Adventures In Homesteading (Day 621)

Hello Everyone!

Still cooped up, Sticking to indoor activities, The morale juggle, Peaking at the plants & Grass growing in the shade!

Alright, I am off to a slow start with the writing this evening... and am starting it around the same time that I did last night. I tried to begin a bit earlier... but instead I kept focusing on reading stuff... and letting my mind wander to the point where I barely noticed that several hours had passed since I first awoke.

With the way that my sleep schedule has been the last several days, it is amazing that I have stayed on track with these entries as well as I have. It is also a bit of a 'wonder' that I have stayed on such an even keel, given that I am still out of coffee, my foot continues to pain me if I try to walk on it... and I have been 'scraping the bottom of the barrel' with my food and water supply.

The stress, has (of course) been getting to me something fiercely lately... and I know that high levels of it combined with food insecurity... can quickly send me into a downward spiral so I have been cautious to say the least. Which is part of why I have been doing my best to 'be easy on myself' and not get too hung up on anything that might undermine the fickle grasp that I have on my morale.

I know that I have said it often over the years but the whole 'morale thing' is pretty vital... and I tend to watch how I am doing with it as closely as possible. I do that not so much to know 'how I am doing' but as a way to stay ahead of the curve... so that I can (at least attempt to) steer myself clear of 'getting too down in the dumps'.

Anyways, being cooped up indoors has been quite challenging over the previous week... and not being able to be active outdoors has me sitting around 'ruminating' more than I like to do this time of year. When that foot injury first happened, I was like 'it will be healed in a few days' and now it is not only not healed but something inside of it (maybe a bone) seems seriously damaged.

In an effort to not feel completely 'useless' I have been working on some of my computer projects... and actually enjoying it since my internet connectivity improved. I am still laughing at myself about how that (the super bad connectivity) all happened... and how... after literally months of pulling my proverbial hair out... all I had to do was turn the frigging bluetooth off... via the button that I had hid so that I would not accidentally turn it on!

As nice as working on that stuff has been, it is absolutely no comparison to getting my gardening (and other) projects done while the weather is fair... and while it is still planting season. The other big thing that I have been missing doing, is being able to hike around the place for both relaxation purposes... and to see what all is growing as far as plants and mushrooms go.

In other news, I decided against trying to lug the ladder around today to look at the flower pots atop the chicken coop... and wound up standing uphill of the coop (on my rock sled) to see if I could see into the pots. Honestly, the pots did not have nearly as many plants in them as I thought that they would... but I did notice another squash (or pumpkin) plant that is nearly as large as the other one that I have been watching so that is nice.

While I was in that area, I hobbled over to the old camp... and was super stoked to see that the small amount of rain that we got caused a heck of a lot of grass to sprout in (and near) the area that the dog yard used to be in. Although most of that grass looks like native varieties, some of it looks like the Kentucky-31 and (what might be) rye from the straw that I spread in the area.

Perhaps now that me and the dogs are not trampling the ground there constantly, some grass will return to it... because even though I covered it in a thin layer of leaves before and after the winter it is still quite bare. Thankfully, it is not in a place where it will erode rapidly (from rain and surface water) and although it is shaded there... it also gets a fair enough amount of sun that shade tolerant grasses should do well there.

Well, the hour has grown rather late so I am going to call this entry 'good enough' and get on with the editing and posting. I hope that everyone is doing well. Ta ta for now.