My Daily Posts: The first month of going 'off grid'.

This is the first thirty-one days of 'Daily Posts' that I have been making (on another platform) ever since I went 'off grid' five hundred and eighty five days ago. Much like the video project these posts have often been a major pain in the butt especially since I type them out each day on a phone. I do not know why I feel compelled to share them here but 'knowing' is not always a prerequisite of sharing so here they are and I hope that it has been worth my time to painstakingly edit and compile them. Enjoy...or not and have a nice day/night...or not.

Day-0 01-12-2017

Made it to where I was going. Thanks everyone that helped make it possible.

Day-1 01-13-2017

I made some videos today but have no means to post them. Tomorrow I'm going to attempt to fabricate the USB cord that I need and hopefully be able to post them. So far all I can say is you will have to see the videos but in a nutshell all is well. Working with the limited resources available to me I am hoping some of you will want to visit. I'm definitely off the grid and in the middle of nowhere and you may learn some neat stuff seeing how I cope with such situations. If I quit posting it's because I have run out of ways to charge my phone. I will try to keep folks posted the best I can. By the way the dogs absolutely love it here.

Day-3 01-14-2017

Day three and all is well and making great progress around the place. Charged my phone fully with an off-brand 18 volt cordless drill battery. Dunno how many more charges I will get from it but I'll see. I charged it fully before beginning my trip here. Also converted a Baygen Freeplay hand crank radio into a charger for my 5 volt backup battery that I can then charge my phone with. A thoughtful friend gave me the radio before my trip here and said the radio did not't work but maybe the dynamo still did.

Asheville and surrounding area people hit me up if you wanna hang out or get involved. Not sure if I made it clear that I had moved back to these beautiful mountains. Anyway all is well and a lot of progress has been made. I made another video also and my hack together data cable works but I don't have enough sustained electric to do any uploads yet but they are coming so please be patient.

Day-4 01-15-2017

{No Entry because phone was dead}

Day-5 01-16-2017

Day 5. That is all.

Well it has been a long time since I have said it, so it is nice to be able to say to myself 'It's all good in the woods.'

Day-6 01-17-2017

{No Entry because phone was dead}

Day-7 01-18-2017

A week in and a lot further along than I thought I would be. Had a good bit of help from friendly folks and lots of nice weather so that's been awesome. Got most of my shelter built and will finish it tomorrow before the heavy rains and cold temperatures move in. Definitely could not have gotten this far without those who helped get me here and those helping now so thanks a bunch. Still making the videos so yal please be patient and I will definitely get them up as soon as I can.

Day 7 and it feels like I have lived here forever even though I'm still getting settled in and really just getting started here. I've definitely never lived in a place where I felt I 'fit right in' to a neighborhood but at this place I do. Also the folks around here have really made me feel right at home. So....it's a pretty awesome feeling all around.

Day-8 01-19-2017

Day eight and everything is great. I think that even the coyotes have started to accept that me and the dogs are here to stay. They do keep trying to lure my dogs into an ambush. Fortunately these dogs are very familiar with coyote tactics and good at holding their ground.

Day-9 01-20-2017

Day nine and everything is fine.

Day-10 01-21-2017

The foul weather hath returned. Glad I had the last ten days of decent weather to do the stuff I needed to do in order to be ready for the bad weather. I've basically been working from early morning to around midnight or two a.m. since the first morning I woke here and am looking forward to maybe getting snowed in for a day or two.

Day-11 01-22-2017

Water and mud everywhere. Long day but lots of progress on preparing for the snow and cold.

Day-12 01-23-2017

No coyotes last night because apparently they are more scared of wolves than they are of dogs. Thankfully the wolves seem to be keeping their distance also. Otherwise its day twelve and I'm in pretty good shape for the oncoming change in weather.

Day-13 01-24-2017

Thanks to some folks with a tractor I now have a decent flat spot and have gained some control over the water that has been flowing off the hill and under the cabin. Also created a nice semi circle berm around the flat spot and finally have a nice fire pit out of the wind. We also knocked down the briers and multi-flora on about a mile of road and gained access to a part of the place that I hadn't seen before. All in all day thirteen was pretty damn productive and I'm super glad that the machinery did most of the work because I'm sore and achey as hell from all my previous days activities.

Day-14 01-25-2017

I have two American Walnut (Not Black Walnut, I think it is actually English Walnut but sometimes called American Walnut) logs for sale. Both are from the same tree which was standing dead and felled in the last week. One is 15' long and has about a 6" diameter of usable material and the other is 5' 6" long and has about a 8" diameter of usable material. Very few knots on both logs and looks well cured. I'm not really setup to do anything with them and don't want to see them wasted. Willing to let them go for cheap because I really need the money. Please contact me soon if you want one or both because I may wind up listing them.

Day-15 01-26-2017

Pulled the battery out of my un-interpretable power supply so I can charge my phone with it. It has just enough juice left to give me a charge. It takes about half my phone's battery to check my fb and sometimes I have to hit refresh dozens of times to get a page to load. So everyone that tells me to look up something, or watch a YouTube video, or to use some website...Please for the love of my sanity STOP doing it. Just to read the notification sucks down my battery and honestly it's really frustrating to spend a half hour loading a page just to see that its a reference to another site that is absolutely impossible for me to check out. On a different note I thought upon coming here that I would be able to post the videos that I made and folks could see firsthand what I'm up against and what I'm doing. Although I have the gear to post the videos I have no way to power said gear. Anyway I thought the videos would be a good way to show what I have done with the contributions that I received before coming here and hopefully get people interested in helping and perhaps helping financially. Well it's fifteen days in and although I have made 1-3 videos a day since my arrival. I do have a PV panel and deep cycle battery on its way but its not gonna get here for another week or more. I brought enough food for a month but I miscalculated the work load I was taking on and after roughly two weeks of hard manual labor eighteen hours a day I have burned through nearly all my food even though I have been trying to stretch it as far as it will go. So if anyone wants to help then please do. Luckily there are folks about a mile from here willing to take me to a store but without money, work or funding I'm pretty fucked. On the upside of things my shelter stayed around 60 degrees F when it was 20 degrees F last night with just the body heat of me and the dogs.

Day-16 01-27-2017

Day 16 and it is brutally cold outside. I'm so thankful to have my tiny warm shelter to sleep in with the dogs. If it was bigger I would probably spend the cold days in it as well. On the flip side of that though if it were bigger I'd need a lot more than body heat to warm it. Looking like a lot of cold days and nights ahead and I'm determined to just hunker down and make the best of it. Now that it is super cold I may go explore the bear cave that's above me on the hill and see if there's one in there before the Spring arrives. I really don't want to be the closest food supply once it (if there is one in there) wakes up. On a different note I'm still low on supplies, out of money and have no fucking idea how I'm going to pull this all off but come Spring I'm planting the first round of Black Locust trees and hopefully breathing some life into this old farm and homestead. A lot of the recent work i have done has just been getting myself setup to survive the winter and de-junking my immediate surroundings to make it safer for me and the dogs. These super old homestead farms tend to have a lot of junk and sharp debris in the ground along with rusty old fences everywhere which is no good for human or animal so I'm thinking that a big part of the next few months will be dealing with that sort of thing. Also I'm gonna try to build a small cabin somewhere here before the snakes wake up in the Spring because where I am now is the only building around and from the mouse and bird droppings I saw upon my arrival this place is probably the copperhead feeding zone. So lots to do and other than a lot of raw material like dead trees and stones I don't really have much to work with in the way of resources. I'm gonna just keep plodding forward and hope that somehow I get some money coming in. For now I'm not going to let the stress of being out of money and nearly out of food get to me too bad because there is not really a fucking thing that I can do about either of those things. Yesterday I let it stress me enough to distract me and frustrate me to the point where I couldn't fully focus on the work that I was doing and by the end of the day I was grinding the few teeth I have left together and feeling pensive, anxious, stressed and sort of hostile. So today fuck all that because no matter what I'm going to keep pursuing my dreams and the nay-sayer side of me can go to fucking hell so that the rest of me can keep stubbornly pressing forward.

Day-17 01-28-2017

Shredded an old phone for it's battery so I could charge my phone from it. Just a few more days until my solar panel arrives. Some cool updates but not enough charge to post them all. Currently snowed in but toasty warm in my bad ass shelter.

Day-18 01-29-2017

Day 18 and starting to really settle in. Even have some groceries lined up and enough money for dog food. Thanks to those that made and are making that possible. On day 16 I wrote the word Luck over my door and walked the main road bordering the property and picked up trash along it. At the very end of my walk I found 77 half gallon flower pots at the edge of the lower creek and was super stoked because I was wondering how I was gonna afford the pots that I needed to start my first round of trees. Besides all that I've kept warm through the last several cold nights and made great progress on turning my attitude and mental state around before it got too out of hand. The videos will show just how rough the first few weeks were and until I can post them yal will just have to take my word for it that...faced with a massive amount of challenges here I have done swimmingly well.

Day-19 01-30-2017

Day 19 and I finally got a solar panel and deep cycle battery so that's going to be a huge game changer for me and hopefully I can get some of these videos posted. Unfortunately after reviewing a few of them tonight I realized that I have been holding the phone wrong while filming and all the videos are sideways so I'm gonna have to figure out how to correct that but whatever the content is great. After looking at some of the first few day's videos it really impressed upon me just how much has already been accomplished here in a very short time.

Day-20 02-01-2017

Day 20 and my Megativity is really starting to kick in. Spent most of the night coming up with and building some rather creative cabling solutions for the leads that go from my new solar panel to my new deep cycle battery. Didn't have a way to add a fuse so I shielded the clamps/battery-hookups with a half of a two liter bottle affixed over each one so that the leads coming from the panel can't accidentally be touched together. When I found the flower pots on Day 16 I also dug out of the ground a half buried deep cycle battery charger and am going to use it's charger meter to monitor my battery charge because I just couldn't afford a charge controller. I think there's also a one way blocking diode or isolator in the charger that I can use to keep the battery from feeding power back into the panel. I can read its part number so I will do some research on it before wiring it in. Feeling like I'm about to step very slightly out of the stone age around here.

Tomorrow will make three weeks that I have been here. Mostly I've been consumed with creating what I have for many years called 'the Jacob zone' which is really just a place to sleep that's warm and dry, a place to make coffee, a place to tinker and repair things, dry storage for clothes and gear, a place to write and draw plans and a place to relax at. I'm still working on that last one but I'm definitely getting a little closer every day. I've done much more than just creating my own zone though and am really feeling good about all the progress so far that's been accomplished here. Now it's time to find a nice cabin site here and see what I can build before the Spring arrives.

Day-21 02-02-2017

Day 21 My solar electric solution apparently came with complimentary overcast skies, minimal sunlight and a good bit of rain. Like I always say about solar though 'it is just not a reliable source of electric'. I really wish that I could have afforded a nice K-Tor Power Box (a 20 watt pedal generator) and it's 12 volt battery charging adapter. At least then I would have a reliable source of electric. If I could have somehow afforded to get them (or something very similar) i would have because in all my research it was really the best source of reliable electric generation that I could find on the consumer market and now after just a few days of solar I am further committed to saying that solar just is not reliable enough. Anyway a calorie (human powered) energy source in my not so humble opinion is the way to fucking go. So the electrical struggle continues along with a toothache that kept me up all night which worked out OK because four or five coyotes came to within about a hundred feet of the shack last night and had my big dog surrounded. I was up trying to ignore the toothache by staying busy and making my living space more functional by building a counter-top into the room (so I'd have a good work bench and kitchen counter) when all hell breaks lose outside. So anyway I started yelling at the coyotes and woke the other dogs and got the door open so they could go help the big dog. I went out right behind them with the spotlight and between us all they finally fled. They hesitated though and unlike before didn't scare off so easy. I figure they are either hungry, fed up with us here or both. When I first arrived here the main room of the shack had several tarps and other stuff sort of pushed into a sort of bed in the middle of the room and I always wondered what it could have been that had made such a big bed. Now I wonder if it was some of those coyotes.

Day-22 02-03-2017

I'm really doing this thing and it feels awesome. Challenges and all.

Day 22 and Burrrrrrr does it feel cold out. I'm so glad that my mini shelter is always a warm place that I can retreat to. There is a little sun today so hopefully it warms up a bit and maybe my solar rig will get some much needed sunshine. Some folks have offered to help with stuff either materially or financially so below I'm gonna list a few things that would be helpful and my PayPal link that folks can use to contribute through even if they don't have PayPal. Anyway pretty much anything and everything will help at this point, so even if I don't list something (and you think I might need it or have a use for it) please message me or post it to this thread. Please make financial contributions here: https://PayPal.me/jacobpeacock

Day-23 02-04-2017

Some of it has been fun. Mostly it has been a lot of work above and beyond all the work that it takes to live without running water or an electric grid. It's an old disused farm so there's a lot of general cleaning up of old fencing, nail filled boards and other similar things common to places like this. Once i get a handle on that sort of thing then i can really start curating the place. For now it is all a gem in the rough but a gem nonetheless.

Day-24 02-05-2017

I'm looking for folks I may know that live in the Waynesville, Canton, Clyde, Crabtree area. Hit me up if you do and want to come hang out sometime. Been wanting to find out who lives nearby ever since moving to the area 24 days ago.

Day-25 02-06-2017

Day 25! Time is flying by. Things are shaping up around here and I'm starting to really get my groove on with it all.

The absurdity of the world beyond the woods makes me feel great about doing what I'm doing. Also it feels good to be pursuing my dreams of starting a farm and building a homestead. What really feels awesome is that this all has a very permanent feel to it, whereas much of what I have done over the years (for my own living situation) has been done with me knowing it was temporary.

Day-26 02-07-2017

Day 26. A few folks have asked about what stuff I need or want so here goes. Some of it I posted before but I've updated it since then.

Jacob's In Search Of List & Stuff that would help:
Good books to get me through the winter.
Coffee!!! Pre-ground. Nothing flavored.
A farm vehicle.
Whey protein shake mix or similar. The body builder stuff is fine.
Multi Vitamins.
Peanut or Almond butter.
A Brita (or equivalent) water pitcher that has a built-in filter.
Three or five gallon water carbois. The big translucent blue ones.
One or two gallon mix fuel cans.
2 cycle oil.
Chainsaw. I'm usually picky about what kind but I just need any kind at the moment.
50 gallon plastic barrels.
IBC tank or tanks.
Heavy mil black plastic. Not the cheap stuff.
Black irrigation tubing. Any diameter.
Wheel barrow or wagon with wide wheels.
All size flower pots.
Green propane bottles or what I list for propane below.
Large tank to small tank propane adapter hose with in-line moisture trap.
One or two large propane tanks. For now I could sure use more small green propane bottles.
Triple A batteries. Rechargeable ones would be nice but I would need a 12 volt charging unit for them.
Solar powered lights.
Sway bar.
Tow straps.
Logging chain or chains.
Block and tackle.
Long length of very strong rope.
Gate hangers or gate hinges.
Wood chips.
Wood stove.
Stove pipe.
Saw dust. 50 gallon bags of it.
Straw bales.
Full length shovel.
Driveway motion sensor.
Game cameras. Even ones that don't work.
50 gallon metal drum with lock-on lid.
30 gallon metal drum.
Solar charge controller that will work with a 12 volt 20 Watt panel.
An electrical Multi Meter.
Greenhouse plastic. I need this ASAP so that I can build an entryway to the shack that will both warm it throughout the day and keep the heat in when I open and close my entrance door. Also I can start some of the Black Locust early for this year and give them a month or two head start on the spring.
Carpentry hand saw. Medium sized.
Hand crank drill. The old school type with adjustable chuck.
A pair of cheap loppers. I need them for cutting back the Multi Flora, Briers, Wisteria and Poison Ivy around here before the spring. The kind that have a hook where the blade seats is ideal but any loppers would help.
18 volt DeWalt cordless tool batteries. The old school kind especially if they are XRP ones.
A 12 volt powered (automotive cigarette lighter) DeWalt 18 volt battery charger. I looked at them and they run around a hundred bucks new. I knew that I needed one but couldn't afford to get it.
Funds to build my homestead site and cabin with. Since I plan on moving my (already built) mini shelter inside of it, I don't need to insulate it or anything and can build it (using mostly material from here) for probably around 400 bucks. Most of which would be the cost of fasteners and zip board for the roof and exterior sheeting.
A five hundred watt (any from 300 watt to a 1000 watt would work)12 volt DC to 120 volt AC power inverter. I'm using a two hundred watt one from an un-interpretable power supply currently and aside from the constant beeping and occasional over heating its working for now but really its not made to be used like that so a real one would help a lot.

Day-27 02-08-2017

Day 27 Still plodding along here. Somedays it all seems like such an insurmountable task (or many of them) and I just remind myself to focus on what's directly in front of me and do whatever it is that I can humanly (or sometimes almost super humanly) do and be satisfied with whatever headway that I can make, wherever I can make it. None of the last 27 days has been easy or relaxing and after a few weeks with a wicked toothache I'm still somehow managing to keep a good attitude about it all. How the hell I'm exactly doing that is a mystery to me considering that for the six hours I sleep each day is the only time I'm actually sort of comfortable. Maybe it's me knowing at long last that I'm really working on something that's got some permanence to it, or that I'm working towards fulfilling my dreams...whatever it is...beneath the layers of discomfort, pain, difficulties and stress, a small satisfied smile is starting to grow. A smile that I am absolutely suspicious of due largely to how fucked up my life has been and in some ways still is fucked up. I often feel that I'm a rather misunderstood person and then I realize that the folks that misunderstand me tend to be folks that have never actually taken the time to really (or actually) get to know me. I gave up wanting to be understood a few years ago while simultaneously removing myself from all social endeavors and the fickle hearted folks that seem to throng towards those sorts of activities. What I have found along the way since then is some peace of mind, emotional stability, and a deep desire to have real connections with genuine people that actually 'get' me (and I them) without a need for understanding because actual care, attention and patience is much more valuable.

Day-28 02-09-2017

Day 28 (This morning I posted some of the following on yesterday's thread but thought it worth making it into a separate post) Here Goes....Glad you like the updates and progress. The tooth pain has settled into a dull ache the last few days unless i talk, chew, bump, grit my teeth, or let my mouth close all the way. Unfortunately i think i broke two of the roots off below the gum and its gonna take oral surgery to get the tooth and roots out. I had thought i had only sheered off one root but last night i had to move it around some to relieve it from pressing on the nerve and it feels like it is in there by just one root. I'm almost to the point of doing some DIY dentistry on it and damn the consequences. The pain has sort of derailed my video series monologue to the point where in a few of them I'm just ranting and totally lose both the plot and perspective i need to really share the insights/things i want to be sharing. Spring time is coming though and with it the snakes and from what i hear from folks around here there are A LOT of copperheads and rattlers around here so i don't really have the luxury of slowing down on what I'm doing...toothache or no toothache i have to reclaim some of this place from the woods, disturb all the piles of stuff, find and clear a new cabin site, gather and procure stuff to build the cabin, bear proof everything, and a bunch of other things that i don't really want to do but HAVE to do to make it safe to be living here (the way i am) during the spring, summer and fall. That's why i have to keep my nose to the grindstone and not stop regardless of no money, pain, discomfort and various other challenges.

Day 28 again. While the rest of the world seems to be struggling with being outraged in one shape or another I have been thankful that I have limited cellular service and not been wasting my precious kilobytes per second on the absurd nonsense that seems to have a lot of folks choking mad, indignant and as mentioned outraged. It's not that I don't empathize with folks but that being said...quit fucking whining, take action and if necessary burn this fucking country to the ground (metaphorically) or just please shut the fuck up and quit wasting my precious kilobytes with so much armchair revolutionary-ism that is spouted more to make yourselves feel like your doing something rather than facing the truth that you are probably part of the problem and not even close to being part of the (or any) solution. In other words piss or get off the pot as the old saying goes. After almost a month in the woods the one thing that really stands out in my mind is that what most folks should (in my not so humble opinion) be doing right now is disconnecting from all the mechanisms that are steering you further and further down a blind alley where eventually you're gonna get bush-whacked (not by some evil elite) but by yourselves. Do something that really matters and that is going to make a better future or just keep wallowing in the shit of the present. It is really up to you what you give your attention, time and energy to and right now as sad as it is I think a lot of folks are just making things worse not better. Quit validating the shitbags of the world by giving them the attention they so desperately crave. Either buck the fuck up or shut the fuck up. That's my rant and I'm sticking to it.

Day-29 02-10-2017

Day 29 Got some nice insulated boots and some nice quality socks in the mail. My feet are so damn happy! Thanks so much Ryan!!!

Day 29 again. Today I had an idea and I would like to get some feedback from folks about it. As some of you know I have been making a video series of my last twenty-nine days here of going off-grid in the woods with my dogs on an old fallow farm. In the videos I am not just documenting my progress here but also sharing my insights on land management, property care-taking, living rustically and some other insights that I don't quite know how to classify. Other than several of my early videos being shot sideways (I had no idea the videos were that way because I was reviewing them on my phone and they looked fine. Doh!) I have done an excellent job of documenting my entire process here. My original plan was to be uploading these videos each day (or every few days) and being able to share them with my friends and get their insights, suggestions and possibly gain some contributions along the way. Unfortunately even with a cellphone repeater I just can't get enough consistent signal to post them which pretty much sucks because I was really hoping to gain support and possibly contributions for what I'm doing here by showing people first hand what all I'm up to and how I cope with the challenges that I face living the way that I do. As many folks know I'm rather reclusive and most of what I do (and more importantly how and why I do it) is something most folks don't know nor suspect about me. So I thought it would be a good way to not just share what I know and have learned but also give some perspective that otherwise would go to the grave with me. Anyway I want to share these videos and the best way that I can figure out to do this is to mail them to the folks that want them on USB thumb drives. For those who have donated to me in the past I want to do this for free as long as they mail me a self addressed envelope (with the correct postage) and a thumb drive(s) that I can load the videos onto and mail back to them. For those who have never made a donation I want to charge a nominal fee of somewhere between twenty to fifty dollars and I will buy the thumb drives and pay the postage to mail them to the address provided by them. So here is the feedback part of this post...what would you be willing to pay and what do you think would be a fair price? I have to warn you though these videos contain a good bit of explicit language and some of my views and opinions are sure to rankle some folks 'sensibilities' and clash with their opinions.

Day-30 02-11-2017

Day 30. Holy shit snacks I've been doing this thing for a month now!!!

Day 30 again. I thought about Brooke's comment on my Day 29 post a lot last night and today. What I came up with was this....No I don't think it is a very wasteful approach at all to mail individual USB thumb drives (loaded with my videos on them) to people. Furthermore I think that its actually much less wasteful than her suggestion. The reasoning on this that I pursued is as follows. (1) Mailing the videos to people gives them hard copies that they can share freely with others. (2) People without internet (or especially those without high speed internet) have the option to access the videos if I use thumb drives. (3) The thumb drive is infinitely reusable for other uses. (4) Running a server (or servers) 24/7 is extremely wasteful because the videos aren't going to be being accessed by people 24/7 so that's actually a huge waste. (5) Powering the hundreds or thousands of devices to deliver said videos to the end user via the internet is extremely wasteful also. (6) Thumb drives are absolutely portable and the entire apparatus of the internet is not. (7 Side Note) Not sure this applies to her specifically...Taking partial (or any) advice seriously from folks that embed themselves in temporary and non -permanent endeavors is a total waste of my own time, bandwidth and limited power supply. (8 Side Note Rant Part) Anything done in a radioactive dust bowl no matter how wasteful it really is, is ultimately exempt from wastefulness because well its just so cool to burn all that fuel and good material that can never be replenished.

Day 30. For real this time. It's been a damn hard long month of bust ass work seven days a week. The winter is generally my downtime and I'm much more accustomed to writing, reading books, playing video games and methodically planning my activities for the warmer months. Anyone who has ever really seen me in action during the warmer seasons knows that any 'downtime' that I may take for myself during the winter is made up for by my over-activity the rest of the year. I got a little downtime this year before coming here but it was actually spent mostly being stressed the fuck out over having to find a new place to live. Which when it comes to property care-taking is the absolute worst time of year to be looking for a new gig because no one really does jack shit on (or with) their property in the winter. So I was fortunate to even find a place and gig to start with, of which (and for which) I am extremely grateful. Nonetheless I've found my yearly cycle and routine completely disrupted by all of it. I'm a resilient, adaptive, cantankerous, hard headed, stubborn, "I can do anything I set my mind to", hard hitting, occasionally surly bastard though and when I put my mind to something come hell or high water I'm gonna do it, do it well and tell anyone that gets in my way to move out of the way or get fucking stepped on. All that said I do enjoy not just the downtime but also the reclusive isolation and alone time. I know a lot of (most) folks don't actually like nor enjoy extended periods by themselves but I fucking live for it. All I can really say to those who don't enjoy being alone is maybe try actually getting to know yourself better and overcome or change the things that being alone makes you face about yourself and causes you such distress during such times because really if you can't stand You then how the fuck can you reasonably expect others to. Anyway I overcame such nonsense years ago and actually not only like but love myself and one of the things that I love the most is not just my intolerance of people but also my (albeit usually silent) intolerance of all the horseshit that tends to spew from their mouth in a vain attempt to 'fill the silence' with the drivel of their own soft-headedness and narrow minded perspective. I've had a bare handful of people in my life actually take the time to really get to know me and the common thread among them all is their surprise at who I really am beneath the many layers that make me Me. Don't worry I'm not gonna spell it out for anyone that can't take the time to get through all those layers, primarily because there are no shortcuts and also I have found that it's easier and more comforting for folks to just pigeon hole me and be done with it, which by now I often help them do because hell everyone thinks that everyone else is either as simple minded or as ignorant as they themselves are. There's a saying that I seldom get correct but its something like 'when your only tool is a hammer you treat everything like a nail'. All that said I begrudge people none of it and just try to reach them through a framework that they can not only understand but relate to much the same way I deal with myself and all my own quirks. Everyone seems to want to be liked or accepted or some such nonsense but really they seldom do either or yet alone both for themselves to any degree that truly matters not because they don't try but because it is a difficult thing to do even for the strong minded and most focused of will power. For whatever reason real acceptance of All our own strengths and weaknesses is something that many either can't or won't attain mainly because we wont put ourselves in real life situations that demand that we do just that or perish. It's easier to embrace the image of ourselves than actually embracing ourselves. I've done both and hell it still hasn't done me much damn good in life other than feeling secure in who I am and lead me to be a-fucking-okay with what I call the good, the bad, the ugly and the beautiful of myself because they are all part of me ALL the time and the moment I lose sight of any one of them the rest just become useless. Posts like this are exactly why my downtime is so important to me. Because it keeps me sane, primarily by not having fuckall to do with other humans for a few precious months a year. Now I gotta cut it short and run these trespassers off God damn it!

Day-31 02-12-2017

Day 31 Early A.M. Those little trespassing fuckers injured one of my dogs. What kind of shitheads trespass onto someone else's property then injures a dog that's protecting that place! I even called out to them before the first dog reached them with a "What are yal doing in these woods? Yal ain't got no business here. Come on out and show yourselves. You are trespassing." They were really close uphill from me and I know they heard my loud ass mouth. Half this holler could hear me if they were outside at the time. They got quiet and she (the dog) got closer to them and from two hundred or so feet away I heard a terrible whacking sound and the dog grunting from the blow. She's tough as nails and didn't yelp but I heard her take a tumble and them running off through the woods. I was already holding the other three dogs back because I didn't want them packing up and harming whoever it was. Not that That has ever happened before (them harming folks) but better to be safe. After hearing that I said "Come on out or I will put these dogs on you." which were all barking insanely behind me like I've never heard them barking before. I waited a moment and said again (because I heard them pause in their running) "Last chance. Come on out you ain't got no business here." Then a short pause and I said "You can deal with me, the dogs or the law. Come on out last chance!" They didn't budge and after a brief moment I said "Okay you can deal with me and the dogs then." Then I let the other three loose and heard them running and talking to each other as they did. They were much further up the hill by now and sounded like they were getting close to exiting the property so I called all the dogs back before the dogs could reach them and just started saying things with my more 'Slingblade' voice like "Yal come up in here looking for trouble you're gonna damn sure find it." And my personal favorite "I ain't nice enough to shoot you." And some other stuff that I can't recall clearly but all of it along those lines. I figured it was all done and they were gone and that was that. Then they fucking came right back not even really thirty minutes later. Talking but not quite as loud as the very first time and obviously not trying to keep me from hearing them. So this time I came out the door yelling "Yal want some come fucking get it I'm right here in the open." Just then the clouds moved from in front of the moon and it got super bright out and I said something like. "See there! Even the moonlight is getting brighter...I hope you can see me now. Come get it. We are gonna have some fun now!" I think that or me saying something about hog tying and 'purdy' mouths finally struck a nerve and they fled. Which was wise because the dogs had all packed up around me and we were heading as a unit towards them. So I paused part way up the hill with the dogs in the shadows and just waited to see if they would stop running but they didn't. I waited and waited and it wasn't until I was satisfied they were gone before I came out of the woods with the dogs and saw my big dog was limping (favoring a leg on her front side) a lot. I have shit for lights at the moment and my batteries all happened to die tonight but I looked her over the best I could and she ain't bleeding but she's definitely hurt and like I said favoring that front quarter or leg. A very cold calm has come over me and a frown that I know all to well as a sign that I ain't gonna take no more horseshit and if they return I am gonna have to deal with them myself until the law arrives which is the first thing I'm gonna do if I hear their voices again. Those voices are etched crystal clear in my memory also. Some folks just don't understand that the dogs ain't never what to worry about...the thing to worry about is me and God damn it I'm in the mood now.

Day 31 again. Folks often misunderstand the goings on of my life as being 'drama'. When in all actuality the places I live and my 'life' are intimately tied to my role/job as a property caretaker and that often entails protecting a property, it's assets, resources, it's owners and it's owners interests, and the properties ecosystem but those are just part of what the role requires. It also (more primarily) requires fixing broken things, broken relations, building stuff, landscaping, and land management to name just a few. Generally (or specifically) it boils down to helping them fulfill their dreams of what they really want from the place. During all this I must always keep in mind that it is Their place not mine and after years of practice I for the most part never treat a place as my home. Home is a place that most folks retreat from the world, or their job (or whatever) from and often it's a place that they feel safe, secure, be themselves at, and have ultimate authority at. My life does not afford me that luxury of feeling those things at 'home'. I do feel those things in what I often refer to as "the three feet around me" or "my personal bubble" which is all I ever really need to lend me some peace of mind. The place I'm at now though, I have been encouraged (at long last) to not just 'make myself at home' but to also make it (or part of it) my permanent home, which is definitely a huge switch for me from most of my previous experiences doing this sort of thing. What I'd like to tell folks that espouse the 'drama' horseshit...is do you honestly think you have what it takes to do what I do without a home to retreat to and treating (basically) your every living and breathing moment protecting the interests of other folks (and often but not this time other folks themselves) without a home to retreat to. Also can you do it with an even temperament (mostly) and a smile on your face?