Hello Everyone!
A shifting sleep cycle, The silence addiction, Plenty of adaptation, Adjusting to terrain & Meandering on about the muck!
Alright, I got a pretty good night's rest and although my sleep cycle shifted slightly... I think that it is for the better because I woke up a little after four this morning. Instead of immediately diving into the writing, I have been dicking around now for the better part of two hours reading stuff online... and getting enough espresso in me to jostle my brain into motion for the day.
Enjoying the silence has been quite nice as well... but I have to wonder if I am growing addicted to waking in the wee hours and centering my entire day around it... so that I can enjoy it to its fullest potential. Heck, I do not even know if 'enjoy' is the correct word to use there... because it is much more akin to taking a reprieve from everything else... than some sort of intentional indulgence on my part.
Plenty could assuredly be said about my stay here thus far... and its myriad of challenges, difficulties, hardships and such... driving me more than a little bonkers... yet through it all I have done my best to adapt and keep plodding forward. The mind trickery that I have had to use on myself has been 'quite demanding' to say the bare minimum about it... which is to say... that through it all I have kept kicking the 'can' of my morale down the proverbial road over and over again... to keep myself moving forward.
So far it has all 'worked out' but it would be remiss of me to say that it has worked out 'awesomely' or that there has not been all sorts of 'prices' paid along the way in regards to my health... in all forms. Such is life though, which is why I do not get too hung up over things... and try to constantly remind myself that I will eventually improve my scenario... and this phase of things will all be over with at some point.
All those months ago, I am super thankful that I noticed how 'out of shape' that I had become... and began taking hikes and getting active outdoors... which was a rough one considering how cold it still was then. Funny thing is, that currently I am in surprisingly good shape... and can really get a lot done if I have the calories and hydration that I need.
The terrain is the real kicker when it comes to getting back into shape so rapidly... because darn near everything that I do involves slopes, changes in elevations... and lots of uneven terrain. At this point my 'goat legs' are so accustomed to traversing the property's less than charming terrain features... that I seldom even notice anything is all that challenging unless I am in a slippery area.
By now I know most of the treacherous areas when it comes to muck along the trails and pathways... but occasionally I still 'slip and slide' regardless of how careful that I am. The hardest walking areas to keep well maintained are in the camp itself since it gets the most foot traffic from me and the dogs... and more often than not most of my 'accidents' have happened within the first six steps outside the tent.
With all the rain making it hard to justify laying more wheat straw down in the camp (just to have it get soggy and useless) I have been skimping on keeping the area between the tent and the dog yard covered in it. It is worth noting that all those mimosa leaves that fell in that same area... while I was constructing the big trellis a while back... definitely helped 'firm up' the ground and it no longer gets quite as mucky as it used to.
Anyways, I did not do much with my day yesterday besides get lots of rest... because I decided to wait for things to dry up some outdoors before truly diving back into the ongoing project with the terraces and the driveway area in general. Basically, all the material that I need to cut up (to make stakes and poles with) was way too wet for the health of my little cordless circular saw... plus the area the material piles are located in is/was quite mucky to boot.
Well, daylight is already burning here and it is way past sunrise... so I best wrap this up so that I can get outdoors. I hope that folks are doing more than well. Ciao for now.