Fruits, vegetables, whole grains and beans! Doesn’t have to taste bad – you just need to experiment with spices and cooking it appropriately. After a few months, eating things without much fiber becomes so bland and uninteresting as you grow to love food with texture and structure! Chewing is good.
The other day I had a piece of white bread – yuck when you’re not used to eating things like that. I want my food to have flavor and texture!
People talk about smoothies with all that added sugar being good. I guess in fifty years when I’m in the nursing home in my last few hours on a feeding tube they’ll be good but I’ll have an apple or carrot today while I still have teeth.
When I own land, I want as simple and small of home possible, as I want to spend my money on the land and not the building. Acreage is more important then square footage, and indeed a small home would be easier to clean and more difficult to accumulate things. If you don’t have room, you can’t buy it. While certainly a hot shower, refrigerator, gas stove and oven, and wood fireplace are essential, I am willing to give up most other things within reason. Obviously I would want room to have a table where I can walk on my laptop, some place to get up and stretch on a rainy or cold snowy day, and a relatively comfortable bed.
A smaller building is easier to heat and maintain order in. Less distance for things to break, and I really don’t want to have utility electric or internet service at my building. I’d rather be a long-ways back from the road, so I have my privacy and not be causing a nuisance with neighbors with my music or fires. I want things as simple as possible, both for low cost and sustainability. I want to make as few trips as possible to the landfill, use as little coal, oil or propane in support of my home. Have some solar power, but not a large set up — just enough to keep a few LED lights on, have fans for cooling or moving heat around, charge my phone, laptop and other USB appliances.
I do think many of the tiny homes you see online are pretty gaudy with stainless steel refrigerators, fancy woodwork and paint jobs. Or they are so tiny, something easily moved on wheels. That’s a bit too small for me, but a nice hunting-cabin style property would be nice, especially way back off a road, only accessible by four wheel drive, quad or snowmobile. I don’t need a lot of space, but I do need something that is decently well insulated and dry to make it through the inevitable rainy and snowy periods. Better insulation is more wood saved, less wood to split and feed into the stove and fewer carbon emissions, after all.
Natural wood is good as is natural materials. I don’t want to pollute my own land and I don’t want to haul much waste to landfill. While natural products can be less efficient and suspect to rot and degradation, they are obviously much preferable to the synthetic plastics that are common on modern houses. I remember years ago when I was a children, when my neighbor got a new double wide delivered — and they burned the scrap vinyl siding. Nasty! There is definitely a balance to be struck, and it all depends on what the property I like ultimately has on it.
But it’s not tomorrow. I have a few years to continue to think about it all. I have time to continue to read and learn, and research into solar and batteries by scientists across the world is only going to produce better, more reliable products that will be cheaper. They’re is a lot of benefit to all this research going on in reducing carbon footprints, as it also means better products will be coming on the market for off-grid homes. Time is on my side.
I did not sleep well last night. More dreams about the west and knowing it will be another weekend stuck at home as the rain and snow comes roaring in tomorrow. And even next weekend looks like crap, and who knows if I’ll have Good Friday off as the budget seems to be stuck. Not that I don’t have to be back mid-day to go to Mom and Dad’s 50th anniversary party.
Truth is I dosed off riding in, my mind a-drift as I was listening to the audiobook about soil health and I hit the curb and flung myself into a rock rip-rap. Banged up my right need and slammed my helmet into the rock but I did not rip my jeans and I’m just a bit sore. Totally my fault, I wasn’t paying attention to the trail, I was drifting off-to-sleep. I got so little sleep last night. Work was fine, it was a very quiet day in the office as nothing really is happening, I did some data cleaning and approved a few things, but nothing major.
Maybe I’m just bothered by the news. Not that any of it really effects my own life, but I don’t like the direction our country is going. I spend too much time on NY Times, CNN, NPR and Twitter tracking the news. The economic news is so worrying, even though it will work out in long term, but I don’t like the idea of both bond rates going up while stocks fall. How much more am I going to end up paying at the gorcery store? And maybe its all those cabin videos I watch and the crap properties I keep seeing coming up in Zillow. I do need a home, but I don’t want something that so large and so close to other people. Mainly I want land and something that keeps me dry in summer and warm in winter that is fairly durable and doesn’t require tons of energy to heat and light – preferably generated on site.
Truth is the one thing I need is a night in a wilderness. It’s terrible how much time I read books and watch videos about building a cabin in wilderness, in the vast spaces out west and in Alaska. I know such places exist, I’ve been to Pennsylvania and West Virginia, the world does not end at the borders of New York. Yet, I feel so trapped by making money and fear of the unknown. It’s fine, soon I’ll be back out in wilderness, having fires and looking up at stars from hammock, but it’s just been a tough spring.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” ~ First Amendment of the United States Constitution
You know this past week, my social media feeds have been full of posts about scientists recovering some of the DNA from the long extinct Dire Wolf. I am sure it’s just a trending topic in the news, but also with all my talk of the Greatful Dead song, Dire Wolf, it’s been decided by the algorithm that I must be a big fan of Dire Wolves and super interested in the news about their potential reintroduction in a Jurassic Park kind of way.
I think it’s kind of hilarious how the algorithms get my interest all wrong about it. And I find that song so funny , mainly because it’s is when you think about it high as fuck, especially with those dreams of last summer sitting by the waterfall and floating down the East Canada Creek on that old truck intertube listening to that song. When you’re high, it just seems so hilarious that idea of playing cards wityh a Dire Wolf in cabin in the Fernando Woods and begging him to “please don’t murder me” at the game of cards, or is it in reality? Between the double meanings, and idea of playing cards with a wolf, just seems so funny when you’re high. Plus the idea of begging not to be murdered, by the intoxicating substance is hilarious.
I get it, intoxication can be bad, but sometimes a vacation from reality is worth a break. Sometimes the mind just needs to get away from everyday problems, have a chance to explore alternative realities, even if it is just a game of cards with a Dire Wolf in the woods of Fernando. It’s such a great song by the Grateful Dead!
It actually looks like the rain will pull away so I will be able to ride in, though it will return for the bulk of Saturday. Mixed in with snow too.
Did you see that for Good Friday they are talking about more rain? Talk about the weatherman crucifing us all. It’s amazing how it can never rain on work days, but come the weekend, it rains and rains some more. Or at least threatens to rain. Or is windy, and cold. At least the fire risk is low, but you know my mind is all about having fire up in woods, pushing that melting plastic into the flames and smoking weed, laughing my brain out, as it’s been since January since the last time I did that. Back when Biden was still President and politics was slightly less nutty.
Another rainy weekend ahead. At least the rain stopped this morning so I can ride in, which is good because I have my Friday meeting downtown, and the shuttle runs at 1:15 PM but the meeting isn’t until 2:30 so if I take the take the shuttle it’s a while before the meeting begins. Last night, I raced out of the office to beat the rain home, and indeed I made it home before the rain picked up, as I didn’t bring my rain coat to work. I probably should have taken the bus home from downtown, but I wanteded to ride. I was rushing though, and almost slammed into a turning car at the ghetto apartments on South Pearl, which is always the most dangerous place to ride Those welfare recieptents are the worse drivers, and they’re always turning on the bike path, that is when they don’t just abandoned their cars on the bike path.
Other then that it was a fairly ordinary Thursday, relatively quiet in the office with several minor projects I was working on throughout the day, and some data cleaning work. Got home had dinner, fried up onions with cornmeal and broccoli, kneaded and left bread dough to rise overnight, bedded down around 7 PM as it was cold and I wanted hte warmth of the electric blanket and it was lights off by 8 PM. I finished up listening to Robert Evan’s Building Your Permaculture Property riding in yesterday, and now I’m listening to Matthew Evan’s Soil. One of the things I like about riding in it gives me a lot of time to listen to audio books. I use my Bluetooth speaker. Didn’t sleep well last night, not sure why, I wasn’t abusing Caffine Pills or coffee yesterday, though I did have two cups of the office coffee that if it does anything to me, make me have to poop. I swear I spend half my day in office the bathroom pooping and peeing. Now if I could only compost all that humanure! Maybe when I have that off-grid property with the burn barrel out back that I won’t tell the liberals about. Part of eating healthy with all that fiber and the coffee. I don’t know why the coffee in office really makes me poop, the stuff at home isn’t all like that. That said, I do like those carrot pancakes with all the fiber in them. And all those onions I cook up with dinner.
Being that I work in the industrial end of town in the Data Services department, there is always so many stacks of pallets along the road for free taking. I keep telling myself I need to drive in and get some of them before camping. They would be great to burn up at camp, though I’d want to make sure to get all those nails cleaned up when I clean the unburnt crap out of the fire pit, lest I run over another one of them with my 35 inch tires on my big jacked up truck. They would be also so useful when I have my own land, not only for burning, but also so many other projects like hog fences or other gates on homestead. You see people using them for so many projects, including recovering the wood for building projects. But you just got to watch out for those nails, especially with those big expensive 35s. Especially with tarrifs coming, I don’t think I’ll own another truck with the big tires in the near future, though I’m hoping to get another year or two out of Red, though I know each time I go out and another big hunk of sheet metal falls off when I close the door it won’t be forever.
they are talking about more rain? Talk about the weatherman crucifing us all. It’s amazing how it can never rain on work days, but come the weekend, it rains and rains some more. Or at least threatens to rain. 
Or is windy, and cold. At least the fire risk is low, but you know my mind is all about having fire 
up in woods, pushing that melting plastic into the flames and smoking weed, laughing my brain out, as it’s been since January since the last time I did that. Back when Biden was still President and politics was slightly less nutty. 
At least the rain stopped this morning so I can ride in, which is good because I have my Friday meeting downtown, and the shuttle runs at 1:15 PM but the meeting isn’t until 2:30 so if I take the take the shuttle it’s a while before the meeting begins. 
Last night, I raced out of the office to beat the rain home, and indeed I made it home before the rain picked up, as I didn’t bring my rain coat to work. I probably should have taken the bus home 
from downtown, but I wanteded to ride. I was rushing though, and almost slammed into a turning car at the ghetto apartments on South Pearl, which is always the most dangerous place to ride 
Those welfare recieptents are the worse drivers, and they’re always turning on the bike path, that is when they don’t just abandoned their cars on the bike path.
I use my Bluetooth speaker. Didn’t sleep well last night, not sure why, 
I wasn’t abusing Caffine Pills or coffee yesterday, though I did have two cups of the office coffee that if it does anything to me, make me have to poop. 
I swear I spend half my day in office the bathroom pooping and peeing. Now if I could only compost all that humanure! Maybe when I have that off-grid property with the burn barrel out back that I won’t tell the liberals about. 
Part of eating healthy with all that fiber and the coffee. 
I don’t know why the coffee in office really makes me poop, the stuff at home isn’t all like that. That said, I do like those carrot pancakes 
end of town in the Data Services department, there is always so many stacks of pallets along the road for free taking. 
I keep telling myself I need to drive in and get some of them before camping. They would be great to burn 
They would be also so useful when I have my own land, not only for burning, but also so many other projects like hog fences or other gates on homestead. You see people using them for so many projects, including recovering the wood for building projects. But you just got to watch out for those nails, especially with those big expensive 35s. Especially with tarrifs coming, I don’t think I’ll own another truck with the big tires in the near future, though I’m hoping to get another year or two out of Red, though I know each time I go out and another big hunk of sheet metal falls off when I close the door it won’t be forever. 