Hello Everyone!

Apocalyptic Homesteading Day 419!

Hiking the hillside, Hunting lighter knot, Building a new compost & Some chicken thoughts

Last night I finally fell asleep early and slept quite deeply to boot so that was awesome. I was feeling super fatigued while editing yesterday's entry and not long after getting it shared I zonked out. This morning I woke up around the same time that I did the day before so perhaps I can maintain the routine over the coming days and then focus on getting up even earlier after that. There are always so many tiny steps to gradually getting back into one routine or another but I will get there eventually.

Once again I set about doing my morning chores in short order and procrastinated way less on getting out the door early in the day. The weather improved a lot today (even though it remained very overcast) and I used the nice conditions to do a bunch of odds and ends around the place before going for a hike in the woods. While hiking around I tried to find as much 'lighter knot' as I could along the hillside near the shelter site. Although I did not locate a whole lot of it I did find a nice skinny long piece that would work well for making fence posts with.

After the hiking I wound up digging two post holes and putting two yellow pine logs in them to begin making a compost box. I will have to dig two more holes and then wrap chicken wire around all four of them to make a place to put the compost in. The overall size is going to be kind of small but I am thinking of wrapping some irrigation tubing around the wire box and then making a second square of wire (with four more posts) that is bigger than the first one. Beyond the second square box I was thinking of digging a bunch of post holes directly next to each other and filing them with some of the hardwood logs as a border. I think it would work well and it would be super cool if the logs grew mushrooms.

What I am thinking of doing is to maybe build the new chicken coop near that compost and run water through the irrigation tubing (so it is heated by the compost) then plumb that to the chicken coop to keep it warm on really cold nights. This winter has been super mild but I keep thinking that it might be wise to set things up better for harsher winters just in case. If the hens were kept warmer it would probably do good for better egg production also which is something that would be nice. As a side note there just is not a lot of insects (nor vegetation) this time of year for the chickens to eat so I have been giving them extra food to make up for it.

Anyway, all around it was a pleasant day and I feel like I got a heck of a bunch of stuff done but whoa I am filling pretty wiped out at this point. Eating a giant pan of pasta just after dark played its part as well and I think that I will be sound asleep not too much longer after getting this posted. I hope that everyone is doing well and has a nice day/night.