#spoony homesteading
well. i can’t say whether or not i’ll change the schedule to monthly (until something interesting happens, like spring, i suppose) or not but i can say that you shouldn’t expect much update for a while. it’s not that i’ve lost my interest, it’s more that there’s just not much to talk about. i wake up, i exist, i feed my rabbits and my chickens, and then i exist some more until night falls and i finally wake up.
maybe i was too successful at planning my winter to be slow and not include any real projects to save my poor sad hands, or maybe i’m just hanging on by a gossamer thread and it’s difficult to leave my office.
i’m not getting much into my mental health because frankly that’s nobody’s business. my animals are fed and there are no kits in the nests because i had to give myself a break before i burned out entirely. the cold snaps are consistent enough now and the grow-outs are old enough to withstand them, so i haven’t had a death in some time. i did breed three does for late january kits, and hopefully that’s been enough time that i can handle it again.
i have two buckets of pickle in the bathroom and i’ve not worked on either but they are there, waiting for when i feel a little more alive. they are, at least, no longer in the freezer, which i finally roped my partner into helping me go through. i threw away…a large chunk of money’s worth of hides that were just completely unsalvageable and hopefully i can save a few that intended to go to clients. it’s going slow. is it burnout, seasonal depression, introvertism-related anxiety, or simply hyperfixation i’m not sure. but i desperately do want to return to consistent work, and not just for the money.
most of my time is spent in my room with the door shut, partly for temperature regulation (i have quite a few snakes, you know,) and partly because i wish to not be perceived by anything or anyone. what i have spent my time doing, besides drinking too much tea and soda, is writing. i have written over 100,000 words since mid-november and honestly i am a little afraid of myself. and i am proud of most of those words. genuinely i feel like this could be something good, once it’s of course edited. it’s both escapism and also therapeutic, to be able to talk about the subjects i’m talking about, and also enjoyable to finally wax poetic about death and not have everyone run away from me like i’m pumbaa at the waterhole. i’m close to finishing but today i’ve taken a break to read a book instead of write one, and it’s been nice.
it’s the last day of 2020 and i wish i could be excited but i am mostly just tired. the next month is packed for me and i’m mostly just stressed in advance about it all, knowing that i need so much downtime between events and i’m already so tired of being stuck in my room unable to leave as it is. but these things are exciting, at least - my birthday, my wedding anniversary, a tattoo appointment, picking up a new TAMUK doe from a transport. i just wish i could have the solitary time i know i’m going to need to relax after all the excitement.
but we’ll make it, i suppose. for now.
WELL, IT SURE HAS BEEN A WHILE HASN’T IT. do i have an excuse? possibly. is it a good one? ehhh, probably not. depends on if you consider winning NaNoWriMo worth missing an entire months’ worth of blog posts over ;p
but yes, for the uninitiated i am in fact a writer. unpublished, but i have not up until recently felt my work was good enough for it, but maybe soon i’ll start annoying literary agents. now that i’ve knocked out an enormous amount of my current draft through NaNo, (which i didn’t even come up with the concept for this novel until like a week into november,) that day may come sooner than we expected. but yes, that’s kind of been all-consuming, and now that’s over i’m looking forward to doing more leisurely activities, like building cage racks ;p (btw, i am in progress on a writing blog here, feel free to dm me if you want to URL; it’s not a secret but it’s decidedly 18+ so i won’t directly link.)
on the animal side of things, it’s been pretty par for course. i’ve lost a lot of animals due to weather changes, but i have taken a break from breeding for a little while so hopefully the swings are less dramatic by the time i get back into it. i plan to breed a couple of litters next month for valentine’s day babies! i’ve also somewhat at least determined part of the problem - not only were the dramatic weather changes lowering immune systems, but i discovered that a not insignificant amount of my hay had gone mouldy and likely contributed to the problem. so, new hay bale, lots of boxes and straw to snuggle in, and hopefully the rest of winter goes smoothly.
farm life has slowed down for the season, and in a way it’s been nice. outside of writing, i’ve been struggling to find something to occupy my time with that is making me feel like i’m not just faffing about all day. but this is kind of intentional, after all - i planned my projects so i could be done with them before it got cold, to give myself a break and keep me out of the cold. but i am notoriously bad at taking a break, after all. we can only hope i channel my energy into tanning pelts so i can whittle on my commission list and make some money to buy books with ;p
i have gone back to PT for my knee this time, and subsequently my hip, because it turns out it’s my hips after all and not just my knee. i haven’t been going for very long, but i adore my doctors and it’s nice to get out of the house for a little while and exercise. it’s been an uphill climb, though, even moreso than when i went for my back. my hip/knee is more cranky, apparently, and with the colder weather i have been painful much, much more often. i do really hope i start getting better soon, because i would very much not like to have surgery.
(basil, princess buttercup, and occasionally a random step-sibling come with me to almost every appointment much to the delight of everyone in the building)
last month also brought the thanksgiving holiday. generally i prefer to celebrate harvest, and therefore i try to make it a point to cook things we grew on our land. this year we were able to make almost the entire spread just off our land - roast rabbit, mashed potatoes, zucchini, deviled eggs, dirty rice. green bean casserole and homemade pumpkin pie with farm eggs were also included, and AQF brought a rabbit to make gravy out of that she’d raised, along with chocolate pie from scratch and some delicious peppermint butter cookies. one of my favourite things in the world is cooking for others, and it felt good to feed our little group from what we’ve raised was a highlight of the year for me.
(dirty rice is the most unappetizing thing on the planet but i promise, it’s delicious.)
it’s hard to believe it’s already december, but hopefully 2021 brings us new and hopefully less…agoraphobic things to look forward to. i am excited for animal possibilities, being able to run again, and all the things i’ll read, write, and create. especially rabbit shows. good lord i miss rabbit shows.
only one day late! lay off! i was….well. okay i was busy but not thatbusy. it’s mostly because um, well. both nothing and So Much happened but it’s kinda hard to talk about.
not in an emotional way, in a “privacy of my friends” way, don’t worry.
so the animals are fine. great, in fact - i’ve got a bunch of fresh baby bunnies, some pretty good looking growouts, and the birds are….well, they’re fine. most of ‘em anyway. we have lost a few ducks recently, because suddenly a few individuals started wandering off of the property - something they’d never done before - and disappeared. we’ve seen joleyne the bobcat recently and she came out of the woodworks to snatch one of my hen ducks (fortunately one i was planning on eating anyway because she was annoying,) so i suspect it was either the cat or the road that meant their ends. one of the roadkills actually ended up being returned to me fresh, so we were able to at least have dinner out of it. turns out muscovy is good, but not significantly better than mallard-based duck, and definitely not really worth the time it takes to grow them out. fortunately they still win over “normal” ducks because they are quiet and feed themselves ;p
the big event happened on wednesday, when, through Circumstances, we were up all night hauling a friend’s rabbits to my property. so now i have upwards of 50 refugee bunnies behind my barn. hale and hardy, but it’s definitely been an additional thing to think about every day. said friend comes feed/water every day, but of course i still keep an eye on everyone since they’re here. the upside is that i now have extremely easy to access to all of her rabbits, a couple of which i need for projects. i finally have all the pieces of my next round of coat and colour goals, i just need to put them all together (but next year. i’m giving the girls and i a break for a couple months.)
(coming up: more himis)
my back is extremely sore from hauling cages around, but i slapped on my brace and was able to get almost all the rabbits up on a water line, exponentially reducing my effort every day. of course it means that now if something leaks, it will leak EVERYWHERE, but at least i’m not having to refill five buckets every three days or dealing with expensive water tips that break if you look at them weird. i ordered some more smaller cages for the little breeds, and then i should be out of barn space. i want to say that i’ll be satisfied with this for a while, but let’s be real here, i give it three months before i max out and then start whinging about how i have to make too hard of decisions regarding who to keep.
the last few days i’ve spent organizing and cleaning up in my office, and it’s been slow but i’m getting through it. slowly i’m finding some motivation to do things around the house again, as well. i’ve all but forgotten every recipe i’ve ever known, but it’s like a muscle, it’ll be back soon. maybe i’ll make some Stuff That Resembles What Was In The Lettuce Wraps At Pei Wei But On Rice for dinner since it’s been probably an entire year and I’ve been in an asian food mood lately. or maybe i’ll just make shephard’s pie (but with curry instead of gravy) because there’s still mashed potatoes in the fridge we nee to eat.
it has taken me hours to write this post because lately i’ve been doing that thing where around 2pm you just have the overwhelming desire to take a nap, but if i nap i won’t get to sleep tonight, and sleep has been elusive enough lately as it is. there’s just not enough hours in the night between ‘too dark to do work’ and ‘if i stay up any later i will be miserable tomorrow’.
bluhhg. urhghyh. it’s tea time then i will try to organize the top of my bookshelf before chores so i’ll have accomplished something ;p have a good week everyone, ciao
well, boys, it’s been a month, and i’m glad it’s nearly over. october tends to be the time of year when i am at my fullest power, both for goth reasons and for climate reasons, so here’s to hoping. i wore a hoodie the other day and it was delightful. now if only i had an excuse to light the woodstove.
the days move on. i don’t remember the week i missed; it probably was just me being exhausted, stressed, and sleep deprived, because that’s kinda how my september has gone. the rain is starting to creep back into my life, which is forcing the urgency of the completion of all of the outdoor projects before i can no longer work outside easily. my burnout is still here but lessening, and it’s helped that have less animals to feed on the daily. or at least the things i have to feed aren’t spread out all over the farm like they used to be, because thinking about it i have three more nests of kits and a new snake so ;p
look at this snake though. he’s worth it.
this past week my parent were in town, which is a whole situation in of itself. i am a routine-oriented person; having it thrown for a loop isn’t my favourite feeling in the world though i do usually handle it fairly well for a few days, anyway. it’s nice to have help with sewing, a new serger (well, it was my grandmother’s, so an 80s model, and not new to me, but now it stays at my house,) and another set of hands to direct at some kind of farm chore. there’s nothing else to really do since most activities are either not open or unsafe, so dad helped kyle put in fenceposts and wire the braces, mom directed us in the manufacture of about twenty more masks that won’t put pressure on my still-healing earrings, and i got some free food out of the whole deal.
now they’re gone and the house is silent once more, which is a weird feeling now but one i have missed. but now my fingers itch because i know i need to go hang more cages (they leveled part of the barn, it was nice; they also hung me a hammock and cleaned up the wellhouse which i had been dreading myself,) but my body is rebelling against me.
i don’t know if it’s a capricorn thing or an intj thing or just a me thing, but it is impossible for me to relax. i say that mondays are my day off but really that just means that i would tell myself i can’t do anything other than daily chores. unfortunately the way it’s gone lately, that all i can really do is daily chores, which means my day off isn’t a day off at all, and the only way i will truly get a day off is if i go to work with kyle one day and am physically unable to do anything but lay on the floor and read a book. because otherwise i WILL either do something, or be frustrated because i could be doing something.
for example: i was going to write a paragraph about how i hope things are going to ease up now that most of my checklist is marked off, but then i realized that it would be better to sell my awkwardly-sized rabbit cages and just buy new ones that are less awkwardly sized, which means i would have to build more cage racks anyway. which is more work for me that i would need to get done before november-ish ;p
anyway, it’s time to go make some tea and do chores. it’s sunny today after a week of rain, so i better enjoy it while it lasts. that is the one plus with having so much outdoor work to do - at least it’s nice outside while i’m there. sometime this week my snake eggs will be hatching and i am EXTREMELY excited about that as you may imagine. i’m not sure how many are still alive, but they all seem to have good veins, so here’s to hoping there’s pips soon!
my mental health feels like that one roller coaster that used to be at seaworld in san antonio and it didn’t have any like, trick, it was just a bunch of humps over and over again? it was called the screamin’ eel or something like that, i don’t quite remember. it had one huge drop from like thirty stories or something and then the rest was a bit boring to a coaster fiend like me. where are the loops, the twists, the spirals?
well, actually, my brain coaster has spirals too so maybe i should end this metaphor.
it’s slowly easing back into the season of drear and rain, and with it comes a new sense of urgency to finish my outside projects before i am physically unable to do manual labour. i can’t remember if i’ve mentioned it, but despite loving cold weather, i have some kind of issue where my hands and feet go numb after only a few minutes if it’s below 70F or so, making it very painful to do work in the cooler months and especially in the winter. most gloves or thick socks do not help. heated gloves are a bit better, but they are cumbersome and i am the kind of person who really relies on tactile sensation when working with my hands.
anyway. it’s something i’ve just accepted, but it also means that i have to try and get all my outside projects done in summer before i am quite literally unable to make any meaningful progress on them. combine them with my workaholic nature and well.
i’m burnt out.
i’m not going into it too deeply because the circumstances the boil down to said burnout are for my therapist to know, not my tumblr blog, but it’s affecting me pretty badly lately. i am very tired and frustrated and it’s making it hard to do much of anything, much less farm chores. but they need to get done so i will, but it’s like pulling teeth. good thing i’m more stubborn than a mule.
on the animal front we’re doing well. i’ve got plenty of baby bunnies with more on the way in the next couple of days, and i made a little road trip to pick up a new rex buck that i am very excited out. and yes, i did remember to tell his breeder to give me some transition food. i am done dealing with force feeding rabbits and out of nowhere deaths.
he is a handsome wideband amber who carries e (either tort or harlequin) and he will make some lovely babies with my tri girls :)
on the bird front, everyone is well. my partner is almost done building the second movable coop, and there’s only (checks list) three more left to make (maybe. burnout may change that.) the girls have started slowing down on the eggs and both my fridge and my time management are thankful. i was hoping i’d have a lot more opportunity to sell eggs this year but unfortunately it didn’t quite work out that way, and so far i haven’t had a ton of luck trying to sell chicks. or any of the ducklings we have running around still. i’m not sure if i want to raise them up for meat, though, since most of them are muscovies who are NOTORIOUSLY slow growers, so i’m kind of at a loss for what to do.
at least the turkeys are well. the older royal palm is starting to get real feathers now, and the narragansett, blue slate, and chocolate are nearly old enough to leave the brooder as well. i am excited to see them grow and turn into actual turkey-shaped things instead of vaguely hunched over chickens. i have no real opinion of turkeys yet, since i have not experienced them in their adult forms, but so far i do like them. they are cute, and despite the fact that a bag of rocks generates more electricity than their brains do, they are delightfully easy to brood after my duckling fiascos.
well it’s about to rain and i don’t want to have to walk around the pasture and get wet, so i guess i’ll go. here’s to hoping september is a little better than august.
well, things got a bit better anyway. i managed to throw out my husband and my roommate (okay, they went to a nursery of their own volition,) for about six or seven hours and yes, i did spend at least one of my hours alone lying on the floor in front of the fan simply Existing.
i also did laundry, fed animals, butchered three rabbits, and …something else, i forget, in one of the most productive days i’ve had in months. and then the next day i was alone again for most of the day! truly i am spoiled. that day i mostly just chilled out and drank tea, but it was still wonderful. unfortunately this comes after a pretty miserable week of me being locked in my office desperate for isolation in any way shape or form, but it’s getting better. hopefully.
the skipped week involved a lot of stress outside of that, too. i had five rabbits go off feed, which meant that all of my precious little energy was put towards their recovery effort, and i had to rely on my companions to handle the birds and the rest of the rabbits. fortunately two rabbits recovered well and are back to eating normally. two sadly died, including my new beveren mix boy ginko, which came as a hard hit. the last has been in limbo for weeks and i’m still not sure if she’ll recover, but hopefully i will find out the key to her eating again and she will bounce back.
this last week was better. the only good thing about losing half a dozen rabbits last month is that i now don’t have to spend the time force-feeding and medicating them, and i have some more empty cages open to redistribute growouts better. trying to regroup and focus on moving forward. i’ve got some nice looking himis that’ll never see a show table but will still compliment my breeding project well, some rex litters i’m excited for, and plans for another rabbit-related road trip in the near future which will net me a very fun harlequin gene that should mean good news to my fur clients.
picture remotely related as this is mom of the rex babies, as well as our sidebar bunny for the summer layout.
my partner has gotten permission to return to the office to work, and while it makes me a little nervous, it is only him and one other coworker there in different offices, so the risk is pretty low. i do feel a little like i’ve pressured him into endangering himself for my mental health even though i never even brought the option up - he offered. but it has helped, unfortunately. having the mornings to myself before my roommate wakes up is very much like how i’m sure normal people feel sitting on the porch with their coffee before work.
i’ve been trying to readjust my routine to try and maximise my perceived alone time in the mornings and at night, and it’s been somewhat working. the roommates also went to a lumber store on saturday, leaving me alone for several hours again which helped. it would be nice if we could plan something like that every week where i have some downtime to work on housework, but i still understand we’re in a pandemic and there’s only so much traveling that can be done safely. however my roommate’s studio did open up again, and i’m not sure of the specifics of how it’s operating, but hopefully that will get them out of the house again for a little while a few times a week.
in other news, i will be a grandsnarent in approximately a month and a half, which is very exciting. it’s not really “farm related” so i don’t talk about it much, but i’m dipping my toes into snake breeding very casually, and a couple days ago i got my very first clutch of ball python eggs! it’s been an Event trying to tell if my girl was gravid or not, because there was some issue with her not taking during the original session of pairings, but she sure did pop out seven perfect eggs, didn’t she! they are now safe inside the incubator under my helicopter eye, and somewhere in mid september hopefully there’ll be some babies!
pictured: forbidden mozzarella balls
well, i’ve got AQF coming over to help do culls and bring me a new girl (hint: her name is Cloud Nine,) today so i should get moving on lunch and straightening up the kitchen. i have some Business Things to do and some cages to order since now i kinda know how many i can find in the barn in total, and writing a blog post isn’t conducive to any of those. so goodbye for now, and maybe next week i’ll have more good news.
i’m so tired please give me a break and maybe one iota of energy
okay before i complain i’m gonna say, things aren’t bad, farm-wise. i finally got a very anticipated litter from my harlequin rex doe and a friend’s tri buck, and boy those kits are GORGEOUS.
LOOK AT THEM. UgH. i plan on keeping either one of the harlequins, and possibly the little spotty broken in the back depending on its conformation is decent, since it’s, at least markings-wise, very show quality. i also have my two broken black girls due to a gorgeous black buck next week, too.
additionally, the same friend who owns the sire of all these litters brought me a girl (ok, i paid for her, but still,) in the form of yet another himalayan doe, who i am pretty sure i will name Knishes. so really, the farm is doing well. the babies are growing good and fat, and i am dreading cull day in a couple of months when i have somewhere in the realm of twenty-five rabbits that need going.
oh well, that's’ for future me to worry about.
(she looks huge but in reality my friend is just very small. like five foot nothing small. himis are only max 4lbs :p)
i also have been working on building cage racks for the rabbits, now that my trays have arrived and i can finally get the barn wrangled in. i also additionally received my replacement parts for my water line system, and after some finagling and substituting (i received no instructions or notes on what anything was made of, so we had to get some pvc couplings to weld it together,) i think i may finally be able to set up the water line of my dreams. unfortunately, we’ve been having quite a lot of rain lately, and one side of the barn is flooding and there’s not much i can do about it until the rain stops and the ground drains out a bit. for now, i’m rewatching avatar: the last airbender and putting together a lotof pvc piping.
now for the bad.
i’m stressed. good lord i’m stressed. with my housemate’s help we have reached my working limit on animals i can care for on my own. the birds are so spread out that it’s exhausting to try and handle them without help, and even with him i find that i tire more easily these days. rabbits i can do all day, because they and their equipment are all in one barn. the birds are all over like a good half-acre of land, and my sad little legs just can’t do that anymore, i guess.
anyway, the stress of my daily chores taking ages and being exhausting, trying to build cages, set up a water line, deal with the dogs, entertain my quarantine friends, and trying to start working again is….well, it’s doing a number on me. my body hurts, i’m exhausted to the point of pain, and i have been very short and unable to focus. fortunately, my husband is on vacation this week and his entire life goal seems to be quality of life improvements, so here’s to hoping something is able to change and i can relax again.
one day. maybe. we aren’t sure.
so far we’ve got stairs on the back patio, a fence around the garden (the geese keep eating my corn and smashing my onions!), and the barn leveled and ready to be racked up whenever i have the energy. we have plans to make new, easier to use chicken coops to consolidate some birds so it’s not a nightmare for me every day during chore time, and we’re training the dogs to kennel outside so we can reclaim our kitchen storage. now i just need to get some pelts going so i can pay off my tab with the friend to has provided me with knishes as well as some hides, be able to afford a new pet (stay tuned!), and just generally feel more like i’m contributing again.
well. i need to go eat dinner and take the babies out to mom and get some more cages put together and hope my hips don’t blow up again. ciao for now.
