Thursday, March 25, 2021: Getting Real

Wooh, I'm on the struggle bus today y'all.

This morning it was hard to keep going. About 930, as usual, I almost went to bed. Thursdays I usually stay up later though to ease the transition on Friday and keep from staying up 24+ hours. Well, I managed to pull it off after a long shower. I ended up going to bed around 2pm, and waking up about 930pm, ending up with a solid seven and a half hours of quality rest.

I didn't get anything planted, but with a little blood and no sweat cause it was too cold to sweat, I got the easy part of the pig fence installed. It took til half past noon, but progress was made, and the morning sunshine on my sunthirsty top half felt just right. Now that I think of it, I wish I'd worn my hoochie mama shorts...

Commence pig pen!

The ever helpful homestead wizard Hive account@goldenoakfarm advised a buried fence, so here's what happened. This section is roughly 5m long. Roughly. I haven't measured anything, but the total area is somewhere around 20-30 feet by 20-30 feet. It's on the big end of that I think, official measurements to follow one day when I grow up. I buried the fence in a trench about half a meter deep, leaving the top of the posts a meter above ground. Those posts therefore are sunk over a meter deep. This'll be a real pain in the ass to remove if that's ever needed. The metal fence on the north and west sides has a concrete pad it sits on, so that's a solid spot. The other side is a building, so also solid. We're looking at possibly containing two #300 (I think that's nearly 150kg?) animals in here, so I want it solid. At the top of the fence, I'll run a hot wire in case the pigs want to learn to fly, but the breeder we're getting our animals from has no issues containing his animals in a two foot electronet fence.

We're almost exactly four weeks out from pigs, so there's no huge rush to finish, but it's been on my mind to at least get started. Their feeder came in. The farmer we used to buy our pork from used a similar dish for his piggos, so I figured it'd be a solid buy. I like the durability of these big reinforced rubber pans. When the animals get bigger I may need another one, and I buy it gladly.

Snugglebuns

Mombun's small litter of four white snuggles got out of the nest for the first time today. It's always fun to see the baby bunnies getting more active. Hive account@minismallholding, here's some fresh new bun pics for you 💚 don't they look yummy? 🙃

Mombun and a snugglebun

I'm feeling the coming on of my manic phase, so this weekend is going to be a good one. When I went to bed this morning I was pretty upset with the state of things; a usual sign of what I'll call the turn. When I go from being hopelessly depressed to being radically progressive. I go from deep defensiveness to righteous offensiveness.

I feel like there's some things I need to clear up about my own personal stance on things, but this isn't the time yet. We'll get to it. It's just that I've been spending a lot of time in the theoretical space, and that understanding of theoretical liberty is turning into a physical manifestation that's requiring no small amount of action on my part. But it's late, two hours after I usually post, so I'm gonna call this one a wrap on that note.

Love from Texas

Nate 💚