Adventures In Homesteading (Day 355-356)

Hello Everyone!

Faulty hardware strikes again, Making good progress, Creating a flat spot, Cutting roots & The start of a black locust grove!

Alright, I missed my writing routine the last few days due to my faulty power supply's capacitors... not being able to hold enough of a charge to boot the computer. As I have remarked upon before, with that particular piece of dodgy gear... it only happens when the power supply goes without power for an extended period of time... and try as I might... I had to have the power disconnected for large portions of the last few days.

So, it was all unavoidable if I wanted to see progress happen on other projects... and whoa there has absolutely been a fair amount of progress made of late. The thing that I am most stoked about, is that my once 'too steep' driveway now has a more gradual transition... plus there is plenty of area to park near (and pull off from) the road.

Another big achievement, was getting the flat spot for a building mostly situated... so that getting the building itself put into place should not be too challenging. In the end, that 'flat spot creation' wound up taking a heck of a lot of dirt... and the two tiers that got created along the hill... are over a meter in difference as far as elevation goes.

None of which is all that big of a deal or anything... because the alternative was to develop/sculpt the bottom tier for the building (using almost the same amount of dirt) but it would wind up in an area that stays much more damp. Basically, it was a choice between dealing with water runoff forever from the hill above (onto the building and under it) or slightly change plans... and focus on making a semi-compacted pad higher uphill near the driveway.

Anyways, there was plenty of root cutting and tree bucking for me to do along the way as part of the excavation and site work process... which is always an arduous task to say the least. It left me feeling incredibly thankful that I have spent the last several months getting more exercise... and doing more physically demanding things in general.

This morning, I finally slept in until a few minutes before four... and yeah doing all that intense work... on top of having been starting my day at (or near) midnight for almost a week... must have finally reset my sleep cycle. Honestly, I have been resting and tinkering with my computer trying to get the power supply to work on this overcast and very cool day... just because I need a little break.

The only thing that I really need to get done today (aside from my usual chores) is muscle my fifty gallon rainwater barrel under the edge of the tarp... so that I can replenish my drinking water supply. With all of this week's inbound bad weather and accompanying heavy rains headed this way... I should also prepare all my other rain catchment systems... but that seems like too much work for me to do today.

On a different note, before beginning work on the flat area I dug up the lone black locust sapling that would be in the way... and all the sunflower plants that I had growing near that area. I had wracked my brain for days, on where to plant them all... but in the end I wound up planting them near the center of the Mimosa Meadow where they should get plenty of sun.

Eventually, that entire 'meadow' is one of the main places that I want to have a black locust grove at... so in a way I just planted (transplanted) the first tree of the grove there. This year, I am more focused on growing vegetable stuff (for seed purposes) in that area... so I doubt that I will plant too many more black locust saplings in there... but that said... I have been eyeing a few more that might be easy to transplant.

Well, I had much more to write about but it is well past noon and I really should get outdoors... and get some of my daily chores some. I hope that most folks are doing well. Ta ta for now.