No bones broken

Okay. I'm pretty much stabilized as far as I ever am. It's weathering out, sunbeams lancing strongly through and under big heavy grey clouds. The saskatoons have started blooming - they're ridiculously extravagant wedding-white bushes that grow everywhere - and it's warmed up. Even my slow aspen clone is thinking about opening its leaves.

The long and short of it is that I dived into the new person fully, expecting that whatever the bumps were going to be I could handle them because I had lots of snuggles and sex and that increases my capacity a ton. When it turned out that all or most of that wasn't on offer due to mononormative something something secret something oh dear gods whatever, well, I'd already committed a lot of my energy and it left me flailing. I've got myself more balanced again and I'll no doubt keep picking away at that connection, but until he sorts himself out I won't have certainty so there's no point in hurrying about it. I do like my certainty. Too bad the world doesn't really offer it.

In the meantime it's planting time. As soon as I get this contract finished up at work I can take that time off I intended ot take two weeks ago. The big tiller still hasn't arrived - the delivery folks may be a little weird because of some historic Avallu interactions - but I have the little one and I can start with that. I got the gas for it yesterday. This time I know enough to put fuel stabilizer in *all* fuel, not just what I expect to be the last tank of gas.

A&E have, perhaps unsurprisingly given the general thrust of this, not had the resources to do clearing so they won't be field-growing down there. My garden is right back to being here and only here, just with a chunk cut out of it. The squash and melons have emerged, I'm planting half the squash three weeks before indoors and half direct seeded because I'm curious.

It will feel good to get my corn into the ground finally.

I am actively looking forward to getting my house functional again inside, not piles of seeds and transplants everywhere.

I probably need to sort out something to wear on the bike. Jeans or sweatpants are annoying in that context. Surely I still have leggings around?

(no subject)

To read later, seems like the kids have been doing some work in the last decade. Thank goodness. https://thethinkingasexual.wordpress.com/2013/05/07/relationship-anarchy-basics/

One way or the other

I let the geese out the other day. Avian flu is still an issue; we need to cover our birds and exclude even tiny birds from their enclosures to keep them from getting sick. If they're sick, they all get destroyed to prevent the disease from spreading.

At the same time I live in the north. The geese get locked up over winter. Geese are basically grass, a battery that stores that first flush of green in the form of fat over the winter. With so long away from grass it's important they go into that winter in the best of health.

The first flush of good grass is full of protein and sugar. After that it starts to have more and more undigestible fibre. This is the time for geese to get the food they need; grass in July or August is substantially different up here.

So both ways is a gamble: if I keep them in they can have a very tough winter or if I let them out they can get this disease and die or be destroyed.

There are folks with chickens within several houses of me but not immediately adjacent. If my birds get infected those others are at risk.

If I had an even slightly longer grass season or an easier winter or an immediate neighbour with birds I would be making different choices. If I was still seeing lots of migratory birds coming through I would be making different decisions. I'm not confident in this one and I am not recommending it. It's what I'm doing, though.

Tough decisions.

(no subject)

Kat Heatherington ( yarrowkat ) absolutely nails it:

Home in the dark

where you can go in the dark
and not trip, and not fall
there your home is.
when you’re home in the dark
and you fall anyway -
there your work is.

Life in Fort

Okay, but this is the problem with everything here.

I want to go biking (or remove some trees, or run the woodstove, or own a truck, or use a snowblower, or...)

I get out my bike. It needs a going-over: it's dirty and there's dog hair and lint in the chain and it's not shifting cleanly and I have no real concept of what's going on in the bearings and the tires are flat and I don't know if they leak or not.

In Vancouver I'd take it in to the shop.

Here I need to find degreaser which luckily I have and don't need to order online, find chain lube ditto, remember how to clean the drivetrain, and do it. Okay. Done.

Now I need to watch you tube videos on how to adjust shifters until I understand it, and do it--

But wait! I don't have a bike stand. So now I need to build a bike stand. I need to scavenge some lumber and get out my tools and design something that'll hold the bike, even if it's just some 2x4s screwed into a tree. Where was I?

Oh yes, now I need to go back to youtube and try and remember what I just learned about dealing with my shifters. It's my first time doing this, so it's gonna take awhile and I won't get it quite right so I'll need to come back to it a couple times-- on the first try I can't trust the bike on a long ride yet.

Tires pumped up, ok, but I have no idea where my bike pump is, I can borrow one from someone. Great. They don't seem to have a big leak but no way to tell if there's a slow one yet. So again I'll need some short safe trial rides.

Bearings, well, I've just spent basically all my free time on this thing for awhile. I have other things I need to do. I guess I just ride it and hope they're all good until they're not, at which point I stop using the bike and maybe bring it in to Prince George next time I go in.

Every damn thing I do up here is like this. It's one reason I'm so overextended. Any one thing takes a week of intensive learning curve and materials searching.

(Or more realistically in Van there's be someone to do it in exchange for some pork or something, and I'd cook while they did the thing, and it would be lovely, but hey)