Xerocles
Loving the herd life
It's "pity party" time. Homesteading, farming, ranching. Call it what you will IT'S TOUGH! Everybody on here already knows that. Then you add in lack of experience, a former lifetime of sedentary work, age aches and pains and stiffness, super limited budget and the toughness intensifies. Then you try doing it alone and the simplest of tasks become a nightmare (here, hold one end of this tape measure against that post while I measure to that other one. Oh wait, how do I do this alone?) Projects don't take twice as long alone....it's quadrupled cause you not only have to do all the work, but most time is taken figuring HOW to get it done.(a nail driven partway into a post and bent will hold one end of a tape measure.....usually)
I am currently building a pole barn (I guess its a pole barn. Its 6 cedar posts and a roof. To cover the rabbit cages. I just call it a shed.) I won't go into the frustration and physical torture of post holes and lifting 11' cedar posts alone, because I did it and survived (thanks Alleve).
But today. Three 10' steel girders in place, rafters screwed on, just about ready to put the sheet metal on (that I salvaged from a partially collapsed barn yesterday). Last item. A 12' 2X4 endcap on each end of the rafter run. Ten feet off the ground, not a level spot anywhere near the shed, one step ladder. Head scratching time. Tie one end in "close enough" position, move ladder to other end, try to find reasonable level spot for the ladder. Up with the other end. Just as I am about to screw in place, the other end slips out of the rope, crashing down, hitting wobbly ladder and almost sending me to the ground. Nope, gotta find another way. Move the ladder. Nail a 10d nail into the end of the rafter, balance the 2X4, down the ladder, move the ladder, up the ladder, lift, and...nail gives just enough for endcap to slide off. Down the ladder, move the ladder, up the ladder. 3 1/2" screw into the rafter end. Balance the 2X4, TIE it to the rafter, down the ladder, move the ladder up the ladder, lift, and SUCCESS! Rinse, repeat on the other end. Nearly 4 hours to put two endcaps on. Logically a 20 minute job. The dog had moved to the far side of the yard to hang out, cause she didn't know the words I was saying, but had only heard the tone once before when she pulled my down jacket out of the cab of the truck and destroyed it.
Now, sitting in my recliner, work boots off, and still seething with frustration....I ask myself "Why?" Eggs are about $1/dozen at the store. I can buy pork and beef on sale for near what raising rabbits will cost. The land has lain fallow for over 20 years, so who cares if a few more bushes grow. I'm too old to care about the chemicals or hormones in the food I eat. Too many years of ingesting them to worry about it now. And the $ already invested in infrastructure, if saved, would probably buy food for me for a l o n g time.
This is all rhetorical, as far as if I am really going to quit. OF COURSE NOT. I'm much too goat-headed for that! Tomorrow, I'll get up, put the roofing on, and start figuring out how to lift, suspend, and balance the rabbit cages without help. Why? Because that's the way I am. I made a decision to do this "country lifestyle" thing, and I'll do it, successfully, if it kills me.
Now, if you read all this, thank you. Response is not necessary. I just needed to say it to someone. Get it off my chest. And I am beginning to think of many of you as family now. Tomorrow comes, new problems to face and overcome, and life goes on. We win.
I am currently building a pole barn (I guess its a pole barn. Its 6 cedar posts and a roof. To cover the rabbit cages. I just call it a shed.) I won't go into the frustration and physical torture of post holes and lifting 11' cedar posts alone, because I did it and survived (thanks Alleve).
But today. Three 10' steel girders in place, rafters screwed on, just about ready to put the sheet metal on (that I salvaged from a partially collapsed barn yesterday). Last item. A 12' 2X4 endcap on each end of the rafter run. Ten feet off the ground, not a level spot anywhere near the shed, one step ladder. Head scratching time. Tie one end in "close enough" position, move ladder to other end, try to find reasonable level spot for the ladder. Up with the other end. Just as I am about to screw in place, the other end slips out of the rope, crashing down, hitting wobbly ladder and almost sending me to the ground. Nope, gotta find another way. Move the ladder. Nail a 10d nail into the end of the rafter, balance the 2X4, down the ladder, move the ladder, up the ladder, lift, and...nail gives just enough for endcap to slide off. Down the ladder, move the ladder, up the ladder. 3 1/2" screw into the rafter end. Balance the 2X4, TIE it to the rafter, down the ladder, move the ladder up the ladder, lift, and SUCCESS! Rinse, repeat on the other end. Nearly 4 hours to put two endcaps on. Logically a 20 minute job. The dog had moved to the far side of the yard to hang out, cause she didn't know the words I was saying, but had only heard the tone once before when she pulled my down jacket out of the cab of the truck and destroyed it.
Now, sitting in my recliner, work boots off, and still seething with frustration....I ask myself "Why?" Eggs are about $1/dozen at the store. I can buy pork and beef on sale for near what raising rabbits will cost. The land has lain fallow for over 20 years, so who cares if a few more bushes grow. I'm too old to care about the chemicals or hormones in the food I eat. Too many years of ingesting them to worry about it now. And the $ already invested in infrastructure, if saved, would probably buy food for me for a l o n g time.
This is all rhetorical, as far as if I am really going to quit. OF COURSE NOT. I'm much too goat-headed for that! Tomorrow, I'll get up, put the roofing on, and start figuring out how to lift, suspend, and balance the rabbit cages without help. Why? Because that's the way I am. I made a decision to do this "country lifestyle" thing, and I'll do it, successfully, if it kills me.
Now, if you read all this, thank you. Response is not necessary. I just needed to say it to someone. Get it off my chest. And I am beginning to think of many of you as family now. Tomorrow comes, new problems to face and overcome, and life goes on. We win.
