Back in the pit.

.
.
I worked to wake this morning. My dreams baffled me. I kept dreaming that I was awake at 11:30. It always ended up that when the next alarm went off, it was only 9:30, or 10:00. I finally was able to wake, oddly, right at 11:30. I am not sure what was real and what was dream. Further, I am still very tired. I have fallen.

After yesterday, though, I have some hope. If I can't do the big things perhaps I can continue with some little things. There is my routine, of course. But I mean beyond that. A little bit of neatening in my humble abode, the common areas first. There is very little work to do which makes doing it quite easy and yet it is still highly prized, quite rewarding to complete. Next a bit of work in my closets, getting clothes and goods sorted. And finally, cleaning out and then filling my water jugs. That will put up 25 gallons of water and have me ready to buy and then clean the next set. The first time of doing something new seems to take the longest time, simply to get at. I balk at new things like mules can refuse to cross a bridge. Once I do it, the next time is easier, quicker. While I like the notion of having 2 gallons a day for a year stored, that isn't actually practical at the moment. Not in a hurry in any case. Further, I realize that if water stops flowing my usage will decline a great deal. And, truth be told, I don't need to go three miles for water. A river is rather closer. With no major cities or such upstream, the water should be good enough and would do fine for wash water, after a little warming, assuming the other locals don't use it unwisely (and I have some notion that the waters would be used wisely).

I remember a man, from long ago, when I was a kid really, who made his own soap, raised goats and chickens and perhaps other livestock for food, and lived as they did before technology and commercialism replaced self reliance. His fireplace produced ashes, he rendered fats for soap, he rarely bought commercial goods. Even when he traveled he had items he would simply take with him. I thought him so strange. I liked the notion, I just wasn't sure it was all that practical. The lye used to make soap, and a fear of being burned by it, still clings to my mind. It seemed like a lot of work, a great deal of training and learning, and confusing in how to maintain it all. And yet I had to respect what he did. Nearly a crazy uncle, but not quite truly crazy at all. If I knew someone like him now, I would ask to learn from him. Perhaps even ask to live with him a bit, willing to do the work so as to learn for a while. I hope to do that with gardening this spring, albeit with the wife of a neighbor, as she is the queen of the garden. Work for learning, the old way of doing things. As I mentioned, she grows things that aren't really made for a higher altitude desert gardening. She grows things I have seen few others even contemplate growing. I am just in a memory moment. How strange that so many years later I am trying to figure my way into what I had thought so strange in my youth. Then again, I am now Catholic and classically liberal (if that doesn't mean the same to all). Both of those things were ideologically anathema to me at one time or another in my youth. Strange how things change.

A bit more waking up then it is time to do a few little things. Good day.