had already died down and I had already extinguished it with a garden hose. In other words, I was able to get everything burned 'just in time' before the conditions to do so safely rapidly deteriorated.
Since the fire pit is now completely full of wet ash and low grade biochar... I am going to have to clean it all out and will probably bury it somewhere so the nails can safely rust away... below the surface of the earth... where no critters can get hurt by them. Most likely I will be mixing all those burnt debris with some soil from the topsoil trap and use it for tree planting purposes... which seems like a good use for it!
At some point I really do need to get my larger black locust trees (they are actually saplings) planted in the ground... because the flower pot they are in does not have quite enough soil in it to protect their roots during the colder months. I am unsure if I will attempt directly planting any of the smaller trees in the ground quite yet... but those two large ones have definitely reached their limit of time spent in a container.
They are not exactly tall enough to keep the deer from devouring them because they can still be easily pushed (bent) over by them... so I will need to either put a small fence around them somewhere... or plant them in the dog yard. I actually really like the latter idea but the area is already quite cramped by vegetation and the few places that are sunny enough... and not too close to the buildings... would lead to the trees casting shade on the solar panels once they get installed.
I am sure that I will figure something out for those trees because 'to date' they are the largest ones that I have grown in all my years of fumbling about learning to grow them. I know that I mentioned how I liked their genetics a lot given that they have rather straight trunks and minimal lower branches... but I did not note how their arrangement of thorns is very minor and are barely noticeable (only at the top of the tree) even with the trees both approaching three meters high!
The thorns themselves have never been a big 'turn off' for me with those kinds of trees because I have mainly only ever used larger ones who had lost their thorns with age... and pretty much just focused on them as building material... but now since I am considering uses for both timber and fodder... I have been thinking about how the thorns might effect the fodder aspect of things.
As far as that last bit goes there is definitely a 'sweet spot' when the tree is still very small and although it will have lots of leaves... it will not have formed thorns yet... and that may well be the best time to harvest them for fodder. The trick would be catching them in that time frame and finding the balance between when they have enough roots to grow back from and enough leaves to make the harvesting worthwhile.
On a similar note about the trees, I finally went and checked on those seeds that I planted as replacements for the trees that got eaten when I failed to secure the garden gate several months ago. All total I got five new ones now that are all bout a hand's length tall which is not quite large enough to survive the winter so I am hoping they put on a lot more growth before it gets here. I may have to get them into a sunnier area to help foster said growth but once again such fenced areas are 'at a premium' currently.
I had actually kind of forgot about having planted those seeds and only went in that garden today to plant a few potatoes. It is really late in the year to be planting them but I had a few store bought ones that had shot out a bunch of roots and started to have a foul smell to them... so I figured that planting them would not be all that bad of a thing versus say feeding them to the dogs or chickens. Although I briefly considered planting them in one of the compost mounds I liked the idea of keeping them in flower pots so that I could easily harvest the potatoes come spring... if there are any!
Anyways, I wound up doing a bunch of other odds and ends things throughout the day and once again spent a lot of time just sitting with my old dog between doing the various tasks. She is still improving so that is good but in a lot of ways I can just tell that her age is catching up to her and there is only so much time left that I will have to spend with her. Like I was saying a few days ago I have not let my heart be filled with sadness over it all... but that said... my heart has absolutely been heavy over it... which yeah I am also okay with.
Well, I guess that I should get to wrapping this entry up so that I can tinker around with that coding project again before it gets too late in the evening. All of that stuff has been going rather well when I can find time to focus on it... which is not as often as I would like now that I have been getting back into my more physically active routines.
Overall, I have been enjoying doing things at a slow and steady pace each day but whoa has it been taking quite the physical toll on me as I get back into the swing of doing things outdoors! It is actually why I took such a long nap today and did not try to push myself to squeeze in another three or four hours of work while the daylight held. So far I have managed to not over do it during this transitional time... and I hit a point this afternoon where I was like: Okay man, you have done well all week... take the rest of the frigging day off and let your body heal some!
Alright, on that note I am going to call this entry 'good enough' and get on with the rest of my evening. I hope that everyone is doing well and has a nice day/night.
https://peakd.com/c/hive-114308/created
sometimes your ramblings are poetry
in the morning, a hike
the burnables burnt
the locusts muse
the potatoes are planted
all is tranquil
As intended! 🤠
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Her face really shows her age and she looks soulful. It always makes me feel good when I watch a tree grow that I planted from seed. I have 5 avocado trees that came up in our compost pile that I dug up and planted in big pots, the 2 oldest ones are 5 or 6 feet tall. I have the same problem, where am I going to plant them?
!ALIVE
Yeah, that seems to always be the case of planting things... finding somewhere to put them! There are actually several acres that get good sun here but the deer would wipe them out without some stout fencing. I like having them around and all but whoa they eat everything!
I love deer meat, but I would be pissed if they ate my plants.
They have quite the appetite!
Me, too. lol