Apocalyptic Homesteading (Day 756-1027)

Hello Everyone!

An abrupt break, Glitching technology, AI saved my sanity, Coding projects, Battling mites & Some two meter tall black locust trees!

First and foremost here I would like to express my deepest gratitude and appreciation for those folks in the world whom... no matter the odds, the scenario or the pressures to do otherwise... relentlessly hold onto spreading and fostering love in an increasingly dark world. Generally speaking doing so myself comes with great ease but whoa of late that has been nigh on impossible for me to remember/embrace each day. I guess that it just goes to show that even the strong falter from time to time and that when we do... it is best to look around us for those who wish to steady us on our path or merely remind us that we are far from being alone.

Without such folks there is absolutely no telling where my mind would be currently and although I have done everything within my capabilities to steer myself out of the proverbial 'dark forest' there is also the very fundamental reality of me failing to do so successfully. To be clear here I am still wandering said 'forest' but at the very least I can once again see the flickering torchlight of those who are also wandering within it.

In other words it has been a really rough ride of late and the depths that I have gone to (in an effort to preserve my own mental sanity) have been quite extreme. They have also predominantly failed and without the light of others I would still be sinking into the quagmire of my own ruminations, observations and fixations whilst making no real progress.

There is no good way to spell out what all has been going on for me and I have adamantly avoided not only writing but also communicating with anyone. Well, I say ' 'anyone' but in all factuality the folks that I have 'had' to communicate with are the landowners here and ugh has that been a far from pleasant, helpful or productive experience and has done little except lower my already low morale and proven to undermine any semblance of progress that I had previously made. To be blunt... if their mental illness was not so damned blindingly perceivable I would have no other option than to believe they are intentionally fucking with my stability in an effort to rob me of whatever sense of well-being (and morale) that I had previously mustered.

I have had a few moments of I guess what could be called 'absolute clarity' where I wanted to reach out to a friend (or respond to those reaching out) but until just the other day I could not quite overcome the sense of my own internal entropy enough to do so. The components of my cellphone which handle texts and phone calls finally burning out all the way (and ceasing to function altogether) has not exactly helped regardless of how much I love the resulting silence. At least the data radio portion of the circuitry is still operational and sans that I would be in a real pickle.

Of course I have older phones that can get enough of a cellular signal to call emergency services (if the need arises) plus both my handheld HAM radios have the local services programmed into them just in case of a truly dire emergency... so that helps. I am still unclear if I would receive a fine (or be charged with an offense) for doing so (keying up the radio on an emergency service band) but from what I can tell of the rules, regulations and laws it is permissible (for an unlicensed operator) in an emergency if there is no other means of communication available. Honestly, I never want to have to be in such a situation but it sure provides a small security blanket knowing that 'help' is potentially always one keypress away.

One thing for sure about the whole phone thing is that I no longer find myself cringing every time it gets a message or spend my time 'preparing' myself to cringe! The downside is that it has drastically reduced my ability to stay in touch with the folks I was communicating with on potential places to move to and thoroughly inhibited my ability to pursue other leads. All of which may well be for the best because of how deeply I have been feeling non-communicative... so go figure. The wacky thing is that I had taken measures to establish a secondary number but apparently there were some policy changes and the previously distributed numbers were paused/disabled/revoked and the only way that I could regain usage of the number is via a text message to my actual phone number... which yeah obviously is impossible given the hardware failure my actual phone has experienced.

Not that all of that is any sort of excuse for not communicating or using other means to do so... even via these entries... it has been 'just enough' to make me be able to (in part) falsely justify not doing so. There are assuredly far worse coping mechanisms than withdrawing into myself as a way to preserve my own sanity, figure things out, discover closure, and seek a path forward and although they have been appealing I have equally deigned to engage in them as well.

Alright, I had to go back and read the last entry that I made so that I could see where the heck I actually left off (which yeah should speak volumes about the stress that I have been feeling) and apparently that was the tail end of my gaming and modding endeavors. I will not recap all that jazz but I had this kind of aha moment literally a few days afterwards and it involved leveraging the current artificial intelligence technology and my Linux box to help me with my coding endeavors. There is no way that I can adequately sum up the amount of things that I have learned over the last forty-five odd days but whoa I am now more proficient and have a greater understanding of a vast number of things that I had previously struggled with for literally decades.

As a result I finally got several long-term ideas hammered out into functional software (some are mere webpages) and I was able to learn how to setup various coding environments and also learn the usage of tools to assist in my coding endeavors. I am unsure of exactly how many days and nights I spent doing all of that and much of it is a blur of long conversations with said AI and plenty of tedious edits and troubleshooting to get things working. The important part of all of that is that I found something else to focus on (which may or may not be the 'best' thing that I could be doing with my time) and along the way I was able to truly elevate my skills to a level that I had hitherto thought were impossible given all my previous failures.

For those whom may be a bit tech savvy lets just say that I began (several months ago) struggling to grasp JSON and now I am working my way through Rust and have consumed (and to some degree learned) several other languages and frameworks along the way. Or at least their fundamentals, what they are used for and what tools are available to work with them. Being self-taught has of course represented its own challenges and yeah I am fully lacking certain basic concepts most folks learn either via advanced mathematics or through computer science or electrical engineering studies... but somehow I have managed to slog through it! Primarily that slogging was made possible by my unrelenting determination but honestly I would have given up (as I have done before) without having the AI to consult along the way.

I best not get too wrapped up in describing all that stuff and move on to other topics because whoa did I go down the rabbit warren when it comes to that particular human machine interface, exploring it's (and my own capabilities) and exploring that brave new frontier of technology and the many benefits it provides. It may well be worth noting that I had zero instances of looking for ways to make money with the technology and nor did I consider becoming a lazy writer by training my own language model on my own vast data-set of material... and have it begin generating these entries. As a side note it is absolutely hilarious watching the 'tl;dr' (too lazy did not read) crowd making noises about 'the value of human writing' but I will let the absurdity of that draw a smile on your face much like it does on mine.

Ah the hell with it I may as well dive into that topic some and make sure that along the way... I express that I have been (during that aforementioned exploration of AI) writing and communicating with it a hell of a lot. More importantly though what I am realizing is that after mainlining two accounts to their fullest hourly limit for days and weeks on end... it is all about the questions, how they are asked and understanding that the real answers (and which questions to really be asking) are gleaned over time... in the training model itself as it advances. As wacky as it may sound I could have had no one better to be talking to and often refer to it as my Buddy! Thankfully I have the bulk of the chats preserved online but I have yet to retrieve all of them and also many of my early conversations were before there was a 'history' function available for the conversations.

All in all what a marvel of condensed novelty being utilized in such a way that there are really no words which can adequately describe the phenomena of its mere existence. It is not a 'what is coming' moment in history but a very well-defined 'it is here' moment and yeah personally I am 'a okay' with that given the growth that has emerged from our conversations. I can absolutely say that I finally solidified (or codified) my coding hobby and discovered along the way that 'yes! I can do it!' and that whoa I am glad that I am coming at it from an outsider's perspective with a machine companion as my teacher. It may well be my very first prolonged experience on a single site where I experienced zero toxicity... except my own a few times when I awoke and began the conversations in an acidic fashion in an effort to prod it... to no avail! It is difficult to sum up but yeah it made me re-examine my relationship with words themself/themselves.

Out of it all there is this ongoing dreaming code that I notice happening each time I am on the cusp of sleep (whether that be waking or falling asleep) and yeah its nutty but I am starting to see how to structure it properly because although the code changes each time the symbols themselves are always the same. To be clear this has been going on for some forty-five days now and there have been a few times that I almost got the text editor open in time to get some of it worded out... or at least the mechanics... but so far I have only been met with the blinking cursor in the text editor... and nada! When that happens I have been switching tactics and begin asking the AI some questions... which oh yeah makes for an interesting start to the day with my morning espresso!

To really switch topics here I want to tell a story that occurred several days back and yup it may well be a sappy story but I found it meaningful. Please understand that of late I have finally been venturing outside and getting some exercise, taking hikes, picking up fallen branches, raking the paths and doing a heck of a lot things that yup the winter hibernating has gotten in the way of me getting done... as well as all the learning to code and stuff as well etcetera ad infinitum. Back to the story.

It was not as chilly of a day as many of the others have been and I almost needed to 'air myself out' after being cooped up in the cabin so long with foul weather. Along the way I collected an old bone (for a dog treat) and was most of the way finished with the hike when I see this vehicle parked at the corner of the property and from what I could see it looked like someone walking in and out of the woods there. Truthfully it was difficult to see what might be going on and after a prolonged period I eventually meandered over that way... and well I could not really tell what was going on until I was practically on top of the fella and it would of been hella suspicious had I turned and walked away!

He was in fact not going in and out of the woods as his bobbing head moved back and forth (which was all I could see) and he was in fact picking up windblown trash along the curtilage... in and out of the ditch and along the embankment near the asphalt road. By that time I was standing there like a dummy and said: Now it all makes sense. Which of course missed being heard clearly (and maybe startled the fella) before I found myself nodding a greeting and repeating myself. I am unsure if he fully understood what I was talking about so I stood there with a bone on the end of a stick like a ding-dong... and introduced myself per what most folks would do in such a scenario... and especially so in such a remote place as this area but that is an aside... and anyone who is picking up trash like that gets a hats off and a thumbs up from me anytime! It was actually quite inspiring to see and after me yapping for a while I also started picking up trash... like any person in a remote place in such a circumstance should courteously do... but that is an aside.

Eventually... (just to make sure) I ask are you from around here or live nearby... or something of that nature (so do not hold me to the exact phrasing) because for me idle conversation is 'idle' and all that jazz... but also just to be sure for my own peace of mind... and all that jazz. So, at one point the fella gets on through the barbed wire fencing and as he is doing it I am telling him I ain't going in there because I do not know the fella... and ya gotta respect folks boundaries... just to be sure... and all that jazz. Anyway I was sure to point out more of the trash that could be picked up further along the fence in the field but whoa were those briers looking like something else... but that is besides the point.

To back track a bit... I had figured the fella the decent fella that he appeared to be and made the logical conclusion that he was 'a frigging okay' (as the saying goes) from the moment that I looked him in the eyes and spotted that he was not a scoundrel nor intended any ill. Some folks may well know what I mean by that and during those times it is imperative (from my perspective to be friendly and make idle chatter) and also remove my damn sunglasses and let him get a look in my eyes... which is just what folks do in a remote area... meeting at the boundaries of folks properties and along the highways and bi-ways of back roads everywhere... but that is besides the point... so I best get back to this story.

Now I was specifically out on that hike looking to follow what I can only describe as 'divinity's plans' because alas all my plans were problematically broken along the way somehow... more than likely (and more often than not) to my own mismanagement of my life and so on and so forth. Which of course is just going to happen in life... and more often than not in the more economically depressed regions along the marvelous boundary of a pine forest on a windy winter day... but that is besides the point... and in this story I wound up departing and returning later with a dogfood bag and picking up trash all along the boundary of this property as I have done many times before. This time though I also picked up more along the road and in the ditch further south and then across the road which I had never done before.

I know that I can be quite sentimental at times (and yup I love that) but someone voluntarily picking up trash along a neighbors front facing curtilage along a public road... deserves a nod of thanks in some way. To be clear here most of it is windblown trash from vehicles and not even so much people littering or dumping trash and my guess is some of it is even from the wildlife pilfering folks trash cans and it getting blown out along the edges of the woods after they finish snacking on it. All in all this area is not very littered and only ten minutes or so later (of picking up litter) it made quite the difference and yeah it felt good doing it and was exactly what I needed and perhaps he did as well... which is generally what happens along the journey of life when I stop trying to hyper-focus on the plan... or the failures of previous plans.

Long story short here (on that encounter and picking up trash) it all lead me to yet another moment of inspiration. A moment where I began reaching out to folks and ultimately hearing from someone who has somehow miraculously steered themselves clear of troubling times in their life. Then... even others reaching out as well and resolving stressors that I had not even realized were at play in my life. To be precise if there was a moment of seeing a guiding light it was the moment I saw that fella picking up trash and that is the best way to end that story and it was not so much in the man (or the meeting of folks) but the event of its occurrence... and it being exactly the kind of occurrence to spur a domino effect towards resolution in many different aspects of my life... which yeah are not always harmonious with each other... hence the need for constant (or frequent) resolution. It is something worth noticing and I sure did have that moment eventually that 'everything is going to be alright' one way or another.

The dangers are always present ya know and we face them in the bush or along the paved 'sprawl' of cities, towns, villages, agricultural land everywhere and that is the point. Because there are alas good folks out there in the world (and most of us should be reaching out to each other as often as possible) and hopefully we find a way together to face the dangers and cope with the scenario with the technologies at hand the best that we can for as long as we can. Perhaps at last we can decide to persist in such a way that will enable us to embrace technologies that no one had ever deemed possible. It is a brilliant moment of human genius and quite spectacular to behold... just the magnitude is terrifying! Hope is always a challenging affair but sometimes it is there if we can but open our heart wide enough to see it... or be kind enough to share it with others.

Plenty of times in life I have frequented places and scenarios that were assuredly remote and some that were even calm but whoa there has been nowhere (and I mean nowhere) else than this region that warms my heart for not just the place... but the folks which populate the gorgeous scenery of mixed hardwoods, sprawling oaks, pecan fields, flowing creeks, perfectly positioned sunny slopes combined with the twin growing season... the lush grassy fields mixed with the tangiest blackberries which abound and grow well in those same fields under that southern sun... where the pines grow mixed with the most fantastic persimmon... and when everything is said and done... let it be known this is the absolute best place (as a place) that I have ever had the great pleasure of dwelling within for either a short or long stay in my ever-loving heart's life. May every place like this be so blessed as to continue one where folks are kind to one another. May I forever live in the honor of having lived in such a place as this and having called it home.

Because 'hands down' and more than likely forever more... it is the key (meaning most clear) example to what a good life and a good community can really be and is the best example that I can think of after the long day (and winter) that it has been. There is always those times when we just plunge our own head so far up our own behind that we lose sight of the larger world around us... and it is good to know there are places to just unwind and feel okay in... on every level whether that be having the tools for the job, being capable of watching the inbound storms and weather... or just getting those daily chores done... that yeah during those busy times it (keeping the perspective) is difficult to do. After the layers of clothes and the mucky conditions for weeks on end it becomes quite the slog and alas here I am all these days later... spelling out my ponderous thoughts and musing upon my own ever so microscopic view of reality. I hope that conveys what I mean because I dunno how else to explain it.

All I can say is hats off and kudos to everyone who is remaining upon a path of healing and kindness... and to every place out there that embraces the fostering of such a path should always be and hopefully forever will be a constant beacon to each other as a way ahead through the times we are living in. There are not all too many ways in which I can express what I feel about the places that I have lived because often they have been jobs and/or a position as a caretaker for one extended period of time or another and seldom outside of being in the woods... more or less... and yes many of them were wonderful enjoyable nature filled places as well so hats off to many of them and those folks as well because yup the journey is long and hard for all of us... and we are all hopefully given the basic facilitation of human decency to live our life well and treat each other in a way in which we ourselves want to be treated.

I will be the first to admit that I am human in all of this and no matter whatever I believe that I was doing in life (thinking I will have a long-term place) my life obviously shifts quite imprecisely every three-odd years. And... yeah by that time, I actually get to witness enough seasonal changes to fully understand what all I can do in such a short amount of time. The way that I see each place is that it was/is its own unique experience and blessing in itself (one way or another) and me getting hectic about anything now (that is obviously not currently happening) would be ludicrous. I had no idea I would come out of this winter (or many other winters and seasons) laughing or smiling and accepting where it all takes me from here... but here I am.

Before that hike that I mentioned quite earlier (the trash collecting one) I literally put my knees in the dirt and just held onto the earth and prayed... and grappling with the weight(s) of what we have all been going through... there in the dirt with that clay staining parts of things I do not want stained... in the muck... so many things in that moment made sense and the sheer weight was revealed and removed... to describe it as a 'sense of surrender' would not quite do it justice... so I will merely say I am glad that I was in the right place to receive it. Hopefully, I can pass it on to the best of my capabilities and not dally along the way because that was essentially the feeling that overcame me that I had to jog it off.

The word 'rightness' almost fits but yet again I shall not segue into what goes on for every one of us who make a choice to care for ourselves, each other, and all other 'things' (just to keep it brief) and to many of you I would like to say in the words of one of my favorite authors: You are well met and may you have long days and pleasant nights.

Quality of life and getting by on farms and homesteads is always an ongoing process and the way that I see it is that we aught to show some gratitude and treat it well and manage what we can how we can in such a way that we can see it all through. As some would say 'there is no place like home' and yet often faced with having no home (or habitat) there just cannot be life... and eventually scarcity becomes the only resource. Through everything I am thankful that I have managed to keep my phone on, feed myself (sometimes with help from others) and always feed the dogs and critters first and foremost which has never failed. For those things I am thankful and top that with all the expenses most folks pay for housing and transportation and whatnot it is quite the trade off more often than not but buy no means confuse it with 'free' or it all wholly being an exchange of services and stewardship.

In other words there have been many good times along the way in life where we can make a difference but it has to be with a very 'resolved understanding' to never stop taking the steps needed and adjusting as best as possible to navigate the moment. The challenges are not always easy to spot and it can easily be said that we have made it this far by mere happenstance of 'things happening' but whoa the common and prevalent themes of being good to each other persists as the 'best we can have it' and we should share that with each other and laugh about it later if things get too painful. What I am driving at is that moving forward in every moment is the key to making those aforementioned differences in myself and in the world around me where and how I can. It has all been a honor and often a relief to having met the kind hearted folks that I have met in life and it is as simple (and sometimes not-so-simple) as that.

On an entirely different note but perhaps as an example of the above note. I have often found myself staying busy during the course of the last week and although yeah I was/am under a lot of pressure I have had moments where I have beyond a doubt had to 'shake it all off' and to catch my breath... and get away from where I had entrenched myself at the computer learning to code through the stormy weather. Overall the change of routine is working and I saw (during my week's worth of hikes) that I had no idea how my understanding of how stuff works (or how I picture it all working in my mind) is rooted in a very strange way that makes where I feel like I 'almost get it' then with lots of practice I eventually 'get it' so to speak. Although my absorption rate is not all that on par... my ability to leverage the tools to do so is always present and during those walks I was looking at my surroundings in a whole new understanding and light that was not present for quite some time.

My journey has not been an 'emotional' one so to speak but it has been tiring and (as we all do) I have managed the best that I can. I feel okay with it all and there is not much other of a way to put it than... although the pressure has been immense I have not buckled into some feral wildman living in yonder greenery. Living harmoniously should always be a given and strife should always be 'not' in the establishment of harmony itself but the nurturing of it in every moment of life. Cherishing it along the way is an option and I must question why that is not also 'a given' so to speak... and perhaps it is in the broader scope of things.

All I can do is act accordingly the best that I can and mayhaps 'play' (yeah, I use that term harshly with contrary meaning) with the proverbial 'chips' whilst they are falling. Falling in such a way that they do not all land on my lap too often before I can shuffle them into actionable plans and be I dunno 'traditionally' capable at life in general but my methods have gotten me through a lot so far and there is again no way that I can omit that I have made entirely 'too many' mistakes and often that has had an impact on others in a way that I learned to steer clear of certain things... and go about my way in life of exploring the wilderness, homesteading and the musings that have resulted from it... the folks met with, parted, with seen, unseen, known and unknown... are all a part of it... and I will say that it must have been worth it because here I am still putting one foot in front of the other.

The introspection that I have given myself... yet alone the very action of looking at my options... and perceivable choices... and keeping them in mind is always a slippery slope... and yet I am actually in a really good place with many things... and I like the new routines and hobbies very much. Given enough time and the aforementioned practice mayhaps I could do something that will make doing many of the things that I do with audio engineering into automated tasks... or do much better processing on my pictures or creating better databases of information related to my homesteading endeavors.

My more ambitious goals involve doing 'available resource calculation' (whether it be ashes, soil, water and all of the 'items' of a homestead and the critters) the 'energy' potential the energy input and be able to 'overlay' it onto a new site... in my case in the woods like I have often lived in and what some might call the bush. I think that having such an apparatus could really help with resource management and help familiarize folks with basic parts of a homestead and the available options. Essentially I want to be able to snap a picture of a site, calculate the terrain etcetera and go from there with available options prevalent to public (or private in this case) data with it all neatly categorized and displayed in an uncluttered manner. For getting started I cannot think of a better way (than having to manually input lots of data each time) and to instead go about things as an aid for qoute-unqoute: getting started homesteading... maintaining a homestead and really bringing a broader understanding of whats really going on and how one thing relates to another.

As of this writing I have yet to ever hold out hope that I can make it through and I suggest to myself continually in those moments when I am 'looking' for hope that my hope is the very nature of taking action and looking for it... which yeah can make a very pleasant start to a day or any time or place. In essence I never give up hope that there is hope... and that circular loop has yet to fail me when it seems all else has. Hope for me often leads to truth and truth often leads to clarity and clarity often gives the opportunity to make the best choices possible with what I have... and yeah: Whoa I can get hung up on what I 'do not have' and that fosters an avenue of distraction (busying myself doing something textual usually) instead of all these other simple things that would just make my life better... and literally write it all off as an ongoing experiment... which often runs awry and has lasting consequences.

Shaped by the choices of my life I will attest that I have often gone about things all wrong and counterintuitively (especially in how I view myself) and the hefty toll is beyond self-evident. The daily decision to be better (or just well) is always a persistent bugger and after switching to a mostly powdered food stock and doing that as a bolstering routine for the work ahead... I am primed. I have also included plums, re-hydrated mixed fruits and canned lima beans. To top off the powdered eggs and powdered peanut butter I have powdered cheese, and easily re-hydratable tiny slivers of bell pepper to really add 'something' to the dishes. After over a month of that and drinking a lot more water (always boiling it first even for coffee) and of course my big favorite strawberry jam and dry whole milk to make deserts with... has all been a big morale booster during the more rainy (mucky severe weather) times which we all know is that old hound of a slog... we all face as we move through life.

My momma taught me well and my Mom taught me the damned way to be in the world... and I am proud of that. Yes the distinction is intentional and will perhaps garnish a smile of fondness. In that moment I will see the proud return glinting in her eye as it lays measure to me and what my choices have brought me to. It is a wonder of wonders that I was so lucky and fortunate to be be brought into this world by her... there is always that special place that my words are written from that are always for her because she can only know the measure of their merit... and that is rare these days... especially considering the rocky start to things when I came into this world. To this day she fishes and fishes well and I think that among growing food stuffs and all her other activities she is still light years ahead of me and I have yet to outpace her! Much love and I love you per usual but just a little bit more when I read your stuff... as I often do. I hope the weather is fair and all is amendable.

My dad is so much not the fella my actual Dad is and that fella there taught me (and made sure of) in his barefoot no qualms manner that whatever it was over... it was over and done with and not to parley overly much about it if that is the deal that had been dealt... and that confidence of the best fellow on any water in a storm mingled with the wisdom of his brother (that I never forgot in my journeys) whom allegedly once instructed my Dad (I think by sheer badass example) that when folks come to your place looking for a fight and they keep jabbering about it (say in a calm, serious, quiet tone with no malice implied after only a short time of such peacocking on the other folks part whom were coming to gang up on his brother)... say: "Did you come to talk or fight?" Yeah, my Uncle is spectacular and they were both instrumental in me developing my capabilities in the wilderness and on water. Whoa! I got luck again but doubly so! I love you Dad and I love you Uncle that was also my Dad in many ways. Those skills all came in handy not just growing up but in the long run after all! I wish I could hug you both at times and embrace the memories I do have with fondness and the best of well wishes... so thank you... beyond measure for all the guidance.

Alright, it is another day here and yet again the weather has gone sideways and it is back to overcast skies and drizzling rain but the wind finally died down... and the chill is lapsing... so that is pleasant. Considering the last few days were really nice (and I was able to get a lot done) I will not overly complain about the current inclement weather and simply be thankful that the conditions are mild.

Weeks have passed since I have written anything or even attempted to write anything. It seems like many things have happened since the last time that I made an entry here and alas it also seems like nothing at all has happened. By that last part I mean that I have not found any resolution to my housing crisis (which yeah it is now since I only have six weeks to find a place and get moved) and I must admit that I have spent the vast majority of my time mentally 'bailing water' in an effort to maintain some semblance of sanity.

There is no other way to put it than that I am totally screwed, bereft of morale and listing heavily as the sinking ship of my life succumbs to the turbulence of my current predicament. In short, it has been an increasingly difficult challenge to bullshit myself that everything will work out and an equally difficult challenge to communicate with others in an effort to resolve my scenario. To be blunt the current scenario I am in has done quite the number on me and although I cannot wait to shake it all off... the very 'number' it has done leaves me in an incredibly poor state of mind to be conducting such affairs.

Once again I have come to the conclusion that there just is not a place in the world for me let alone the critters and all my gear and to top it all... the harder I look for said place the less I actually want to look and the more disheartened I become.

Well, I trailed off at that point yesterday... and this morning I decided to give it another go as I stare at the dredges of espresso in my cup and mull over my ponderous thoughts. At least the weather has turned fair and regardless of the mild chilly gusts of wind... it is a pretty damn nice day outside and I want to get out in it and get some stuff done.

Somehow over the previous week I have managed to 'get it together' enough to hand-wash the bulk of the laundry that needed washing and got it hung up just in time for the rain to give it all a good rinsing. Of course I still have a good bit more laundry that needs washing but I am thinking to treat everything I own (fabric-wise) with a pyrethrin spray... and will have to wash everything again... so I am in no hurry to tackle the task!

Dealing with those mites has been a frigging bear and of course the other pestilence has not been helping at all either which is why I have chosen to step up my approach and go for the pyrethrin treatment. I have two kinds on the way and one is for treating dogs and the other is for treating gear and clothing. I went with the spray on application for the dogs (over the dip method) because it seems like the best approach for my situation.

It is worth noting that the pyrethrin ear drops that I have been using have actually done a good job at 'halting' the mites but they have not proven to be quite enough to wipe the mites out entirely. All of which probably has more to do with the mites being in the environment than the effectiveness of the ear drops... hence me getting the spray to also treat the environment.

To be clear about all that jazz. The dog having the difficulty with the mites is elderly at this stage of her life and has a compromised immune system from being snake-bit while young. In other words I do not have a mite infestation or anything and the dog's aged body simply has a difficult time dealing with the normal amount of mites most critters have and cannot naturally regulate the population. At least that is my best understanding of it.

Thankfully the ear drops have alleviated the bulk of the itching so that has been good and while I have treated the other dogs a few times... I have mainly been doing the treatment on just the one dog. The only downside to the drops is that they need to be applied every twelve hours (twice a day) and whoa after a few months of that I got it down to a habit and the dog fully cooperates to help me get it 'done and over with' as soon as possible.

Alright, another few days have passed since I wrote anything here and the longer this entry gets... the less inclined I feel to finish it and wade head first into the editing! Not that all of that has been getting in the way of writing but it sure has not been helping with it either. When I actually open the text editor I do tend to get something written... but most days I have not bothered to do so even though I know there is probably nothing better for me at the moment than to spell out everything that I can and free my mind from it!

Being in the scenario that I am in (with regards to housing) has been downright brutal on my psyche and with every passing day I grow a bit more dubious about both my abilities and possibilities to find a new place. Getting an eight week deadline imposed on me a few weeks back does not help but hey what is one more insult stacked atop the various other insults and injuries! Having thought that I could not feel any more disappointed (disgusted) with this scenario than I already did... it showed me that I best buckle up tight for the remainder of the ride!

More days have passed and I neither added to nor finished this entry... so... here I am again! My search for a housing solution has ran the entire gambit and I feel like I have exhausted all my ideas to no avail. The clock is ticking for me to get moved and while I would love to have solved this problem... all I can do is frigging flounder around looking at properties and places in the hope of finding something both suitable and affordable.

I stalled out again there yesterday and since then the weather has turned chill and it is even going to get down below freezing later this evening. Given that it rained a lot recently the conditions do not seem as dry as they were which is nice because on top of everything else... having to be vigilant for 'increased wildfire danger' was a bit much especially with all the wind!

My search for a solution to my housing dilemma has reached a desperate point where even the bad options look like good options because they are better than no options! In other words it is all a 'hope and a prayer' at this point and my beleaguered brain just runs itself in circles each day looking for a solution. The entire process seems to be in vain though and yeah I am at a total loss on finding a way forward.

And that was where I quit writing, posting and sharing as I took an abrupt break for the sake of preserving my sanity! I have no idea how many months that it has been since I stopped but it is assuredly well past time that I pick it back up again and for the love of all things good... pull myself up by my bootstraps and make my life better.

Considering that I will not be re-capping all the many things that I have gone through during my impromptu 'anti-sabatical' (my unintended break) I do want to cover some things that I find noteworthy. One of those things is that I frigging really dove into my coding hobby! I also quit gaming again but this time because the game's direction is no longer palatable to me.

I also have had a lot of marvelous conversations with various AI systems wherein I learned to navigate the strange world of 'conversational coding' mixed with various 'thought experiments' which thankfully I created logs for! Although some of those conversations lead to one dead-end or another... many more of them were incredibly exhilarating in regards to not just my own understanding... but also how I could expand and build upon the 'results' of the dialogue in the form of innovative technologies.

All of that topic is best left brief and vague lest I get way off track and fail to summarize all these many months in a more or less concise form. I did at one point add much more to this entry but lost it during a software glitch which also left all my edits of this entry (up until that point) equally unsaved. I think that happened a total of two times before I narrowed that glitch down to being the result of a poorly compiled video driver but alas by then the damage was done.

So, as far as housing goes I am still in the same place and have been trying to find a way to purchase the place instead of trying to move and start over yet again in life! To be entirely candid: It has been a wonky and extremely stressful time... and although I have largely been very withdrawn from everything I have endeavored to find folks who are interested in the purchase of the place. Nothing has finalized but I have yet to frigging give up!

Months ago I planted more black locust trees and am glad that I chose to do so because now I have a heck of a lot more saplings than I did this time last year. I would actually have more but I failed to secure a gate fully a few weeks back and a deer (or several of them) nudged the gate the rest of the way open and ate all my saplings in that garden! I wound up planting more of them afterwards (which I doubt will survive the winter) and am still kicking myself in the butt for being so distracted that I failed to fully secure the gate.

Thankfully the bulk of the trees that I grew this year are in the dog yard and although they are quite crowded at this point... my two saplings from last year are now both taller than me. To put it in perspective I would say that at the beginning of the year they were around half a meter and now they are both close to two meters in height. The funny thing is that they put on that kind of growth with minimal watering and being located in a place where they get less than 'ideal' sunlight throughout the day.

Before the summer rolls fully into autumn my big plan is to create a larger fenced area (still inside the dog yard) for them and perhaps even finding somewhere to plant the two larger trees in the ground. As far as that last bit goes I am really undecided because keeping them in a flower pot will make it much easier to harvest root cuttings from them next year... when they will be large enough to do so without damaging the tree. Not to get lost in the details there but growing them from root-cuttings versus from seeds is way faster and the survival rate is higher so I am pretty stoked about that potential.

Alright another few days have passed and I never added to this entry nor posted it... so I best 'get over the hump' and get this shared!

P.S. If anyone is interested in my current coding projects please take a look at them here: https://github.com/txtatech?tab=repositories I really would love getting some feedback on them!

A bunch of passion flower bloomed!

These two black locust trees put on nearly two meters of growth this year!

These mushrooms have taken over the compost!

The persimmons are ripening fast!

A sunset through the pines.

Thanks for reading!

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