GARDENING:
- We started a square meter garden and boy oh boy does nature have a ton of surprises for someone new to gardening.
- So uh, my cilantro was growing nicely before we went away for 10 days. After a very rainy but totally okay-ish summertrip I came home to find my cilantro had turned into bamboo that sprouted dill.... Now it might be kind of hard to realize how disappointing that really was and I'm actually having quite a lot of trouble relaying the feeling. You see, the entire family planned, dug, built, painted, and hauled dirt and vermiculite like crazy and then planted the entire garden meticulously. We planted plenty of salads (which the slugs[1] promptly ate), plenty of broccoli (which the slugs[1] promptly ate), some parsley (which the slugs[1] promptly ate), some tomatoes (which passed under the radar completely unnoticed) some basil (which the slugs[1] promptly ate), carrots, radishes (some of which the slugs[1] promptly ate), and so on and so forth. It was all fine. It was all going exactly as I had anticipated but then...
... then the little slimy, disgusting, fuckers[2] ate my cilantro!
In spite of living in Scandinavia, not usually known for it's indigenous English speaking population, the words -verbatim- out of my mouth were: THIS. MEANS. WAAAAAR!!!
After which I promptly picked up two garden trowels and went on a slug[1] murdering spree. I've not only patrolled my own yard, I've patrolled the back yard five neighbours down in both directions from my house. I've murdered more than 60 of those little slimy, disgusting, fuckers in a timespan of 20 minutes on one particularly slug-friendly evening. My evening walk now involves my gardening trowel and 20+ animal killings before I go to bed.... I haven't murdered this many animals on a routine basis since I worked as a lab grunt at a cancer research facility. My little patch of the suburbs has turned into slugocide central.
Fuck invasive species man, fuck 'em!
I went so far as to borrow a book from the local library branch to figure out how to import and house a hedgehog under my garden shed so it could gorge itself on those little slimy, disgusting, fuckers all it wanted. So... you can probably imagine how elated I was to find a leopard slug in my composting bin. And I was even more happy to find another one a week later! In case you don't know, leopard slugs eat other slugs's eggs! MUHUHAHAHAHAHAHHAH MY NEW BEST PADRE!
So after I started murdering most spineless animals in my yard I naturally planted some new cilantro and then watched it like a hawk. I watered it, I nurtured it, I took the best care of it that I knew how to, and then we went away for 10 days, and it turned into pungent dill.
*sigh*
- Vermicomposting is so much fun, although not very productive in the sense of producing castings yet. The worm population has grown quite a bit though so I'm feeling good about the long term prospects. My daughter loves feeding them and watching them wiggle about. She is very mindful about what kinds of garden trash goes where and has started referring to all our unprocessed green waste as worm trash. She can't draw for shit and she doesn't count very well, but she can name more flowers at age 3 and 4/5 that I could at 33. She picks up every single beetle we come across and she actually knows the ingredients needed to bake bread.
- Tomatoes grow like CRAZY! Next year we need to cut them so they don't overflow over the neighbouring squares in the square meter garden and shade out the seedlings growing next to them. Especially since the shaded out seedlings were cilantro planted to replace the cilanto-turned-bamboo fiasco. Of course the seedlings got eaten by fucking slugs[1] shortly after we trimmed to tomatoes to let in some sunlight.
- The broccoli patch basically looks like a prop from Fallout; New Vegas by now. I've seen coprolites with more life to 'em than my patch 'o broc's. It's dismal to say the least. At least broccoli tastes like absolute shit so it's not such a huge loss.
- My GF built two wooden boxes than we fastened to the patio wall and we got about 20 strawberry seedlings from my brother-in-law. The strawberries are exceedingly tasty and large, so we're looking forward to next season's harvest.
- I have to add that we have eaten parsley, salads, beets, cilantro, carrots, a few peas, oregano, basil, and radishes from the garden. It hasn't been a total train wreck at all. It's been a very enlightening experience and I truly love to watch it every day, even the Fallout broccoli patch. We got almost all the seeds completely free, so this first growing season was entirely devoted to learning about everything from planning, pruning, composting, maintenance, harvesting, everything.
Incidentally Wood's journal came to mind when I was nurturing my garden. I don't really think this small scale garden operation is very profitable when accounting for time and money spent, but tending this garden has removed a lot of senseless timewaste from my life. The simple maintenance of this garden (chop wood, carry water) carries a whole range of meaningful things with them, especially with regards to raising my daughter and making the entire family more aware of how food is grown, and how difficult it really is to produce a head of lettuce. I could add all sorts of fancy math educations, expensive cars and artful house decoration into the mix, but in the end, making life-maintenance a meaningful act is probably the strongest thing a person can do for oneself.
Before enlightenment: Chop wood, carry water[...]
PhD/Job
- Starting back on the job on Tuesday the fifth. 'really don't know how I feel about that yet. It'll be interesting to see if I can scrape together an actual defensible PhD project in half the allotted time. I'm so god awfully torn about the whole thing I don't think I can think my way through it, I will just have to do it. Chop wood. Carry water.
Misc:
My sister hosted a summer party where I talked to a guy who lives for free on some Lord's land in exchange for fixing some of the farming equipment around the place. He's an extremely talented person who's built a very interesting home (including digging a 5 kilometer long ditch so he could get electricity). I'll try and see if I can visit him some time and post some pictures of his house. He's got ADHD/ADD but he's not scatterbrained at all, just really likes to be busy
He just bought a 100.000 dollar digger because he thought he needed one. Then he made sure that he could sell it immediately for more than he bought it for and then started renting it out at cut-rate prices. He owns 5 cars and owes absolutely no money to anyone.
I've been on antibiotics for 2 months now. Luckily they haven't killed by gut bacteria so still poopin' as planned[3]
As soon as I got off a 10 day treatment I'd get streps again. 'turns out my daughter was carrying without being ill so the doctor put down a final firebreaker of antibiotics for everyone in the family and finally I can swallow my food again. And on that note, I find it odd how streps medicine come in pinky sized pills... I'm having problems swallowing for fucks sake, make some smaller pills you inconsiderate assholes!
I haven't really invested a lot lately. I've bought a few high dividend paying companies to experience the steady flow of money, but I didn't do nearly enough research on those companies as I should. Time will tell how my superficial investing goes. It's not a strategy I aim to employ, I simply spent a few days snooping around for somewhat stable dividend payers within global consumer goods. My savings account was starting to overflow beyond two year's expenses so I moved a large chunk of money and I'm getting ready to find out where to place them. In case I can't find an absolute steal of a stock, I have the perfect mutual fund for them, so they're not going straight down the drain.
Monkey Brain and Minimalism:
I read Katy Bowman's Move Your DNA and as always I'm completely infatuated with this new idea. I wanted to really-really not like her, but I can't help it. She just seems spot on in her observations. So I've been sitting on the floor for the last 14 days (ish) and I've gotten somewhat used to it. We still eat at the table like civilized people, but I've started chewing with my mouth open and smacking my girlfriend around just to preserve some paleo presence in the household[4].
I've even been sleeping on a thin mattress on the floor, but that's solely because I really hurt my knee[6] and I had problems turning over in a bed that was too soft. The ligament that connects my knee cap with the shin took a large hit when I fell so every time I use my quads, that lone ligaments lets me know that I really shouldn't use my quads at all. The first morning I woke up I tried to put on socks, foolish as I was, figuring that I've been able to put on socks since I was a toddler, so this morning would probably be like all others. It turns out that you need to bend you leg beyond 10 degrees to put on socks. I'll admit that it did hurt slightly, but it wasn't something I was about to complain about. Not yet anyway. Upon reaching 10 degrees my entire lower leg snapped up like a jackknife so my heel touched my hamstrings and NOW I was ready to complain about pain! So I promptly collapsed, with absolutely no concern for elegance, on my bed and spat out what I hoped would be a magic incantation. Shouting at this approximate pace:
https://youtu.be/veflCk2rHfA?t=1m54s, although significantly less eloquently, but with threats of violence surely on par. GF rushed in and helped straighten out my leg and so here I am, doing a lot of capoeira (well, I'm doing the negativa rolé to stand up )since I'm sitting on the floor with a gimpy leg.
I uninstalled Overwatch and Offworld trading company from my computer. I love those two games, but I spend quite a lot of time strategizing and socializing around them, and it's time I think I'd rather spend on something more giving like: Love, quiet, reading, accomplishments, and more sleep. I'm in slight video game withdrawals, but I really think it's for the better. Of course Blizzard just announced major rework of the two characters I used to play the most so I'm totally (like toooooooootally dude!) feeling the siren song. I've tied myself to the mast and I must hold steady for now. No reinstalling any games. For now.
I feel like uninstalling the games was the right move but maybe I need to adjust my get-shit-done-o-meter yet again. In fact I'm so bad at chilling that I need testing for adult ADD. Reading some of the non-medical coping mechanism for ADD I can see that my tendency towards order, lists, thought training, and systemic motivation for my grander plans are things that tend to help others out. I took a self-test. 4 out of 6 indicates possible ADD. I scored 5.5 out of 6. I don't know what to feel about that. At least I still have my rugged good looks[7] (in spite of nascent facial vitiligo...).
I've been on sick leave for 8 months now, with money still coming in, so I've been on a watered-down FI ride lately. I have to say I adjust to 'not doing anything' quite quickly, but I can't tell if it's a pathological reaction or not.
Grok ask Grok's shrink. Shrink tell Grok: no worry. Grok stop worry.
My book is more than 280 pages by now. I expect that it will be at least 50 pages longer.
I've been doing a ton of stuff for the last three months but I think this is what ya'll get for now.
Toodles!
[1] Those slimy, disgusting fuckers!!!
[2] AKA slugs.
[3] Thank you for asking.
[4] Also, I have the Eiffel tower for sale cheap, in case you're interested. Okay, so I DID read the book and I'm gaga about sitting on the floor and getting rid of even MORE furniture.[5]
[5] One of these days the missus is going to snap like a twig sat on by a fat custodian and hit me with a frying pan in my sleep to end the misery.
[6] At an organized play-day at the kindergarden, in front of parents and children alike. Proud I was!
[7] That's a joke. I'm short, have the body composition of a chestnut animal, I'm near-sighted, and I can't grow a beard.