Alright, it is super late at night here but I keep having all too much stuff tumbling around in my mind to let me even attempt to get any rest. I also spent a good bit of the day napping, after spending the early morning hours hacking down a bunch of unwanted vegetation with a swing-blade... so go figure.
Occasionally, I sort of miss writing my homesteading entries but as I have stated before... I do not have much motivation to actually work on my homesteading endeavors here nor write about it all... or to put it more aptly the lack of such endeavors! None of which is to say that I have not been writing altogether... or doing my routine chores... but hopefully folks understand what I mean there.
The last few weeks, I have largely taken a break from my coding projects and artificial intelligence research as well... because after pulling twelve to eighteen hours a day for months on end... I was starting to approach burnout and thought that taking a pause was the best thing that I could do for myself. That stuff, is rather mentally taxing no matter how much I enjoy doing it and can be super annoying given how dodgy my internet connection tends to be.
Another major contributor to taking a break, has been this fatigue that has been playing hell on me for the last few months... because I cannot seem to stay awake for more than a few hours without feeling groggy... and then when I actually fall asleep... I cannot seem to get more than a few hours of rest at a time. I have also been having super vivid dreams (as well as a few nightmares) plus experiencing so many lucid states that it just leaves me feeling mentally exhausted.
Thankfully, I still have not run out of food and the few weeks that the new refrigerator was running (during the last electric billing cycle) did not seem to drive the electric bill up all that much... but I think this next bill will be a better reflection of what running it costs. Unfortunately, some of the meat that I got was either already bad when I got it or spoiled in the fridge soon afterwards... and although I have disposed of it... the fridge now stinks like crazy even after cleaning it multiple times.
I swear that I am just better off without using refrigeration and given that most of the food that I routinely get does not require it... I might wind up discontinuing its usage once all the meat and cheese (that I have now) is gone. My other big consideration, is that the weather will be changing relatively soon and I am unsure how well my extension cords will hold up trying to run it and the recirculating oil heater.
Which honestly, is something that I should move away from using also... because it was super expensive heating the building with it last winter... and created quite the monetary challenge for me which of course just made everything even more stressful. My only good alternative, is using the propane heater... but with the way fuel prices have skyrocketed... I am really unsure if that would actually be a cheaper route... plus I am more than a little skeptical about the fuel supply... so there is that.
Overall, the country as a whole seems to be circling the proverbial drain... and every day there is a new barrage of asinine problems that all amount to a highly dysfunctional system that is teetering towards some kind of implosion. Do not worry, because I will be refraining from going down that particular rabbit warren and I think that anyone with even half a brain can see just how precarious things are here.
As a side not to all that jazz, the locals around here have apparently run into quite the financial pinch and cannot afford to buy as much ammunition as they could before. In short, the amount of times they have been shooting off their guns has dropped to an all time low... and the caliber of what they have been shooting has dropped in stages to boot... which pretty much speaks for itself in my perspective.
I definitely do not mind the peace and quiet... but recently one particular neighbor hit the bottom of the barrel and started shooting their twenty-two (the smallest caliber that I am aware of) and upon hearing it I thought to myself: Well that just sounds pathetic. Not all that long after that they even broke out some (what I am assuming were) leftover fireworks from the fourth of July and I was like: Well damn! Now that is hitting rock bottom!
Well, I have rambled on enough for this entry. I hope that everyone is doing well and all that feel good jazz. Ciao for now.
