Suddenly having the ability to type properly again makes me want to type again. A stupid onscreen keyboard is not condusive to the creative process involved in writing. Never has it been shown more clearly to me than right now, with a proper keyboard that works under my fingers, and the absolute lack of desire to use the onscreen keyboard over the past year or so. I am encouraged!
Today gets a rain delay on the farm. I don’t deliberately push myself out into bad weather since there are so many good days to chose from in the warmer months. Winter does not offer the same, so that is a different story. Besides, warming up by the fire is all a part of the gig.
So, to update a bit on the old journal, how is life these days? Well, Covid-19 is still raging, and the human need for Liberty is really helping it spread right along. Idon’t see how anyone can assume some sort of immunity because of their nationality, religion, or individual narcisism.
We are staying locked down, still. The enemy is at the gates, and it is up to us to keep it there. Missus places an online order for groceries every two weeks, and I go pick them up, contactless. Apart from that, there are only minor trips out to get things, to reduce contact with others. When we do go out, we try to wear masks, kids too.
This might all seem really boring, but there is so much to do here at home that we have not had cabin fever develop yet. I take it as part of the norm, and use it, like any other experience, as a way of understanding. To me, this experience more resembles life before cars were there to wisk us around to wherever we want, whenever we want. So it fits in with my ‘born in the wrong century’ persona. The kids are taking it really well too. The youngest really knows no other way, and the oldest is reading the Harry Potter books now. Missus is keeping busy as per her usual, and seems to be doing just fine. She does work, crafts, gardening, and we are doing a bit of backyard archery some evenings.
Then there is the work around the place aspect. We have storage to clean up, two other outbuildings that need to be reset to new uses. The gardens are requiring heavy attention right now. We are working to get the herb garden going this year. We have some work to do with animals such as training the dog, breeding the two new doe goats, getting a pen ready for a calf or two, keeping close care to one of our elder female llamas whose hips are going out. We have the usual work with the pigs and chickens too, but I do want to reset the chicken flocks, getting some in the freezer, and putting new egg layers to work in the egg coop. We also have two ne male peacocks that will hopefully either breed the females this year, or keep well enough and sort it out in the spring as they mature a bit more.
The house wants a lot of work still, too, although I have got a good start on the bookshelves in the living room with only a little left to do there, and I think Ifinally sonved a problem conceptually with the bathroom sink, and need to get the parts to sort that out at last. Then it will come near time to look at doing the floors and fixing the fireplace hearth to get the rest of the house up to scruff. The living room, where the booksheves are, is really showing potential.
Once the outbuildings get their electrical installed and the shuffle around done, they will be put to new use, including what I hope will result in a cleaner workshop for me. Missus will set up a shop for her crafts and llama fiber.
Our farm is still without tractor, which I am looking more seriously at solving before I turn a year older. If I can get that sorted out, there is so much more we will be able to to around here than we already are. For one, my compost pile is too big to deal with by hand. Dead livestock will be easier to dispose of. Tilling will be easier. Snow removal will be possible on the drive spaces, making the whole situation with animal feed much easier in the winter, as well as usually safer. I will also be able to see about loading the feed at the shop on a pallet instead of loose in the trailer, which should make it easier to bring feed to the bins, as right now the feed bags require a lot more lifting, which is a lot of fun at 50 and 80 pounds per bag. Could be easier still if we didn’t have so many animals living here, I suppose, but where is the fun in that?
Then there is the land across the street. I have a lot of clean up over there from the mess the canal company leaves along the edge of our property, there is a bridge I want to build over the drainage ditch that will allow us access to the strip of land beyond it that we cannot currently access from the main portion of our place. There is some contouring I want to clean up down by that water, and then I would like to have a look at planting better grazing grasses, and possibly even a garden out among the pasture somewhere. There is a lot of unrealized potential over there. We need to get some trees in on that lost strip of land, and grow some asparagus there. And these are just some of the things that hinge on our having a tractor. There is so much more on the day to day, too. For example, if Icould move hay bales, about 1,200 pounds each, I could work out delivery so the tractor that brings them now will not damage the yard, as it is a big, heavy one.
So, as you can see, with just a cursory explanation of our lives here, we have plenty to do within our own gates.
I have been thinking back a little lately, to when I started this journal. February, 2006, back in Worceser, England. Sunlight soon shone on the front fence, showing that it was coming to the spring and summer months, and there was such excitement for the change of seasons. Changes come with the seasons, and life is often reguarded with seasons. So much has changed since those days in that tiny house on Portefields Road. So much will continue to change in the coming years. I have got a to do list that is as long as my life, hopefully even longer. After all, who wants to ever look at things and say, “well, that’s it, I’m done.” I never want to be done. If I am, I am no longer moving forward.
Well, my next trick will be to figure out what resolution I need my cemera app set to so I can upload photos to the blog without it returning a message that the file is too big. I’ll go work on that today, and then hopefully start adding photos again.