Friday, September 9th 2022

Queen Elizabeth II is dead and Charles has become king of England.

My mother was really into this royalty business. She knew all the gossip and it really meant something to her. I remember the Princess Di scandal and being told by the media and my mother that nobody wanted Charles to be president and especially not after finding out about his affair with Camilla Bowles. That’s all I know about this stuff. I’m not going to say anything here. I don’t blame the royal family for British petroleum or any of the issues with Brexit or even specifically for the British history of imperialism. Maybe I do.

Listen, I’m American. I thought we did away with the British aristocracy 250 years ago. 

It’s a figurehead position so if it means anything that there is now a king of England and that King happens to be bloody Charles and his wife Camilla, well, there you go. 

I learned yesterday from an American TV show that Los Angeles is under severe energy restrictions because of overuse of the grid due to high temperatures and drought. Global warming, caused by human activity and exacerbated by overuse of resources by Southern californiaans is is now actually an official thing. Southern Californians are actually being asked to be moderately conservative in their use of resources. I’m sure there are a few public-minded people out there who will perhaps sit in their cars less or use less electricity to climate control their 35 room residences.

They don’t ever actually stop the machine that generates the problem. They never ever stop the machine that causes this problem.

Speaking of problematic energy wasters and figurehead political leaders, it seems at least a little ironic that Trump gets caught with official top secret documents at his ridiculously expensive and energy wasteful home in South Florida. It’s ironic because he managed to inflame the inbred underbelly of the United States who thrive on tabloid journalism with shouts of “lock her up” regarding Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server to send email messages. Apparently, leaving top secret nuclear files in a closet in a place where the public has access doesn’t seem to Garner the same chanting and personal happiness at the thought of blood.

A friend of mine told me that he is waiting for the opportunity of some genuine blood from trump. Either a violent arrest or to know that he ends up in prison. They have been dangling this piece of meat in front of us for a very long time. I personally don’t see Trump as being much better than a homeless person. I’m talking about the quality of his brain and his communication skills. He is a jabbering psychopath without any knowledge of what he is saying or doing at any given moment. He has political people around him who are really good at deflecting points of conversation or just feeling the air with nonsense as a way of covering up their crimes. Misuse of public funds and corruption seems to be the norm with the conservatives. I don’t personally blame Trump. He’s just a puppet.

Speaking of royalty and anti-conservative sentiment, my friends at the Barents Observer published The following picture of anti-russian propaganda.

It seems to me a bit ironic however to paint this message on the side of an automobile. Considering the state of the world environmentally and all of the problems connected to global warming and climate change that are knowingly caused by human activity and specifically human activity funneled through the oil business, wouldn’t it be a greater protest simply to get out of their cars?

I agree that I might be an extreme advocate of change for the sake of protecting our environment for future generations. I believe the economic system that fuels all of this human activity is the true culprit. We breed mindless slaves that’s scary with athletic abandon trying to make enough money to survive in the world. Owning automobiles is seen as an absolute necessity to be able to compete in This global marketplace. It just seems ironic that in order to drive this car around and let people see this guy’s feelings politically, Putin is literally getting paid in oil profits for the privilege.

Albert Camus once said “The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.” Perhaps it’s time we started practicing our freedom on public transportation and bicycles.

***

Okay, so it’s Friday morning at a little before 6:00 a.m. and I am ridiculously warm and toasty in the warm room. I am not the greatest sleeper in the world but last night I slept very soundly and woke up feeling reasonably healthy. My leg took a bit of a beating yesterday and for all of my bravado and bragging about whatever my state of healing, I am notorious at harming myself and overdoing it too soon. I just had a lot of things to do and had no choice but to do it and by the end of the day, I had managed to re-inflame the delicate place. I had to look at it and I don’t think I have injured myself, I just made a mistake and did too much. Tomorrow is a day off and the ex partner comes up on Sunday. Resting is not going to be my problem.

As far as today goes, I have the land inspector coming by in the morning to pound some kind of metal instruments at a precise place in the forest near my property. This will designate my official property line. I feel there is some weirdness to all of this. There was a small amount of land that was removed from the original property when the previous owners allowed the forest to creep on to their land. I don’t know exactly all of the pluses and bureaucratical minuses of this but neither the previous owner of this property nor the kindergarten teacher and her Nazi mother next door have given much of a shit about their land over the last decade. It is possible that my telling the kindergarten teacher to be careful of having a chunk of land taken away if it returns to Forest inspired them to cut down their fruit orchard. It’s a shame they didn’t feel the need to talk to me. They could have just cut the grass a little deeper in their property and done enough of a public act to satisfy everybody. Or they could have called and asked first.

Anyway, I’ve never had the thought in my head to reclaim my land by cutting down the forest trees that cut a little path over a piece of my property. I don’t remember feeling outraged by the situation or cheated in any way, although technically the previous owner was cheated or maybe it’s me. I don’t want to cut these trees down because I like them. I like all of the wild space I have on my property and I guess I am somewhat locally notorious for never cutting my grass. I like nature and I do not need to show anybody my ability to kill things as a way of claiming my property. I just plant bushes and trees, try to take care of the land directly around them and let things live. It’s not that I’m not here or don’t take care of my place, I just don’t like to argue with the original architect so much. God says these plants are supposed to be here. Who am I or the state to argue?

The issue with the land inspection has been going on for more than a year, literally from the time that I acquired this property. There was a mistake in the bureaucracy made at the very beginning and I didn’t pay for the land inspection while I was paying all of the other nitpicky fees that come along with purchasing a property. I believed that I had paid this but then I received the letter saying something about having the property taken away because of this bureaucratic flaw and I found out that indeed, this wasn’t one of the fees that was paid. Nobody told me about it but that’s not really important. I paid the fee and now, literally a year and a half later, we are coming down to the end of it.

The land inspector herself is not a horrible person. She is very nervous and very specific and exacting in her work. I am not as specific or exacting or bureaucratic in my life and I try to keep the amount of nervous energy to a minimum here. They were not very efficient about doing this job and have prolonged this process I feel unnecessarily. They should have been done a long time ago. In any case, today should be the last visit. If there is any nostalgia on her part, I’m sure I’m glad to be a part of it. I’m not walking into the forest with her and I’ll take her word for it that there is a metal Mark showing the property line in the middle of the forest.

I’m also expecting the stove repair service to come by this morning. According to a message from my ex partner, it might just be a matter of teaching me to hold the button longer when lighting the oven. This is not an automatic oven, it’s a gas box that requires either lighting a match or using a torch to start the lower burner into action. Mine has the habit of turning itself off after lighting several times. I’m not a huge fan of baking things but it is annoying to have to restart the oven five or seven times every time. We will see how that goes.

I might also have a problem with this. I am really short on cash right now. There wasn’t an excessive amount of money going out to local day workers but I did pick up a bag of potatoes this week and that took a big chunk out of my petty cash. Paying for gas in my case is only cash on hand. I do not have the ability to pay for gas through online banking like I can with my electric bill. I’m a little bit worried if this repair guy wants to charge me for the trip out here. It’s possible that they will give me a check that I could pay it to but other than that, I only have 10 rules and a few coins lying around.

Not specifically to blame for my cash shortage was the fact that I paid Lena to pick up some oatmeal, buckwheat and macaroni from the store. Arguably, I was short on buckwheat but really I was just trying to find something else to ask her to do for the purposes of giving her a little more money. Normally, she is absolutely dependable but for the sake of whatever alcoholic political issues have been driving her actions lately, she disappeared with a few articles of clothing and never brought any groceries back. 

The 20 rubles is not painful and neither is the loss of a t-shirt and a few socks. If anything, I have too many clothes backlogged. I really only wear jeans and t-shirts in the summer but I have plenty of warm clothing for the winter. More than I need. If anything, she did me a favor by getting rid of some of the excess. I’m also not going to go hungry anytime soon. Between the harvest food lying around and all of the grains I have stockpiled, almost nothing about this interaction hurts.

The question is not how badly I feel about the situation with Lena. The question is not how much emotion I feel at either her downfall, betrayal or whatever propaganda points against me have been spread by other alcoholics. I won’t lie that I like Lena but I will not sit here and say I feel any sense of ownership or proprietorship or responsibility over the woman’s life. I do not have any documents nor have I made any promises saying I am here to take care of her and help her in her life. My place is only that I have bad legs, I appreciate a little help and personally, I like her at exactly this distance. She is a bright moment when she comes.

However, forgive me if I do not accept any personal connection or responsibility beyond a light business arrangement of trading money for work. She approached me and we worked it out that she could pick up some extra money by doing this job. If she harbors any deep emotions, I am sorry for any pain. I am sorry if she is so needy in her life. I am sorry for not being emotionally available. I am sorry that I am just not that emotional.

I am quiet. I tend to yell when I get frustrated. I’ve also been known to take some egotistical pride in being good at what I do. Up until this diabetic slide started, I’ve always been proud of a big and strong body. I definitely was an over-eater and didn’t find my knowledge of nutrition or an appropriate diet for the human animal until it was too late. I am not doing all of this writing to make up for that. I’m doing this riding because I’m a writer and this is how I practice my craft. But I have some sense of hope that my words might mean something to one or two people and that they might take my logic seriously and use some of these ideas for themselves. Eating a Vegan, whole foods and plant-based diet is the most appropriate diet for the human animal and does more to prevent the diseases caused by modernity that are also crushing to our society. 

But I am not socially bombastic. I don’t like being the center of the party. I do not require a lot of attention to be paid to me and I really do not like being the focus of attention for people I don’t know. It is one of the most uncomfortable feelings of the world to be identified as some sort of object and especially so not for my work. If I were to be recognized as I was in the old days here, as an English teacher with a good reputation for results, that’s one thing. You can take pride in that. But simply to be stared at because of my religion or nationality is the most uncomfortable thing in the world. One image courts respect and it makes one happy to be public, the other one he’s only waiting for an act of violence.

Over the last years I have become more and more quiet and more and more reserved. The opportunities for fights show themselves all the time. If I go out, I can’t say exactly how many times I get recognized or attacked or bothered but I don’t really want to be in these situations because I don’t really want to make attachments to people who identify me as an object. 

If I am identified as an American, if this is the only thing that people will see, there are only three possibilities as to what will happen. Firstly, I’m going to be forced to listen to their opinions about global politics or Americans and this is a complete waste of my time as I have no official job to listen to it. Secondly, they will see me as an object of potential wealth or an opportunity to practice and act of patriotic terrorism. Again, I am not interested in doing business with strangers or having to fight on behalf of my country of passport. It’s not my job and I have no such support from The Americans to justify any of it. The last possibility is to be seen constantly as an outsider despite two decades of residence is obnoxious. I do not want to be the savior of people with their own social problems. I don’t wish to be “the” outsider or to have to listen to the endless teaching and explaining of their people. I don’t need to satisfy anybody’s needs in this regard and I find it tedious and unpleasant and a great waste of my time.

This objectification is at the root of all of the local alcoholic politics in play. This was behind Lena coming to me the first time, this was behind Tanya’s outrage at my theoretical lack of respect for the woman and this is behind all of the bullshit drama of my more money alcoholic chicken neighbors. Everybody is swinging at an image that I am not really interested in providing any energy for. I do not wish to be an image. I just wish to take care of my body and live my life as peacefully, quietly and cleanly as possible.

I just refused to be responsible for other people’s thoughts. If they wish to read me and comment on my opinions, there is a place for that. They can get a hold of me through the internet or by phone if I am sincerely needed for something. I’m just not interested in being physically assaulted or approached. I don’t really want strangers feeling free to touch me or my life. I’ve had enough. I am extremely tired of being assaulted here. I am tired of being stolen from. I am tired of having starving people look to me as any answer to any question or problem. I genuinely do not wish to be touched.

For the most part, it’s like the auto fumes from my chicken neighbors. It is an absolute misery of life and the fact that it exists, the fact that I get poisoned on a daily basis by these selfish greedy lazy assholes takes a chunk out of my enjoyment of life that never seems to want to come back. They are a destructive presence and they never really just let the wound heal. They just damage and continue to cause damage as their style of social interaction. 

This is what it’s like generally. This is what it’s like living under the Russians. This is what it’s like living in a world of conservative leadership that never wants to let the slaves leave. This is global warming. This is the cancer of life on Earth. The world never stops causing pain and illness. The world never leaves anything alone in peace.

It’s okay sometimes that I have as much peace and quiet as I do. It’s okay sometimes that there seems to be so much quiet and so much fresh air. It’s just so cancerously obnoxious that you know the next misery is coming for you. This was the lesson I learned from my daughter’s mother. You cannot ever allow happiness to be in your heart or even to let your heart breathe. Misery is on its way. Don’t feel too good. It’ll just hurt more when it comes.

So, all of this philosophy aside, is there a chance that Lena shows up with my clothes and groceries today? It will be nice. I don’t really know what I will tell her if she does show up. I am probably going to take at least a week if not three off from her services. I don’t really feel the need to be understanding. I don’t like being coerced.

I think the only point worth making in all of this to any of the locals really, the only gossip that I would like to add into the argument, all of these alcoholics live and die with finding enough rubles to get drunk from. All of these Petty services that they do to make money are only to fuel their need for alcohol. But no matter what they thought they were doing by sticking their nose in my business, the only thing that’s really going to happen is Lena is going to lose about 100 rubles a month of income. I imagine that’s going to hurt.

Is it going to hurt me? Maybe I’m sad that the alcoholic story has to end with backsliding into drunkenness. I’m not going with her. I don’t drink. Other than that, I guess I get to go back to cleaning my own floors.

Today is a watering day. The sky is a beautiful orange and blue this morning. The weather reports say almost 100% chance of rain Saturday and Sunday. I don’t really have that much out on the field that requires it. And I am going to stop watering the fruit trees when they go dormant. And of course today is Friday so I have some cooking to do and to prepare for my day off. Friday is always a busy day. I guess I should get up and get going.

***

Okay, maybe just one more thought. There is a difference between something that you are and things that you do. I don’t think we can live without some sense of identification. This is either who we identify as or how other people identify us. Even the word friend is an identifier just as mother or father is. The queen or King of England are objects as such and they exist as an object in this way. This is the entire point of royalty I guess.

To me however, it is our actions that matter. It is what we actually do and not what we are that is truly important.

I came to this philosophy as a teenager when I tried to understand what it meant to have a title of some kind. Specifically, I wanted to know what it meant to be a musician. At the time, I had stopped playing for a while and I asked a friend if I was even still a musician. He told me that if you are a musician, you are a musician for life but that I was only in the dormant phase. When I needed her, she would be there for me. For the most part this philosophy has held up as true. But in those dormancy times, you feel hypocritical by using the title.

A musician makes music. A writer writes. A runner runs and a climber climbs. A ball player plays ball and a lover loves. A husband does his job as does a wife. 

We all take on titles but the thing is to recognize the responsibility to do the actions that go along with the title. This is kind of like that superhero philosophy of with great power comes great responsibility. It is the responsibility to hold up the position and do the good work, The helpful work, the uplifting work that comes along with the position.

This is exactly the rub in life that most irritates me. I always think in terms of my own actions or inactions. If I have a job to do, I’m going to do my job. When the hero call comes, I pick up the phone.

However, these are for positions that I have agreed to. If I agree that I’m a writer, I will do my writing. If I agree that I am a musician, I will practice. And if I agree that I am a gardener, I will take care of my garden. And if I agree to be in a relationship with someone, I agree to do my part in it.

What I do not agree with is to have other people tell me about my responsibilities that I have never accepted. I am tired of people telling me about my obligations. The state seems to have no other purpose in the world than to point out my obligations to fulfill their bureaucratic functions. I always do this without argument and try to be as helpful as possible. This does not mean I am the property of the government or of government people. This does not mean I am an available public resource. This does not mean anyone has rights to my body or my time. It just means I agree to fulfill the bureaucratic functions required by the state. I pay my bloody taxes and I pay my bloody rent.

So let me try and sum all of this up. I don’t own anybody and nobody owns me. I don’t particularly like being singled out or stolen from or being abused by privilege or situation. I don’t like being touched by corrupt people. I don’t like being bothered and for the most part, I don’t bother other people. I just want to live a quiet life and try to enjoy as much health as possible during the last years I have on this planet. Other than this, I’m a writer so I write. I try to take this responsibility very seriously and this means not only doing my chores but making sure my words have merit and weight. I am not a for-profit writer. I’ve made money writing but I only write the words that I believe are true. Other than that, I’m not obligated in any way.

***

It’s 9:06 and I’m waiting for the 9:00 arrival of the land inspector. I’ve already managed to get through my morning chores. I’m starting to think that my obligation to water the plants is coming to an end. Most everything with leaves is heading towards its finish. One or two of my fruit trees is holding on to its green leaves. But you can see in all of the trees that the first crinkly yellows and oranges are starting to appear. The forest is starting to thin out its leaves a bit.

It’s pretty cold here this morning. I haven’t checked the weather report but it’s definitely an autumn sort of chilly day.

This place where I live is not really an autumn place of beauty. The Northeast of the United States and Canada are absolutely gorgeous in the fall. The explosion of color is a treat for the eyes and being out for nostalgic walks in its beauty is compelling. We do have trees that change color here but it’s not the same. The transition is from green to Gray and then it just stays Gray. In the deepest winter, I suppose we could go black and white with the gray. But basically just Gray.

The grass is all dried. There are a few patches of green where a lot of water is spilled. The plants that I give extra attention to our little islands of green but everything else, everything else has been toasted by this waterless August and September. This is what drought means. Everything dies from lack of water.

I kind of feel like I’ve been cheated out of this year. I feel like pretty much everybody who’s had their fingers on me has done so with a negative effect. Lots and lots of smiling faces but lots and lots of knives going into your back. It’s an unpleasant experience dealing with people. It’s an unpleasant experience dealing with bureaucracy.

You know, all I wanted was to enjoy a little quiet and nature and fresh air. All I wanted to do is live on limited resources and a reasonable carbon footprint. All I wanted is to get away from the noise that I didn’t need and the noisy people I didn’t need. I honestly just wanted some clean air and quiet.

Right now, this gardening season is over. If last year was an observation year because I really couldn’t walk at all. This year was an awful lot of work for very limited returns. There was a lot of pain, some definite torture and everything ended up to be nothing but a lot of pain. Walking has been painful. Even sometimes it was painful not to walk. Too much pain here.

There are things to do in the winter. Not much really. There is some transportation of wood and lighting of fires. I guess I do a lot of cooking in the winter time.

I don’t know.

The inspector just got here. I guess I’m going to go hobble around with her a little ways and see what the story is.

*** 

11:30 and that was an interesting morning. The inspectors have come and gone. I can see why the inspector herself is so nervous. She seems to be obligated down to the millimeter thanks to modern instruments. In the old days, perhaps she had a lens and a level and would set up a tripod and see someone holding a stick and this would be enough. And it is enough really. They were in my Forest fighting for a signal from the GPS for over 40 minutes just to determine exactly where under a particular plum tree to put their stick. At the end of it, the plum tree is the demarcation line but the stick is on the far side. In the end, it’s my plum tree.

The gas people showed up pretty much on time and knocked out their work in 10 minutes. It was a two-man crew, a young hot shot and an older guy fumbling with the paperwork. The kid went in, pulled everything out, saw the problem in 30 seconds, something about a valve that was misplaced in the beginning, he fixed it, tested it, said some polite words and walked away. The old guy handed me a clipboard for three signatures and said thank you and they were gone. 15 minutes and I never even had to show them my guarantee.

Literally, during the time it took for the inspection people to start playing with that tree, the gas people came and went and I was free to take my backpack and collect some wood for my fireplace. If I haven’t mentioned, it’s really cold today.

Right after I did that, the thought occurred to me that there was a much more effective way to do this so I called Ghenna. He was available Johnny on the spot and was up here by bicycle in less than 5 minutes. Somewhere between 15 and 20 minutes later he had brought three wheelbarrow loads of wood from the wood shed up to the front of the house, stacked them, returned the wheelbarrow to the wood shed and closed it up, took my last money happily, gave me a fist bump, promised me that a fourth steel post was possible and was gone.

The inspectors were still arguing about the plum tree during this time as well.

Eventually she came back from the woods, explained in great detail how everything would progress bureaucratically in the future and asked me to sign another document saying that the work was finished before the end of September.

And that was it. That was my morning. And right now, with everybody gone, some actual rain is finally falling from the sky. I can’t see this as being a storm. It’s just a few drops. But water is actually falling from the sky for the first time in about a month. I feel like I should bring in my drying table. Or not. It really doesn’t matter that much.

What else? I put in one more call to Lena’s house but she wasn’t there. Her mother said that she was supposed to have been coming to me. That never happened. Then her mother nervous and he told me that she was not even cooking for her or taking care of her and she has become a genuine drunk and nobody drinks like Lena. Lena is apparently deeply into her pity party. Far be it for me to get in the way of such pleasurable enjoyment. I left a message that she should not under any circumstances come to my house for any reason tomorrow. She should not come to drop off my things or to bother me in any way. And then I said goodbye to her mother and now I am here putting these words down.

Jewish law says that you don’t like fires on Saturdays. I think those laws were set down when we were still in the desert. When they forced us into Northern migration, we can respect the spirit of the original law about not working but this nuance of not allowing heat is pure bullshit. People who live in modern homes, even Orthodox Jewish homes, have specific thermostats that allow electricity to flow during Saturdays. People make compromises all the time. I’m not going to die for lack of a fire because someone said this was a part of things 3,000 years ago in the desert.

As for dinner tonight, I took a gigantic kohlrabi from the field. Regardless of Lane is failure, I have absolutely more food than I can possibly eat. I’m thinking of whether I want to make a hummus. I don’t know if I really care that much but I think for sure there’s going to be soup tonight. It’s pretty cold and soup is pretty much what you want when it’s cold.

But I guess that is about it. That was the end of quite a few things. I don’t really have anything to do right now so I think I’m going to make a fire and chill out. It’s not quite even noon yet but I can’t think of anything in the world better to do than make a fire and chill out.

***

Vegan shabbos? Why not? Here are some ideas.

Not bad? Not bad.

***

We are coming up on 5:00 and I think I’m going to call it a day. I’m sure I had some biting satire and some wickedly clever ideas to twirl up into some kind of magic. Or we can just say Good shabbos and enjoy your day off.

I actually got a phone call from Lena. Well, it wasn’t a phone call. It was one of those phone calls from people who never have money on their phone. It was one ring and then nothing. It’s up to me to call back. I called back.

She had been at my gate but I wasn’t answering and the doors were all closed. She hung my extremely wet washed clothes over the fence and immediately went to Tanya’s house. That’s where the excitement is and probably the idea to use her telephone to call me. It is unknown whether this is Lena’s phone or Tanya’s phone. The trick is though that whoever’s phone it is, that was the phone she used to call me. As to why she broke into action to actually wash my clothes, it might have had something to do with a comment that I made to her mother. It was said in the Russian style. You understand what I mean. 

So with sufficient brutality, suddenly my clothes appeared. They are hung up near the door and with the weather the way it is, I’m sure they’ll be dry by next spring. I asked about my food. This was a shocking thought. She said that she would bring it tomorrow and I told her that maybe it would be better to have the money back. This conversation was not going well for her. I didn’t mention the story about my petty cash.

Slightly earlier, I got a note from my ex partner who is not planning to come up on Sunday. We are having a fruit festival and she was enthused about one particular type of cherry-like fruit. I checked it out, saw it was a 10-year grow and the light faded. I’m still enthused about this festival myself. I’m not going but I’m enthused that someone I’m connected to is. You never can tell what we might pick up.

But the truth is that if my ex partner does not come, there won’t be any cash for next week. Yes, I understand that Lena could do some services and I could pay her by putting money on her telephone, either for activity on her SIM card or against her credit. I didn’t say this to her but she might figure this out by next week. If she doesn’t, I understand this is kind of a sleazy way to do it but I am not going to have any cash money for the foreseeable future. This doesn’t bother me. I am well cared for. But it does matter to people who do day labor with me.

With everything on the obligation list done, I took a stroll out on my now very dreary and cold field. There isn’t much left. There are a few stragglers and a few veggies that might be worth eating. The real deal is whether or not we are going to do any kind of a pro set up ahead of next year. In my conversation with my ex partner, I pointed out that we have about 3 weeks to figure out this problem. This of course doesn’t mean that my ex partner is going to put any thought into this. She won’t. But it is a matter of thinking that I need to do and some decisions that I need to make about how to tighten up our boxes for the winter and what materials we are going to use to do so.

My best thought as of the moment is to clean out everything that’s in the raised boxes and cover all of them with hey. This is the simplest thing to do to both insulate the ground against severe Frost and also allow a little fallen compost by the time spring planting comes around. As for winter planting for trees, I think that would be the same thing except for the hole digging, some nice fertilizer in the hole and then a nice thick layer of straw mulch to give the roots something come the spring. Like I said, this is my current idea but it might not be the best idea. I still have a couple of weeks.

This morning while the land inspector was looking for the exact millimeter where the corner of my property should be, I stuck my hand into the soil of our sweet potato garden and found basically nothing. I’m a huge fan of sweet potatoes and I would love to grow a ton of them. It is unfortunately a very long grow and we have a very short season. It’s either going to be greenhousing for their particular area or it’s just not going to be one of the things I can play with. I know people in this country do it because we bought slips from someone who does it. I don’t know whether she grows whole potatoes or is just in the slip business. The point is that we didn’t have enough this year. When the flowers finally came, exactly like when the potatoes tried to flower, they were blasted by violent weather.

The idea of greenhousing is a good one for me. There’s a lot of good things that come from it. Believe it or not, my only reason for not going in that direction is that I don’t want to play with the plastic. If there is some affordable way to build a poly tunnel out of material that’s not going to turn into shaggy shit within a couple of years, maybe I will go that direction. In this country, I don’t even know that they have polymer sheets of sufficient strength to go 10 years in the sunlight. These things exist but not really here. I had a thought about making some kind of a small greenhouse for baby plants for the spring made out of my old windows. This would be if I agree to put in new windows this year. Also a ridiculously expensive project. Like I said, I get stuck on the plastic.

Speaking of cold and windows, today as part of my preparation for my day off, I started closing all of the windows, inside and out. It’s just a small layer of insulation but I just don’t see us coming back to any warm weather. If there are a few warm days, it’s not so much to open things up. But as of the moment, I’m a lot happier with the windows closed.

What else? I made a hummus that’s pretty tasty. If it means anything, it was made with my own chickpeas and my own sunflower seeds. That’s right. And for greens, I even have a few horseradish leaves just to bring out a flavor. After that, there were a lot of the old usual ingredients. There’s nothing really interesting in making a hummus except that it’s tasty, I like it a little spicy and for today, it all came from my work. Or my work and my ex partner’s work. Fair is fair and I don’t want to pretend anything.

To say something true here at the end, I feel okay right now. I don’t feel perfect. I don’t feel like I have too many reasons to be proud of myself. I definitely don’t feel like a hero in any way. But I am pretty okay with how this week went and the fact that it’s coming to an end. With the leg problems diminishing and not being particularly worried about finances or aggression, I think it’s okay to just relax and chill. I don’t see any reason not to take a day off and do some serious sleeping.

I mean, you have to look at this practically. I definitely have enough food to eat. I have enough wood to keep the place warm and my finances are in shape and there is no reason for anyone to touch my electricity. I have a full tank of gas, I have enough clothes to wear and I have a comfortable place to hang out and get to call it my own. I even have documents to prove that. A lot of people have it a lot worse. So it’s okay. Shabbat shalom.