Hello Everyone!

A brief introduction: Hi I am Jacob.

TL;DR: There is no tl;dr because you should have more patience and attention span than a gnat on a high wind.

[End Introduction]

The Fantastica Chronicles Day 436!

A Weird Dream, Finishing The Trench Project In An Unsatisfying Way & Not Making Excuses For Folks Bad Behavior

Although I woke up at a little after four this morning I just did not want to get out of bed so I slept until five and still failing to want to get up I wound up sleeping until six before at long last rousing myself and shaking off the weird dream that I had been having. From what I can recall of the dream I was walking around some large sprawling village (or something like a village) and listening to all these musicians playing 'blockchain music' (that is the best I can describe it as) and more or less just talking to one small group of people after another. The folks in the dream would tell me about some other artist (in some other area of the village) to give a listen to and I would then make my way through other groups of people (who attempted to draw me into conversations) on my way to the next place. I was constantly telling the small groups of people 'I am already heading to listen to some music so I cannot stop to listen to your recommendations' which often seemed to just encourage them in their efforts to distract me.

The super weird thing was that one of my fellow homesteaders was sort of following me around in the dream and although they were actively looking for me I kept intentionally eluding them which is way out of character for me even in a dream but there you have it. Generally when I dream about folks that I know (and like) I interact with them but this time it felt important to not only avoid interacting with them but also not acknowledge that I saw them looking for me. It was a pretty weird way to start the day waking up from all that jazz and it left me wondering what the real meaning behind it all was but although I have thought of it frequently throughout the day I am still at a loss with it all gaining any meaning.

Anyway, I wrapped up my routine chores a little after dawn, let the chickens out, grabbed some tools and started working on that trench again. During the first part of the day I just focused on using a pull-saw and an axe to remove all the large roots in the trench. I had been saving the task of removing the roots until I had exposed them all in the trench so that I could do the removal of them all at once. Of course the root removal (and the digging) was slow going and after all the time that I have put into digging of late I was quite sore. A few of the roots had big rocks just beneath them (that I failed to notice before) so I wound up spending a good bit of time getting the rocks dug out so that I could then use the saw or the axe (or sometimes both) on the roots. It was a tedious damn process that is for sure but I got all the root removal done by around noon which was just about the time that I learned that it is supposed to rain a lot over the next few days and even more over the weekend.

Basically I thought that I had at least a few more days to wrap up the trench project but instead I wound up doubling down on it and going at it with real gusto. I will spare you all the tedious details but in the end I got the electric line, the water line and an empty piece of tubing for a data line (that I taped both ends of closed) all installed in the trench at their respective depths and got it all buried. At the very ass end of the day (while the daylight was barely even useful) one of my fellow homesteaders gave me a hand raking all the dirt (that I had not yet filled in the trench with) and for the most part we did the best we could to salvage as much of it as possible before the rain arrives tomorrow. Honestly I did a piss poor job on filling the trench in because I did not have enough time to tamp everything down and smooth out all the indentations and now there will be a big divot (depression) in the ground where everything is buried. I am going to try to work around the rain tomorrow to fix everything (if I can rake up enough loose dirt) but I am unsure if that will be possible. Given that I have already invested somewhere between forty-two to sixty hours of manual labor on the project and roughly three hundred dollars of my own materials... I have already put too damn much into it but knowing how my damn brain works I will probably put more effort into it just so that I can feel like I gave it my best.

I am once again writing this at night while fatigued but I noticed that when I did the writing last night that it helped me get some better rest and marginally lowered my stress level so I figured that I would do it again today just to see if it would have a similar effect. I am still debating on whether I should just move to a new place and weighing all the damned logistics of that but for the most part I think that I am heavily leaning (at the moment) towards doing so just for the sake of my mental well-being. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your view) I have little sufferance for keeping myself in a situation where I feel my principles, reputation and integrity is at stake by the actions/behaviors of others and especially so when those actions/behaviors are being facilitated by those whom could put an end to them. Do not get me wrong because we all have differing opinions on what is acceptable behavior and all that jazz but when I encounter acceptance at the polar opposite end of the spectrum than what I am personally okay with I have to take some sort of action because otherwise I am just some fucked up enabler in one way or another. I honestly just do not need, want nor will tolerate that sort of conflict in my life and I should probably leave it at that before I really blow a gasket and write out a small novel with all the twisted details!

Mostly the shit going on around the homestead is attempting to rob me of my focus and although I have at least stayed busy doing stuff my mind has this freight train of problematic stuff rolling through it and although the train occasionally derails itself (or collides with other trains of thought) I still just keep plugging along doing what I can and just fucking hoping that the scenario works itself out without the need for me to drastically alter my life (by moving to a new place) in the process. The one shred of light at the end of the tunnel is that mayhaps I have finally learned my lesson about living on a property where there are other humans in close proximity to deal with but honestly the current scenario just reminds me of why I so value the solace of the woods to start with! Like I have said before... there are always dangers in the woods but at least the critters in it are not assholes. Not that I am calling the folks here assholes but I think the sentiment (and saying) is still applicable.

Well, I dislike all the vague writing about stuff probably as much as you do but like I said yesterday things are complicated and me speaking clearly would undoubtedly just make things worse here and the stress is already bad enough as it is so I should not rock the proverbial boat too damned much just in case any of my fellow homesteaders happen to read this which is doubtful because unfortunately I am probably at this point being viewed by some of them as 'that intolerant asshole' that refuses to extend love and kindness to shitheel folks who do not fucking deserve it in the first place. The thing is that I quit making excuses for folk's bad behavior so fucking long ago that I no longer even make excuses for myself either and alas I am actually pretty damned free of bad behavior of my own or people in my life that do bad behavior so go figure!

Alright, I better just wrap this up so that I can attempt to unwind for the evening. I hope that everyone is doing well and has a nice day/night.

I could not fit the entire trench in the picture but you get the idea!

Thanks for reading!

More about me: I have been doing property caretaking (land stewardship) for many years (decades) and live a rather simple life with my dogs doing what most folks would consider to be an 'alternative minimalist lifestyle' but what I often just think of as a low-impact lifestyle where I get to homestead and spend the majority of my time alone with my dogs in the woods doing projects in the warmer months and taking some downtime during the colder months.

A little over three years ago I began sharing the adventures (misadventures) of my life via writing, videos, pictures and the occasional podcasts and although my intention was to simply share my life with some friends it undoubtedly grew into much more than that over the years and now I find myself doing what equates to a full-time job just 'sharing my life' which is not even all that glamorous or anything but hey folks seem to enjoy it so I just keep doing it!

The way that the Fantastica Chronicles came about is that I was living at another place when I started chronicling and sharing my days but eventually I wound up moving to a new place. The new place is a homestead named 'Fantastica' so I started with 'Day 1' upon my arrival here and just kept documenting my days much like I had done for the previous nine hundred and fifty-seven days at the last place that I lived.

I have mostly done that 'documenting' at Fantastica exclusively with words (and pictures) opting not to do the videos because as I learned at the last place, sharing videos over an intermittent and slow internet connection is horribly time consuming and what I often think of as an 'ulcer inducing' experience. All that said, I opted for simplicity with the documentation and have no real regrets for doing so.

The way that I look at it is that I give it all my best each day and while some stuff I write is better than others I think that for the most part I do a pretty good job at doing what I am doing which is simply 'sharing my life' as candidly as I possibly can and whatever folks get (or do not get) from it there is always the satisfaction of me doing what I set out to do... which is to simply share my life.