Category: One Among the Dead

Day 583:

I’ve taken a lot of trees down in this area that I’m landscaping, and I’m trying to figure out the best way to replenish them. They throw plenty of seeds — they almost look like saplings themselves — but they don’t seem to grow unless buried.

I have no idea how any plant would survive evolution by being that stupid, unless there is some sapling-eating sapling-pooping megafauna around here I haven’t met yet, and if there is, I’d rather not meet it right now.

So I think I’ll be going on a planting spree soon.

The sheep are still growing out their wool and the duckens are still playing with the creek as if it’s a water slide. Pigs oink, cows moo, nothing new going on.

Day 582:

Stayed out too late and got myself caught in a cave when an exploding giraffe-corgi appeared out of seemingly nowhere. (I assume they’re coming from somewhere, I just haven’t figured out how.)

I ran to a crevice in between two chunks of rock… a few minutes before it had been filled with coal, and I really really hoped I hadn’t left enough coal in it to ignite on explosion.

BOOM went the  monster.

And… I was okay. A few scratches, but surprisingly unharmed.

Scared the heck out of me though.

I need to figure out how to make tea. A person needs tea after a thing like that.

Day 581:

With a big enough trough of food and a tight enough rope, it’s possible to get a sheep to stand still long enough to cut most of their wool off. And they seem happier for it when it’s done (though they definitely don’t like the process).

Now I have a huge smelly pile of dirty wool and I still haven’t invented soap. (Oh what I would do for a good old fashioned bar of soap! Praise to my ancestors for being smart enough to invent it because I definitely am not!)

So instead I’ve heated up a bucket of water to boiling and I’m boiling the wool to clean it. In the morning once it’s dried, I’ll try spinning it.

 

Addendum:

hey did you know wool melts in hot water? today I learned….

guess I’m waiting for the wool to grow back on the sheep again so i can shear them again before i start spinning…

Day 580:

I managed to get ponds dug and connected (to the big pond) in all of my fenced-in areas and all the animals are relatively happy now.

The cows didn’t turn out to be too big of a problem. The duckens, however, sheesh. Apparently they like swimming. They especially like swimming in moving water,  like a creek. They most especially like swimming in a creek you’re still digging while you’re standing in it trying to shore up the, well, shore, so that it doesn’t turn the whole pasture into a pond.

They are dumb dumb birds.

And one of them got too close to my shovel so now I’m having it for dinner and, all things considered, I don’t even feel bad about it.

Day 579:

Have you ever tried to get a cow to follow you with a handful of wheat, but not the sheep standing next to her?

If so, you too have lived my entire day.

The pigs don’t want to be in the pig field, they want to be with the sheep. The cows want to be wherever I am like a pack of 600kg puppies. The duckens are under foot everywhere.

It took allllll day but everyone is in the pen I intend for them.

Now I just need to supply them with some water.

“Just”.

Like digging some ponds tomorrow is going to be a piece of cake.

(And yes, digging is what I do for a living so it’s not that part, it’s the part where I don’t normally have a herd of cows trying to love on me while I do it.)