Morning?

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Well, actually, yes and... yes.  I went to bed a bit after 22:00, needing to be awake for a visit, then a late... snack.  Someone is going to use my router, and various bits, for the first time.  Teh cherry, she will be broken.  I don't get to watch, but I may end up seeing the end product.  All good.  Something about a borken cutting board, some sort of creative channel development using the tool, then an epoxy type river as a fix.  I love it when creativity is combined with the mechanical.  Really, that is working or living art... my preferred art.

I woke just around five, probably just a bit before, if I got up rather quickly this morning.  Sassy was up twice last night, that I know.  Perhaps she was up more.  Or not.  I don't think I slept any harder than usual.  And, usually, I notice.  Especially with the new automatic on/off nightlights.  Oddly, I think those are what keep Sam away?  She is such a strange girl.

First thing, I reset the waterers, and have them near a furnace output to warm.  I'm telling you, the bunnies absolutely love their warm water.  They all but thank me for that.  As they will enjoy cool water in the summer.  Plus ice bottles.  One in the morning, one in the afternoon.  With a pool, or maybe two, the ducks will do well and remain cool as needed.  It's myself, actually, which as me worried.  With the shade over the house gone, this is going to be an oven... two or even three ac's or not.  I may have to get another ac, for the kitchen, a big one, and fans.  It's... gonna cost both upfront and in electricity.  I have no choice.

Oh, because a visitor was arriving, I... pushed through, got the dishes all one shot, so I could take a shower.  I'll reset them today.  Trash and recycling are still top of the list.  The counters and meat thawed, then finishing dishes so I can get another shower tomorrow.  Two shower in three days, perhaps three in five if I can get one tomorrow.  Loverly.  A call about a lawyer today.  Dubious, but it's what I have.  So tired, sore, but... want to work.

Oh, next time I have a visitor, may figure out a way to put up a hammock, outdoors, and a tarp over it.  So as to practice winter camping.  Practice close enough to home so that if I bungle, I can go in.  I think it can be done warmly, and yet lightly enough packed, or easily enough packed, so as to be functional for a day or two out?  It's a working theory, it will have to be tested.  Remember, it was that dream that brought me out here.  I... may be running late, running out of time, perhaps dying too fast now.  But, until I am dead, I will continue to plot that.  And, if I ever start, and can do it reasonably?  I will never stop... until I die.  Heck, it may be a part of how I... let everything go and just move on.  I may have no choice.  Later.

So much for mowing.

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Not a complaint.  The neighbor's son took care of it.  I tried to talk him out of it.  Failing that, I ensured the deck was up.  And, looking over the seeded areas, honestly they didn't need avoided.  Fantastic.  I am hoping to weed whip instead.  If I can get to it.  I should also set up for watering tonight as well.  The back and side yard are being watered along with the hay grass.  Just the front and a few small areas in the back and side yard.

At noonthirty it is only 75° out there, 71° In the main, 68° up front.  Two fans are going is all.  Three, if the upstairs fan is included.  Both air conditioners are off though, for the first time since installing them, neither is running.  It will get warm up there, but with both running an hour before bedtime it will be 66° when I go to bed.

Oh, right, a shower first, and shave.  And something to eat before that... a tuna melt?  Later.

Oh, electronic fantasies.  Every man, real men, like to dig in, get dirty, play hard, and make things work.  Some don't for fear.  I am not for costs.  I can dream.



Oh, why solar?  For a travel rig, so as to go somewhere, anywhere, when it is too hot or cold.  Better to be out doing something than stuck in a near coma.  Plus, having a home to return to, and live normally most of the time.  Thing is, the solar would go, or stay, with me.  I would have a place on the house and conversion to set it up.  Never wasted.

I pushed, did well.

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I didn't get much done.  I called the doctor.  They called back but I didn't hear the call.  I guess medicines won't be reset until next Tuesday or Wednesday.  Whatevs.  I did stay awake until 16:00, give or take.  Meaning my days and nights are getting sorted again.  It was interesting speaking with my last, and her finding out that I sleep, and wake, every day now.  She was almost shocked.  Now the term "day" has slightly different meanings for me and for you.  You live in a 24 hour day, I live in a Picasso day which can vary from 16 to 36 hours or something.  And, yet, that is different from my "day", a period of sleep and waking, taking up a week or two in sum total.  You would think that sort of thing would permanently damage something in the brain... something would overheat, or stretch as in recording media of some sorts, or become burned in like televisions and monitors... especially for as many years as it went on.  To think that even a bit of heart medicine, the right kind, could have helped so long ago.

Though, even when they realized what it was, or admitted it(?), it was quite difficult to find medicine that worked without making my already horrid existence worse.  They didn't care.  I think the V.A. is simply supposed to sling out medicine as fast as they can.  Maybe I am wrong.  But it just doesn't seem right.  In my condition, then an now, I have to fight just to stand or think sometimes.  I can't allow that to be encroached, if by those who might seem to trying to be doing it for my good.  A notch down, especially from where I was, was death.  I have a bit more room to negotiate, and yet even so will negotiate in a mean sob sort of way.  I can't afford all that much.  A big part of their income comes from medicine, somehow.  Their interests are split and the customer will lose his ass if he doesn't keep his head on a swivel.  I've seen medicine crippled men toted in by their wives.  First, I don't have a wife, second, I wouldn't allow her or them to do that to me "for my own good".

Still fighting.  Mostly dead and I won't really give an inch.  Although, to be fair, I have given doctors and medicines more than a reasonable shake.  These medicines, I was told, would become easier to tolerate as well as improve my condition so as to need less or handle the effects better.  Nope.  The medicines, even after years, never really did more than add just a tiny bit of improvement.  I have wiggled that into, comparatively, a vast life... with long, mid, and short term memory that is pretty okay, the ability to focus enough to work and think sometimes, and even play sudoku with a best time at five seconds.  I couldn't have done that before.  Now, I won't ever write a novel, or a sonata, I won't learn seven languages or even recapture the three I had down fairly well to very well, I won't learn to play a violin, or put a masters or doctorate level presentation together.  But I will enjoy a relatively, even now, elevated capacity to imagine, write, think, and play.  Perhaps becoming more physical, especially if Alaska is in the cards.

I think medicine has spent it's wad.  I think it has improved about as much as possible.  I will continue taking it, due to needing a doctor script to drive.  If I get to Alaska medicine will be the first thing to go.  For many reasons, availability being one.  Though, who knows.  If I think they are helping, or at least not hurting, and a doc up there is up to offering six month scripts and a lenient refill counter, can handle being seen every few years since I'll be dumping my driver license, perhaps I could continue.  Who knows.  I keep saying it's a year off.  It's more like two years away.  So long as my license stays in play, I have a bit more time to order my life, arrange things, and get more fully ready for the road.  Then again, for a few years, it might not be bad to have wheels, too.

I dreamed, yesterday night, about fighting.  Not physical combat, but debate.  It was with Vox.  I didn't like something he was proposing.  He didn't like something I was suggesting.  We both walked from the program... for a bit.  I, for my part, realized my pride was the issue.  Not the baby with the bathwater, so some say.  I don't know his gig, he can be rather tight lipped, until he punches you.  Maybe even then.  Or I just don't hear things.  Anyway, we ended up back at the table.  Yeah.  It means I am voting for Trump, if I can hump it to the polls.  It isn't for Trump, it isn't even against Hillary.  It isn't for a broken social, or civil.  It's because the tribe has decided this is the thing to do and I am, in a very loose way, tribal.  So... yeah.

Hey, I best get on to something else.  Sleepily blathering like a darned fool.  No defense, guilty as charged.  But, then... why are you still reading?  :p  Good morning and day.

Bouncing like a rock.

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Around 8:00 or 9:00, or... maybe 10:00?  I hit something.  A wall, a mountain, a time-out zone?  I went down with all hands and no clue.  Couldn't even catch the time.  A good sleep.  Here it is, nearly noon, and I am back at it.  I don't know how much of the day can be salvaged.  Then again I am not horribly worried.  I'd love to do it all in a day but that might not be possible.

I'll give myself an hour to wake, perhaps have a bite to eat.  But what?  Then it's in to the shower... ah, but first I have to do a small load of dishes.  Actually, I'll do those first, then take a seat to wake.  After the shower I'll put the Xterra out, pull everything out, put the recycling in, then take another break.  I'm simply not able to push through, easily.  Depending on the time, I'll think things through at that point.  Being ready to go would be great for an early start at it tomorrow.  Or even Monday.  Or... whenever.  Though if I can get in, get the recycling out, get the vehicle cleaned and waxed, in and out, do the shopping, and either get the inspection or tire rotation...  But if I could do it all I would be exceptionally happy.  There is the tax office too.  I just don't know, at this point.

If I can finish these things this week I will be ripping into the living room and this room next week.  Much has already been done if even more wait.  There will be as much sorting and storing as tossing.  Oh, and maybe yet this month I will call about a dumpster.  I will only keep it for, perhaps, a month... until the snow hits... with weekly pickup, if I can get that going.  Just old chairs, boxes of junk, and various sundry that just should go, should have gone, some of it shouldn't have been brought.  With Alaska becoming a near certainty it's best to begin clearing and cleaning.  Though, as suggested, even if I stayed I would have needed to do this, and wanted to do this.

On the good side, as it cools, and if I can keep up the pace on cleaning... a big if I know, but I seem to be going places this time, more leg to it... I will be able to sleep in the spare room while I rip through my bedroom.  And, if I can get that well and truly stripped, taken down, organized, and while it is still empty I can begin working on the bathroom.  Yeah.  I may keep falling off the wall, like a three-legged bug with only one antenna and a partially destroyed shell, but until the rest is gone, I'm going to keep trying.  Here, Alaska, the wilds anywhere, it's all the same.  Hunger is a powerful force.  My body, leaned up by lack of access and hardened by lumbering or wilderness living, will begin functioning a lot better.  Or not.  I've just not seen failure even when everything then, and more so now, suggests I should not have seen a few years, possibly even steps, out of the Navy.  I've been dead for decades, by all rights, and yet here I am.  Best to get out and do before I get stuck in here.  I don't mind dying, simply not interested in dying on my knees, toothless, under a dictator lizard queen.  I'll go my own way, I do believe.

But... first... this little set of tasks, then some housecleaning and keeping.  It's good for the constitution, focus, and will get my gear sorted, reduced to manageable and reasonable groups, and ready to go.  Good day.

Ah, well, yes.

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Not going fast, or in the direction I had hoped.  I saw the kitchen, thought I could do just a bit more.  So I did.  It went from looking as if I hadn't done much to... well... looking much better.  More to do.  And, yet... nice.  I washed the dishes, the few from yesterday.  Washed, rinsed, dried, and put away.  Yes, of course, the girls were fed.  Their litter was cleared and cleaned... pretty much a daily thing.  Then I swept the kitchen.  There is still much to do, but... I am getting there.

Can I get to town?  Yeah.  I think so.  Not for what all I had hoped.  Just shopping today.  A few items have been added to the list, which I will explain.  However, shopping will just be the standard products plus seeking sources for a few specialty items.

I will be cooking tonight.  Hmm?  I like the idea of confit meats.  Having the chicken cured, slow cooked, then stored in fat, is proving to be a handy thing.  If I really end up hungry, but hadn't figured out a meal?  Just a few pieces of that and I am back in good graces, between bodily needs and will to work.  I am thinking I would like to do similar things with port and beef.  No, not all of what I have, of course.  Fresh baked, grilled, and fried is favored.  But when all else fails, and since I haven't gotten canning going regarding meats, this will do.  Even with canning, this offers a slightly different take, plus is much more fat-friendly.  So?  So beef and pork roasts will be cut up... okay, they won't be cooked tonight.  I will, however, begin a short curing process with them.  Salt, perhaps a light italian herb blend sprinkled in, and some time in an airtight container over night... or more.  Then a rinse, maybe a bit of a double soak and drain to pull more salt out, then... later this week, a low slow cook in fat, then store it in fat.  A few, or as many as needed, chunks pulled out as needed.  Either just added to stew as is, or seared then added... or seared and simply eaten.  It lasts a good long time, especially when refrigerated as well as fatted.

I really am enjoying playing with my foods.  I am learning a great deal.  I am constantly having to rethink things.  In time, I hope, I will really have some recipes, and techniques, down.  This is what allows someone to live, even thrive, when many others would fail.  It isn't one technique or method or food or... it's being able and willing to figure out how to make it work, how to go beyond native notion, how to eat that stinky food that stinks but lasts and is edible... or could be.  Though, too, it is fun.  If even a pseudo-cold blooded creature, like a great white shark, plays with it's food, why shouldn't I?  I, usually, at least kill it first.  (Currently, the only live things I eat are probiotics, if that would change if I had access to certain culinary venues.)

Oh, right...  I have difficulty with showering as often as I would like.  Between time and energy, sometimes... I, just... well.  I have been considering research on this matter.  Not just for self-care when I am so busy or ill or whatnot... also for when I head into the wilds.  Camping, as with prepping and being ill, they all share limits, if for different reasons.  To find a method which serves one might well serve the other.  So, even if you aren't ill or into camping, perhaps you get a little hung up on too many demands and too little time.  So, here are some things, and a little poking of fun while at it, which might help me... and maybe you.

Not much more. Pleased as is.

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With most of the boxes broken down and ready to transport; the dishes mostly done save for dinner dishes... which are soaking; trash and recycling sorted and out; even heated several pieces of chicken confit for a later dinner.  I have a list for tomorrow... shopping and sourcing list.  If I find a smaller round of brie, I may bring that home.  I also want to see about dehydrated mushrooms.  Fresh shiitake are simply too expensive.  However, dehydrated... if I can find US sourced... seem to be much less expensive.  They are not simply tasty, but as I mentioned are high in potassium.  I still want to add that to my diet when possible.  No carbs to worry about.  If I can find dehydrated white mushrooms as well, I'll get those.  Yes, a list... actually a list of lists.

Beside shopping I need to do several bits of business.  I need to check at the doctor office, make sure, this time, they sent in the form.  Then check with DMV to make sure they received it.  Yeah, they are screwing with me that much.  If all is well, I might consider handling that bit of business.  Then taxes.  Though I may need an inspection.  It's odd years until a vehicle is a certain age, then it is every year.  It might be to the every year stage, or creeping up on it.  Time will tell.  I had hoped to order another lamb, that may not be possible.  One will do.  And it's not like I don't have enough meat.  Between beef, pork, and lamb, I am doing quite well.  Still, a lamb is sort of sparse.  I'll... think on it through the week.

I hope to keep working in the kitchen and living room... and wherever.  Sometimes I can work in a straight line, sometimes to do something correctly I end up working in the basement, or living room, bedroom, or wherever.  The cave really is looking up.  Food is working out.  Not sure if I can fast AND work, but I am going to try it.  If I can do it it will further tighten me up.  I'm still beefy, but inside, I can feel muscle being created, and what is there being honed.  Comparatively, I have become brutally strong in a hurry.  I hope for more, not sure it's possible.

Finally, this week, I am also hoping to begin making beef jerky.  A package of three to four pounds will be brought out at a time, thawed, marinated, and then allowed to dry out.  Until it is well and truly done, and then only if I feel I have the energy time and such, no new package will be brought out.  It will be slower than trying to gun it, but it will lead to far less risk of waste.  My goal is to put up between sixty and an hundred pounds of jerky... at jerk weight.  I thought about freezing it, but I don't think that is wise.  Once frozen, I have some suspicion that thawing it would be a mistake, and start a timer.  While unfrozen, but air sealed, it will last long enough for my needs.  Alaska, in a year or two.

I really am pulling through.  Days are slipping a bit, but slowly.  And, in part, based on the change in the season and weather.  I'll keep at it.  Good night.

Replacements.

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I highly doubt that what is on offer instead of wheat noodles, flour bread, or rice of any sort, is going to taste like... well... what it is replacing.  At this point it honestly doesn't matter.  As long as it fills the role well enough.  It isn't so much the flavor that I am missing, as the sense that something isn't in the dish that should be.  Actually, you simply can't have spaghetti without... well... spaghetti.  It just isn't what it is.  And the sauce... without noodles, or even bread?  As I learned tonight, however, meatballs are great just with the sauce and some melted cheese.  Oh, I can do that.  I've been eating plain burgers for a while, so it was a treat.  Yeah, I am working on it.

To the store soon.  Working on a list.  Standard issue foods, like milk, cream, eggs, of course.  Now there are new foods.  Further, I am looking much more closely at labels.  Does this heavy cream have stabilizers?  Does that have dextrose, do those have sugar, is this so and such?  Not just what is in it, but... how many carbs?  Even with a carb count, I am going to have to see if it disturbs my own body's glycemix indexer.  Testing, and more, on new and old.  Of course, with my insulin doing yo-yo tricks I'll... have to test cautiously.

As to the noodles, or noodle replacements really, if they aren't in the stores I shop I have found them at Amazon.  As well as a rice replacement.  Not just random picks, these come recommended.  Not that they will work, for me, but they are a start.  Further, they will give me some notion of how my tastes and tolerances compare with a particular taster.  Here is a link to the spaghetti, fettuccine, and rice replacements... just to show where I am looking.  I have heard that adding a cup of brown rice, to the package, needing no water, will produce a very close run... if my system will handle it well enough.  I think I had brown rice whole, without a blood sugar shock, so...  Actually I might hold off on the rice replacement until/unless testing shows a real need.

It is amazing what all is out there.  It isn't just packaged, either.  Simply cooking cauliflower, then pressing it through a ricer, and... there is another rice/potato substitute.  Crazy what all is out there that I really didn't know.  Or did but conveniently ignored.  Crazy how, until you are ready to take a corner in life, you often won't/can't begin to see around it.  *Boo!*  Run away, run away fast!  Ah well.  I am here now, and cornering fairly well.  I think I am surprising people.  I am not sure that is a good thing.  Some people don't like surprises, some don't like specific surprises.  Ah, the dead man CAN walk... run... disappear.  But... I thought he was, you know... dead... deadish?  Can't we all just get along?  *poof*  *wink*

Later.

So strange.

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No, not her.  Some woman, maybe women?  Such strange feelings.  Women from my past, or unrequited, or...  I can't get my sight to focus.  Hiding, in shadows of which I am not totally familiar.  Women are usually so... self-bound that they are easy to spot.  Some, however, have learned to become the most humble of church mice.  Among those is, or are, she or them.  I'm more thinking there are two, at least.  The differences are too large for simple mood, even with full-blown neurosis activated.  I think I have a few female fans, perhaps just not happy about losing the stories, tales, thoughts?  It's the perfect weather and season for the blues as well.

A bit of music and thought.

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Yeah, as things are going forward, being planned, shuffled, and arranged, I have to laugh.  Angry, it seems.  Some.  Not I.  Though, somehow, it is I who should be angry, or has the reason to be angry.  Well, if anyone was to be angry.  And yet that just isn't the case.

Roughly pushing?

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I am rather in a tough place.  I really simply pushed too hard, added this and that in, then did more.  Some of it wasn't my fault.  Though I'm not unhappy about it.  I will have to push, and a lot harder than this.  When the license is lost, things are going to get very complicated very quickly.  Do I stay here and attempt to figure things out?  Do I vacate, continuing to pay, trying to sell, holing up until I can contact folk to escape when that time comes.  It'll hit hard and fast.  It may be fall or winter when the loss occurs.  Difficult.

I best get used to roughing it, pushing it, figuring things out on the fly without a real prayer.  Forced into homelessness, really.  In any case, at this point, I can't see staying.  No reason, too many enemies, and I have other interests coming.  My real trick is to try to get as much of my world ready for travel as possible.  Prep as many meals for packing out in smaller portions, to be cached either literally 'out there', though some of it, perhaps most of it, will be put up in storage.  Getting rid of most of what I have.  This won't be the first time, though it may well be the last time.  If I live to my 70's or 80's, as I suspect, I may have to give up some things and move somewhere a final time.  Who knows.

Achy, just a bit.  Cranky on the side, though also just a touch of it.  A bit feverish, couldn't sleep right and ended up sleeping too long... it doesn't something odd, those things together.  Does that disturb the spinal fluid, cause a bit of a rush in the brain of that by hydraulic method, something else like that?  Even so, I am feeling fairly good.  These things are minor.  Not all that energetic and yet I'm starting a bit.

I am redoing the front window.  The sheers are definitely light enough for the very weak rods I purchased for them.  As well, there is a center screw-in rod holder if I have any doubts.  The curtain rods I bought initially for the sheers are twice or three times as strong as the first type of  rods I purchased for the curtains.  I'm not the best at aligning things though.  I may see if there is a quick, simple, means of aligning the rod holders, leveling them, and all that.  There is some play, what with the screws in the round rod arm.  And yet, for me, I just want to have it all look more trim, much more trim, than it seems to work out.  Some of the brackets are going in through old, unchangeable, holes.  No choice.  But I would like the rest to be more even.  Yeah... I'll see if there is a minor guide somewhere.  If I can get that part down, I should be able to do most or all of the sheers and curtains yet tonight.  Oh... I'll spot me some anacin.  This'll be the first helping of that in more than a week, I do believe.  So I don't mind.

Tomorrow?  If it is anything like today I won't be doing much.  Which is fine.  I can, however, begin planning the rest of the week.  Raking, though, perhaps weeding around the tree?  That would be good.  And, if I am feeling really ambitious, the Christmas lights.  They have been on my list, but I keep running out of me to spend on that task.  Given the outdoorsy, but light, work planned, it would fit right in there.  Not even a twenty minute task, from getting the latter, detaching the snaps, collecting and winding it all, then putting the ladder back.  Probably.  Still, tomorrow needs to be somewhat light again.  Raking can be heavy or light.

I best... either have supper or get back to the curtains... Wait, I'll do a short search regarding lining up rod kit, on the wall.  I can think about that, if I find something, while I eat or tinker or... rest.  Later.

Well?

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As it turns out, tonight was the night for removing the wood.  Smaller log lengths down to twigs, with much between.  As well, the wire came down so I can begin sawing more of the two trees in which I was limited or outright stopped.  Plus, I got the quarter hog together and got that sent.  Not bad, really, I'll tell you.  I'm not too worn, with gloves and a work sweater I didn't end up nearly as scratched, cut, or bruised.  A little of that, just a little.  Got some other things out, concrete that had been split while putting in the backyard water pump.  Seriously good work.  Well, and that was after a busy "morning".

Sheers and curtains yet tonight?  I just don't know.  I'll rest, well, for a bit, then decide.  Even if I could do the work, and that might be so, it might be best not to do it.  There is too much.  What I have done today is not simple, and is good.  That would be good work for tomorrow.  Just a day of easy work and rest.  Nothing fancy.  Although, as today, if something comes up, I might just be able to do more.

Like it or not, I can move past my broken heart, at least from time to time.  I will have to do so.  I have seen, in my dreams, just how hard it is, summer or winter, using feet for most of my transportation, without a roof over my head.  That reality is becoming more and more sure.  More reason to clean, fix, arrange, and manage the estate.  I don't want to leave more of a mess than I must.  The bathroom... this summer if I can manage heat, or fall and winter otherwise.  I have a good deal more work before I can get to that, so...

Nice... now to relax, rest, listen to music, sip tea, and let my mind shift through what is coming.  It isn't as dark as it might seem.  Difficult, at times, but it is just as troubling here.  There, though, two legged government won't be an issue.  Nor will many other such problems.  Unless a bear catches me off guard, I still have decades up there.  I have seen it.  More than I have here, all else being equal.  Yeah... I am getting notifications that I am not asking the right questions.  The problem is, the area in which the right questions might exist are, potentially, dangerous areas.  Not worth the risk, not without a clue.  I like my bets better.

Well... on to rest, music, windwalking, and some other such.  Later or good night.

Late down and to wake.

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All good.  I really didn't rest as I probably really needed this weekend.  While it wasn't the heaviest of work, it was something every day.  No worries, I'll go until I can't or get over it.  My day is slipping away though, I think caused by too much work.  Even when I am not working a great deal, just thinking, planning, arranging, researching... ends up being another form of work.  How will hiking through Alaska be?  Well... it will be walking.  There won't be a lot of planning.  That will have to be done ahead of time.  As for work, that will be quite simplified.  Setting up camp, tearing it down, cooking, cleaning, and such.  All of it will become routine.  If I am too tired, I will simply stay in a camp for a bit longer.  Perhaps fishing or hunting small game for extra food.  It won't be a constant barrage of... in a way... very unnatural efforts.  Curtains?  Sheers?  Messing with trees other than avoiding falling ones or cutting some for fire?  Washing one's surroundings?  A very different set of efforts.  Living will be the work.

Still, I am here, for now.  I have the various rods and other materials to do what I had planned.  What was done will actually be redone, actually twice now.  I simply need to wake... just woke, mostly.  I am hoping to change four sets today.  I may change some curtains around, washing them if necessary.  As well, if I can catch a better wind in my sails, I will also move the cuttings from the field over to the piles.  No reductions today.  I want those to dry out a bit.

Ah, and one last thing, if not for today.  I need to thaw sausage, for the Scottish egg recipe.  One pound should be more than enough, leaving extra for plain sausage sometime else this week.  The eggs are fresh, so that should be easy.  I don't have greens, and wouldn't go that way anyway.  I have some doubts about the whole thing.  Then again, doubts are where to start, quite often, not where to end.  Ah, I also want to get the packages in to UPS for return, so I could do a small amount of the shopping I missed last week.  Yeah... wasn't I just saying, and just the other day, something about planning more than I can possibly do?  In theory, either you at least stay busy, or you learn to do more.  FM running, me and my big mouth.  Well... nothing to do for it but to get at it... in just a bit.  :p

Later.

As the quickening occurs...

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Thoughts, memories, functions, ideals, hungers, all coalesce into shapes, a form.  It'll take a bit, at a heavy pace, for any of this to mean anything.  It will never quite mean what it once meant, I'll never be that good again.  I'll never be that strong or fast.  I may bring some of it back.  The call is too strong to ignore, this time.  It's pulling me right out of the nice comfy grave I had dug for myself.

Well...

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I stayed up for an hour, maybe two, perhaps three?  Something in my mind had stretched, like a rubber band being pulled to the breaking point... but not quite over.  So I went on back to bed.  For an hour or two I simply laid in bed.  It reminded me of the decades I lived between being awake and asleep.  You don't know the horror of that, unless plagued enough by insomnia to paint yourself as a ghost often enough to wrap your mind around the notion.  Horrified, I was.  The fear of going back to that fog is intense.  Still, I made a great attempt to focus my mind, pull away from the fog, begin putting my mind into simple gear, and then letting it drift.  The first hour was rough, the second hour saw stabilization.  Between the second and into the third hour, perhaps, I ended up sleeping.  I then slept for a few hours.  Long enough to feel better.

Funny thing is, my body started to ache, just a bit, through these things.  I think it was supposed to be hurting, I just was a little overworked to get that going.  As things were mended and dealt with, the aches returned.  All good.  I really don't mind natural, healthy, aches and strains.  Besides, at this time they are mild.  I don't need even a few painkillers for it.  Funny again?  I haven't needed painkillers since I started working.  One pain, for me, or many, often inactivate others.  There is some crescendo of pain which I have to back down from.  I am not quite fit enough currently to reach that.  Though how much of a natural limit I have is... another thing.  As can be seen, even by my humble beginning into tree work, given all the givens, when I can I can go very deep.

Today?  Oh, I suppose I might, later, attempt to put the other sheers up.  I have the one I put up yesterday in use.  It is quite nice to have light, even if today is rather dark, and yet privacy too.  Though I would like to get rod holders that extend further.  For now the curtains and sheers are at the same outset level as the other.  Doable, just, as I said, might cause a home matron to laugh and cry at once.  Dames and waterworks, innit?  As well, spaghetti... I have worked up a hunger for that which is nearing on mean.  It shouldn't take all that long, even if, after making the meatballs, I let them simmer in the marinara sauce for an half hour.  If, with that and this, I have any extra gumption, I'd like to begin again in the kitchen.  I haven't moved on that much.  I have kept the bathroom topped.  I have moved on edges of the kitchen, very little bits, while not allowing it to degrade.  A major strike on what boxes and such still clutter part of the floor, opening up the kitchen table more or completely, then sweeping.  For today that would be grand.  A few more, or all of, the counters tomorrow... cleared and washed... then mopping?  If I can do those things, the kitchen would, mostly, be done.  Over the next week I could fiddle with final details as I work on the remaining logs et. al.  Then to learn to maintain the bathroom and the kitchen, at once.  From there, then add the living room.

Beside fiddling with the inside next week, I do plan at least two more days of outdoor work and one day of hiking.  Not just a shorter walk, several miles at least, as a starter.  Hmm... I should find my hiking boots and get those seasoned and ready.  They are pretty good, just need a spring hit.  I try to do spring and fall, though... well... I do my best.  Oh, so I should also get my pack going.  I can also attempt to set some time aside to make sure I have everything needed for the hammock and overtarp.  An MRE or two will deal with any nutritional needs to start out.  Especially with a water-powered heat pack with each.  I'll work on food packs over time.  I want to have groups of days and weeks of those ready for Alaska.  Just leave them in various storage places along my paths... until I figure a way out further... then cacheing.

I did have to chuckle.  A neighbor asked if I was growing my hair weird for Burning Man or the other one, Sanguero Man.  How do you not chuckle when... all I have done is not been able to remember to get in for a haircut since before his two month old was conceived?  *chuckles*  What is left of the pseudo mohawk and time...  All good, but, yeah.

Ah, right... back to waking.  Later.

I didn't quit, just did what I did.

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I wasn't able to do four separate work periods.  But the last one I extended.  In stead of taking a break at the time for it, I ended up doing a cool-down work.  Which wasn't as cooling as I had thought.  I cut the suckers from around one of my trees.  Now, that didn't quite make a full work session, but then without a break it... was enough.  I did end up cutting the five, maybe six, large limbs into parts, and getting those stowed.  I know have one pile of branches, and one of bigger logs, to process.  I am done for the week though.

I headed out for fast food.  Not great but I was truly done in but needed to eat.  Bruises, cuts, scratches... I look like I've been doing something.  My muscles are tight, nearly to mush though.  Sore, pinched, stretched, and running to nearly grumpy.  Oh well.  A bit of rest this weekend.  Perhaps some cooking, and minor cleaning, not much else.  A shower before I go to bed though.  Yikes but I've been wrung out.  Still, it feels quite good.

Three days next week, and a hike perhaps.  Yeah, I ought to get my packs back in order.  Oh, and perhaps this weekend, if I recover, an attempt to set up some of my gear.  Just to make sure I have everything I need, and to put that all into one grouping within the rest of the camping kit.  I might test out some of the cooking gear while I am at it.  Just to make sure it all works.  A backyard outdoor gear lab, finally.

Good night.  Sleep well.  I know I will.

Exactly off time and... that other thing doesn't make sense either!

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Off time?  I mean I started at 15:00, exactly as I had wished not to start.  This and that, then 13:00 sped by, 14:00 flew by, and 15:00 almost scampered through.  Coattails, skin of my teeth, name the nature of my catching of 15:00 whatever you wish, so long as it seems impossibly thin one way or another.

I dressed the part, grabbed my kit, and got out to it.  Sort, chop, crunch, chop, pile, sort... So it went.  It's cooler today.  No sun.  I am wearing less, as I don't have the chainsaw helm on.  I worked a shorter shift, just about 40 minutes.  Yet today I am sweating.  I didn't sweat a noticeable drop yesterday.  Perhaps I had to work the sweat up, then double down, to get the moth balled body out of retirement?  Maybe just that system?  I did get red.  Red as a beat.  Yesterday.  I suspect I am red as a beat already, though I can never tell.  Sometimes yes, sometimes no, sometimes for emotion, sometimes for work, sometimes I just don't get red.  Huh?  Dunno.

The work I am doing today is, to my mind, a lot easier.  It is as fun as work gets.  Which, actually, is pretty fun.  While God cursed men and those like them to live from the sweat of the brow, He added something that, if seen humbly, makes the effort a pleasure.  Sometimes my body just isn't capable of... getting there... or even if it does, it can't seem to interpret the pleasure.  Then again, when muscles are screaming for blood while organs are already on the edge of expiry... the pleasure simply cannot overcome the pain.  So what has changed?  I'm not sure anything has.  I just know I can work, and I can enjoy it.  Even with my internals doing flip-flops.  My insides have hurt for months now.  Just not enough to keep me down.  Then again, I have things to do.  I can change some things, not others.  More?  I'm not sure I would change certain things.  I can live or die without this or that and have it not concern me a spot.  *wink*  The devil you say!  Not so much.  A past time, though even then that wasn't quite right either.

Iced tea, a seat, some time, then back to it.  I am not worried if I get it all today.  I will simply work for a while, rest, and repeat until, soon or late, it is all done.  Suckers, weeds, wood sorting...  I am putting the green in one pile.  Not good for much unless someone wishes to strip that and dry the mains.  The very small twigs are being collected in my main work area.  Yes, those are just as necessary as bigger pieces.  Next, a pile of longer medium twigs, then heavier mains.  I am using my axe or gloved hand to take off the smaller stuff... whichever seems most functional.  It is good work.  Honest work.  It might even mean something.

I can't believe I sweating so quickly today.  Then again, I almost can't believe I am working.  I really wasn't sure that would happen.  If this keeps up, I could get a lot down around, and then in, my cave.  In July, I believe, I will order a commercial dumpster and begin taking things out.  I can probably have a lot of it down, set in a easy access spot, ready to go.  When clear, sweeping, vacuuming, mopping, steam cleaning, and washing walls will begin.  I'll shut off each area as it is completed, sealing it as much as possible.  Time can happen quickly, on this side anyway.  I have little of it to get ready.  Even then I may have to... hmm... fudge?  Yeah.  One way or another.  I have so much to do, in and out, first.

Well... back to resting.  Later.

All save three.

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Three branches... limbs really.  Don't even proffer sass.  Beyond having cut most of them already, on that tree, I was also parting them out.  every second or third limb down I would slice the wholes into three or four bits.  While I was choking for a rest, I kept going.  The chainsaw forced a time out.  It choked.  After trying to get her relit, and failing after several hits, I checked the gas.  Yep.  Plumb empty.  So, I topped her off, got her back to the killing fields, and?  Nothing.  I tried and tried, and did this, then that.  I gave it a bit, then hit it again, and again, and once more.  Call me lazy, though I think that's wrong.  Anyway... just what I had done, and then the crazy attempts to burn the gasoline, I... about had it.  I do hope, after an half hour or so, she will light up again.  If not I am done for the day.  Still, nice little bit of work.  Sad thing is, unless you were here this week... minus the limbs on the ground... you wouldn't even know.

However.  I do believe, however it works out, that I am not going to cook.  Fast food, not McDonalds, they are off my list.  Don't know why they decided to go so wrong, so fast, on everything from food to service.  I guess they finally got that anti-American, anti-US corp meme?  Whatever.  Unless they really turn things around, and advert it and well enough that an ad killing machine such as myself can get it, they are done.  Make it clear.  Make it conscise.  No mealy-mouthed multi-culti stuff.  No more of the same.  You want to do that where they live?  Cool.  Oh, and cut CNN and other leftist faux news sources.  Just cut news, it's all propaganda now.  I promise you, if you go where you are headed, you will end up out of business.  And you should be if you continue that way.  Trump isn't winning because he is great.  He has one, maybe two, jobs.  And they are counter to your business future.  *wink*  Anyway... yeah... something to eat.  Fast, easy, tasty I hope.

That was some serious work.  As I suggested, there may be more if the machine roars again.  Three more limbs and I will be quite good.  I will begin reviewing... I think they are called gator saws?  They have extended arms, used to cut down those weird or out of reach limbs.  I'm not sure though.  This limb might be too big, with a 3"-5" diameter.  I'll continue to think on it.  If that doesn't work, I may have to getting the sewing machine going and stitch up a couple half dozen, of various length, safety snatches.  A couple for me, one for the chainsaw, one for the ladder... or two.  I don't mind doing things upside down and thirty or forty feet up if the blood rush doesn't undo me.  I'm good with giving it ago, just so long as I am secure enough and have something to press off so as to create leverage.  Gotta admit, it's sort of fun.  The work sounded fun, the gymnastics not so much.  I'm changing my tune on that latter.  *wee!*

Well... one more shot.  If I write again, it will just be to let you know, fly or no fly.  I'm pretty done.  I do hope to get a shower in before I crash, but no promises there.  Cooked, boys and girls, and might not yet be done.  Later or good night.

Slow.

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Not impossibly slow, merely a bit frustratingly slow.  I finally worked a breakfast.  A few scrambled eggs with cheese, bacon, and a glass of milk.  I wanted to chop onions or some such.  I would have had to sweat those a bit first.  I was already adding the eggs before I remembered.  Some other day.  Hmm... might have to keep a small container of chopped onions, shallots, perhaps other items from time to time.  Anyway... breakfast was calling before wakefulness was strong enough for the very slight precision needed.  Still, it worked well.  I turned the heat up just a bit a while ago, hoping that might help.  Not so much, though maybe slightly better.

Now just to bide my time until the food finds ease and I wake more fully.  I will be working today, and well.  I think I can get all the cutting for sure, barring a major problem.  Even being tired and sore?  In spite of it?  I am thinking... because of those conditions.  It's a cause, today.  Which is causing me to rethink some things.  Holding back for health is good, at times, but not always right.  I don't think I was so wrong in the past as that things have changed.  Gathering the gumption to push, however, is a whole other thing.  Today will be the first real chance this year, and at this level for a while.

I did look at a number of meatball recipes.  And, really?  It looks like they are require bread crumbs.  Which, of course, I don't have.  I do, however, have panco (or some such) crumbs.  They might could work.  Most recipes also call for two kinds of ground meat, beef usually, but also either pork or veal.  I haven't seen veal... ever... I think.  And I am not really keen on pork, not half and half.  I may give in another shot, but at 2 beef to 1 part pork sausage.  Veal might be a 'by request' thing, or... just in some shops.  I liked the way they were cooked, though that would be messier than baking.  Still, I might or might not give that a go.

I'm feeling it.  It is exciting to get out and do some work.  Whether you like it or not, if you set yourself up for something like this, it is best to own it, choose it, go for it with as much cheer as possible.  In my case, I'm not having to push for that.  I really do enjoy working.  Working with a chainsaw, on a ladder, or strapped to a tree, is actually a boyhood adventure come to life.  I may never be a true logger so this may be as close as I get.  Plus the yard will look better, be more functional, and allow for more adventures as a back yard camping area is created... developed... produced?  Something.  It might not be until 14:00, even 15:00.  But it will get done today.  I had to have something to eat, and I have to let that settle.  Later.

Quite right.

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Awake, and relatively early.  I didn't get to bed until right around midnight.  That's just how it works if I work later, or hard.  I pushed everything doing what I did.  Arms, chest, legs just a bit, and internals... the lungs and heart were stressed diligently.  No, not to a bad place, just to the end of capacity, then several more times.  But in, I think, the right way.  Now, that means today will be a day of very little.  Maybe burritos, perhaps some tinkering with the camera, and maybe a very little bit of work about the cave.  That will be it.  Same, very possibly, with Monday.  It's not so much a will thing as a reality combining health and physical fitness levels.  I have found that even getting over the latter leaves the former, and even medication wasn't fixing the former.  So... it is what it is.

Even so, I plan to review the project, the cutting.  If I think a bit more can be done, later this week, I will get to it.  Now, If I do that, it will be just a limb or two, maybe three.  I did more than that myself, my neighbor did double what I did.  And, even when I wasn't cutting, I was shifting limbs and logs (some limbs were dead, with no branches, but rather thick and long) out of the way.  It was pretty hefty work.  On the lucky side, for me, he really likes that chainsaw.  :)  I do too.  I bought a pro-level, and just a bit bigger, of a saw.  I really had hoped I would be able to get the major trees, or at least down to the trunks.  Five to six foot trunks take more of a saw than I would even want!  And, I may yet get to some of that.  I don't mind paying for the high, overarching, branches.  But the others I might be able to begin felling a bit at a time.

Funny how just a bit of that real work tightens my body up though.  It wouldn't take much to build fast either.  Remember, the last time I was able to work out, if with a helper, I went from just being able to do the bar to benching 350 in three months... along with swimming just five laps, in that same time, to swimming a mile a day three days a week.  If I can, I do, and do very well.  I don't know if I can push on through, without anything, but...  Well... we'll see.  I best be able to get to some level of function before I hit the road.

That reminds me...  I need to get my camping gear and packs in, figure out, again, what is what.  Repackaging all that so as to begin a backyard excursion into prepping for the real outdoors and camping.  I am excited for this.  Both packs will probably be a major hurdle initially.  But, I think, in time, even the big one will be doable.  The small one gets to about 40 pounds, the big one, if packed lightly, starts at 60, but can probably stow an 100 and much change, perhaps 150.  Starting with 35-40, though, is the way.  Ugh.  Thinking of humping and it isn't even Wednesday.  :p

Good morning and good day.

Sun!

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I've been... drifting.  Reading here, writing there, mostly staying out of trouble?  Mostly.  An "old" friend, I found, has married.  Didn't surprise me, but I did miss the event.  Still, congratulations were in order.  Oh, and cooking is happening there.  Though more there than here, the ideas are merging.  Always been, started out as, a cook's sight.  Morphed, grew, became lots of things, richer.  I just... haven't been around for a while.  Anyway, when I became aware of the flesh I noticed the sun is out!

Okay, I have to do something before opening the windows.  Shorts, at least.  I have sheers coming in, and some new curtains.  When Sass was younger, before I figured out how to keep box elder bugs away and before she learned they really didn't taste good, she... made the ones in place holy!  I simply refused to replace them until I had that situation under control.  I think it is done.  Anyway, until the sheers and new curtains arrive, opening the windows is and expose in being exposed.  I'll put these on the back window.  If, indeed, Sassy is done murdering the curtains I'll buy new replacements... if I am here next year.  If not, if I see too much trouble right away, I'll switch them out and keep figuring... or just learn to live with Sassy's special ways.

I did do most of the remaining dishes.  The last are in a soft soak.  They are clean but I double sudsed them anyway.  I'll just wash them, run a rinse, and probably push through them quickly.  Few and easy.  And I want a shower.  So much rain though, lately, that the drain is slow.  Yeah, too much water, or too cold, and the drain simply slows to an absolute crawl.  Though, perhaps, I need to fidget with the tub faucets and shower switch.  They seem to be in need of new gaskets or some such.  That'll be a first time project.  I'll have to shut off the house water.  Though if I do that, I might as well see if the water softener is messed up, blocked, or something, while I am at it.  Bleh.  Soon, I hope.

I did check on something.  Several sites indicate, if you aren't a darned fool about it, hiking in Alaska is possibly better than most of the lower 48.  Winter has it's problems (rare travelers).  Though if you are prepped, you might be able to handle that.  Summer has it's own problems (bears).  Though a little knowledge and some technique will at least modify that threat.  Yes, if need be, that'll be the way it is.  Easier since I should be able to rig a base station somewhere in one of the cities, and I'll have some finances to help here and there.

Anyway... I best get something on so I can enjoy whatever taste of a bit of sun that I can.  Need that v. D.  Milk might offer some, but nothing beats the sun.  Oh, but you know?  I am up days!  So ill, and slow moving, and then the quiet pain... I just didn't see that sneak up on me.  Hmm... if I can do dishes, get some sun, and wake a bit, I might run for something for dinner rather than cook... or starve.  Later.

Update:  Dishes were done, so I could, in good conscience, bask in some daylight.  The sun is past, but shining well enough.  I can't handle full sun anyway, certainly not yet.  After doing the dishes, I decided to plunge and otherwise treat the tub drain.  Not sure it helped, but I feel better for trying.  I hope to clear and clean the tub, not as fun as a rifle or pistol in any sense, then shower.  There is a lot of evening left for my to sneak out.  All good if it could be just a bit better.  Hungry.