Apocalyptic Homesteading (Day 1256)
Hello Everyone!
A pesky old injury, Getting the block count for the shed, Ordering pyrethrin dip & The joys of lugging the wagon around!
Alright, I am running nine minutes behind schedule with my writing routine this evening... which is not all that big of a deal in the not-so-grand scheme of things. Having put off my late day chores until just before sunset... I am kind of surprised that I managed to be as close as I am to being on time.
Last night, I fell asleep relatively early yet again... and although I awoke a few times throughout the night... I more or less got a good night's rest. Hopefully, that keeps happening because I cannot take feeling scatterbrained, overly stressed and fatigued... as I enter the final stretch of the moving process.
Although I kind of wanted to keep sleeping I got up rather early in the morning, let the dogs out and set the espresso to brewing... before diving into my usual Hive engagement routine. Since I had a bunch of correspondences to take care of I quickly embarked upon doing them... before my inclination to avoid doing so could take hold.
Honestly I put off getting outdoors as long as I could today because that old leg injury was throbbing... and I wanted to give it a chance to subside before I agitated it further with a bunch of movement. In hindsight I kind of wish that I had simply taken the day off entirely... because by the end of the day the throbbing only got worse... but I will get to that later in this entry.
Not long after getting outdoors (while I was dealing with the dog waste compost) I got a call from that shed (storage building) company... and it was the actual delivery driver... wanting to know if I had a picture of the flat spot that I had in mind for the shed... and if I could send him the address of the place. Thankfully, I had an image of the flat spot that I could send him that I had marked out where I wanted the shed at... and which way that I want the door facing.
The main questions that I had for the fella was how many blocks that I would need for each of the two shed sizes that I am considering... and also if he could stack it higher than a single block. To be clear here I am using four inch tall (101.6 millimeters) 'cap blocks' instead of using regular cinder blocks... so that I can avoid making nesting places for the rodents.
I also am wanting to stack the blocks at least two high to gain eight inches (203.2 millimeters) of clearance... between the ground and the bottom of the shed... to avoid making a place for snakes to hide. I would really like to go up another block or two to gain even more clearance... but given that they are just cap blocks (that are being dry stacked) I do not want them to become wobbly.
Anyways, at some point in the day I finally bit the proverbial bullet and ordered some concentrated pyrethrin dip... to treat my dog that has the demodex mange. Having tried so many different things (even pyrethrin spray) with no real luck of 'curing' the mange... the concentrate is kind of a 'hail mary' solution which will probably work now that I have dealt with the mattress... and other environmental variables.
It is all kind of crazy but I have been bleeding money trying to get everything sorted out for the move (and getting setup at the new place) but hopefully that is the last damned thing that I will need to order while I am here. Of course, I still have to come up with the funds for the blocks, the shed and the electrician fees... but as I am fond of saying 'we will burn that bridge when we get to it' which yeah is my favorite play on words for the 'we will cross that bridge...' saying.
As an unrelated side note to all of that... my closest friend always gives me shit when I use that phrase (the bridge burning one) but I always laugh it off and remind him that having built a lot of bridges over the years... it almost always requires getting rid of the previous bridge... to make way for the new one. I also just like getting a bit of a knee-jerk reaction over using that phrase in that way... so go figure.
Okay, I have rambled on quite a bit and not gotten to what I actually accomplished today... so I best get to it before the hour grows much later and the fatigue begins catching up to me. Not to get too lost in all the details... I made a trip over to that other tent with the wagon again... and although I did not think that I had made 'too heavy of a load' to haul back without tweaking my old injury... I guess that I was wrong... because by the time that I was a quarter of the way back to the shelter site it was already beginning to ache.
I think that what keeps happening is that there is a small incline that I have to drag the wagon up... and the road being super uneven (from erosion) there... makes it even worse to navigate than it really is. At least that is where I feel the injury begin to ache every time that I make one of those trips... and while there is another route that I can take it really is not much better.
After rinsing most of the stuff off that I hauled over with water... and setting a few things to soak in bleach water... I had to give up on the rest of it (which was just one bucket of metal objects) because by then the ache was so bad that I just had to get the heck off my feet. Even though I was not all that hungry I made myself some sandwiches... so that I could eat some ibuprofen (to reduce the inflammation) without it making my stomach ache.
Having dealt with that old injury for so long now I know that as soon as it begins to hurt... that it is time to stop and immediately do everything that I can to get the inflammation down. Although it is not quite at the 'screaming pain' levels that it can reach (if I am not cautious) it is at the point now where I need to stop hauling stuff with the wagon... be very careful carrying stuff when on an incline... and start eating as much ibuprofen as I can stand to stomach each day.
If I had the luxury of doing so I would undoubtedly stay off my feet for a week or two until it heals up all the way... but doing so at this point would really screw me on my timeline for packing everything down. Lately I have been doing all the easy stuff... but at some point I will need to tackle getting my solar panels off the roof of the solar shack... plus getting everything packed up and moved from the attic in the cabin... which yeah I would prefer to avoid doing all of that with a pesky injury troubling me along the way.
Well, I think that I best wrap this entry up so that I can unwind for the evening. I hope that everyone is doing well. Ta ta for now.
🫣Wow, so many things to consider and plan for the move. Hope the leg injury gets a bit better soon.
Also thanks for the advice and laughs the other day, was too manic and spaced out to thank you back then! 😅🏹👻
Yeah it is a lot to juggle with the move. I hope it heals soon also!
You are always quite welcome! Thankfully my manic days are few and far between these days but I totally know how it goes. 🤠🔫🏹👻☕
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Hey, I'm just thinking about my solar installation. I've already done several for converted vans. But I was wondering how I was going to do it for my tiny. I'll figure it out, I'm not worried about that, but I like to have examples.
How powerful is your solar panel array?
I cannot remember the specs off the top of my head but it is a pretty weak system. I have not had to rely on it at my current location and just have it as a backup in case of a prolonged power outage.
Try to take it easy on your leg, maybe one day of rest wouldn't hurt. Somehow and someway things WILL work out for you.