I've let the land take a back seat over the past week, to catch up with blogging, both on Hive and over at ReviseSociology.com
This feels very much like the right decision - it was getting a bit stressful trying to maintain both my land plans, at pace, and maintain the blogging, not to mention language learning, in fact that's also a significant factor, learning Portuguese simply has to trump developing the land.
Strimmed last week, dry but safe!
There's so much Land work I could do but...
The land is the land, it's been neglected for two years, and last summer was HOT and DRY, so whatever is there and has survived is tough, and will continue to survive whether I attempt to improve the land or do nothing!
Now I've cleared the boundaries and forest areas, and it's much safer from a fire perspective and lighter to allow the oaks I love so much to come through, that's a MASSIVE start, and to maintain what I've done is a relatively easy, not particularly time consuming matter!
The land was always a long term plan anyway, designed to be a place to develop according to Permaculture principles and yield me, and maybe even some other people, food, firewood, water and so on.. and I think I can facilitate that with relatively minimal effort.
Another factor is I'm so well set here in Alpedrinha, I'm sort of reluctant to move on - if ain't broke don't fix it - I have my needs covered for dirt cheap here, the land is 40 minutes drive away, more than ideal, but manageable, so I figure I can take it slow.
So rather than RUSH building all the things I fancy building rapidimento (compost toilet, wood shelter, solar system, water harvesting) to make my land fully liveable, I'm quite happy taking my time and going slower - so getting my house complete is the next task, and to be honest I think maybe it's ALL I can get done over summer and early autumn anyway, getting an entire house roofed, floored and rendered - probably enough work.
Then on with olive harvesting, tree planting, and I guess the water systems can wait until winter, or even spring. It does rain in Spring here.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it!
Time off has allowed me to switch back to 'pro-active' blogging
I've really enjoyed just spending the last few days NOT on the land and focussing on developing my ReviseSociology blog - it does require a lot of updating, and there is a lot to update!
During the last two or three months, during which I've done a lot of land work, I've mainly been reactive blogging (my own term) - just about keeping up with my blogging schedule and posting quick news updates as I stumble on them.
What I'd rather be doing is what I call 'pro-active blogging' - where I have a master plan of say 100 or several hundred posts I want to write or update and I work through that 1 or 2 a day and I get a more systematic and structured output. Kind of like writing a book or structuring a web site if you like.
I've also been focussing on rethinking the A-level spec and am starting to write within it, but more on my terms, which is much more fun than 'doing what the exam board wants', which again is reactive.
And despite two years of lock down resulting in the entirely unnecessary decision to cancel A-level exams the blog has continued to bring me in a decent income.
So much so that it's been completely unnecessary for me to cash out any crypto earnings for FIAT, so HMRC can go suck in that regard.
And I've been able to FINALLY get my shit together on Hive and LEO
I've been mainly also been doing 'reactive blogging' over the past few months due to lack of time - sticking to themes, but each post not being really embedded in a grand structure.
I have been intending to use Hive and Leo as a means to update my Early Retirement Extreme Adaptation - basically a critique of fiat economies and viable strategies to assist in early retirement - that's why I'm into crypto, that's why I'm on Hive, that's why I've moved to Portugal and bought the land I'm now putting off developing so I can blog about why I should develop it.
But that's the right thing to do - I need to write and I need a structure to write to, and doing a little bit LESS physical work FOR NOW is already helping me to do that.
Besides, IT'S TOO DAMN HOT TO WORK ON THE LAND FOR THAT LONG ANYWAY!