the animal's journal

Where are you and where are you going?
Western Red Cedar
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by Western Red Cedar »

Congratulations - excited for both of you and many happy years ahead!

Riggerjack
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by Riggerjack »

Congratulations! Nice wedding story! I am so happy for you.

Kipling
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Location: London

Re: the animal's journal

Post by Kipling »

That's a lovely story! Congratulations to you both.

2Birds1Stone
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Location: Earth

Re: the animal's journal

Post by 2Birds1Stone »

Congrats!!! Agree on the traditional western weddings, especially after attending yet another one this past weekend. Glad we eloped at the courthouse and had just nuclear family and closest friends for dinner and a few beers after.

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jennypenny
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by jennypenny »

I missed this. Congratulations!

Dave
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by Dave »

Very happy for you :)!

theanimal
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by theanimal »

Thank you all, your well wishes are very much appreciated.

PFD Year: Month 4
Total Monthly Spending: $430.7
Monthly spending as percentage of monthly target: 136%
YTD: $1,670.20
  • Food: 78.61
  • Dog: 31.29
  • Gas: 9
  • Car Insurance: 32
  • Phone: 8.25
  • Garmin Inreach: 12
  • Spanish lessons (5): 73.75
  • Spotify: 6.5.
  • Propane: 17.5 for Kitchen/Grill
  • Misc: 161.8 Car parts
I’m not sure how much I’m consciously learning from this experiment. I am not succeeding at besting my self-imposed goals, that is evident. If current patterns continue, it looks like I’ll be ~30% over my mark by the year’s end, ending right at $5,000. Food and my miscellaneous category seem to be what’s preventing me from reaching lower numbers. I’ll have to reevaluate my food expenses as they seem far too high given at least half my consumption is food that I’ve hunted/fished/gathered. Miscellaneous expenses are almost entirely comprised of parts, mainly for bike and car, so higher trends in that realm are unlikely to continue barring any unforeseen happenstances. Further regarding parts, I could do a better job of sourcing used parts at something like a junk yard. I could also do away with the Spanish lessons and make a stronger effort on my own. DW is fluent, another good friend is as well and I have a plethora of resources I could go through. So not much excuse there other than being lazy and I consider my instructor a friend so I’d feel bad about stopping. On a positive note, I am very much enjoying myself and this year is shaping up to be the lowest spending since moving from the Arctic. DW is selling her car at the end of this month, so we will be down to a 1 car household!

I very much enjoyed reading Mark Boyle’s book The Way Home: Tales from a Life Without Technology. He explores many things discussed here such as the concepts of permaculture, moneyless living, self reliance and figures such as Wendell Berry, Aldo Leopold, and Paul Kingsnorth (one of his good friends). With the funds from his book The Moneyless Man he purchased a small 3 acre lot in rural Ireland. He doesn’t own a car (but hitches rides), nor use electricity, own a phone , use internet, use clocks/watches etc. He has many social critiques and observations throughout the book as well as some of the thoughts/concerns from neighbors and friends in his local area and afar. He is definitely high on the ERE wheaton scale, and has an approach to life that those of us more tethered to the financial system probably cannot appreciate. One line I really enjoyed went something like this:
My self-worth during my 20s was based on how much money I could earn and now at 37 my self-respect comes from how little money I need to use.
I definitely identify with the latter statement! It pains me to spend money, more so to outsource things (like car, bike repair (or any repair for that matter), making food etc) even though the thing may be outside my realm of possibilities. His lifestyle is intriguing and inspiring. During NOLS, we largely did not use any technology (I did use a digital camera) and had a week where we went without time. That experience as a whole remains the most profound and life shaping event in my life. I’ve tried to find its equal in more “civilized” life and I suppose I came close during my time in the Arctic, with the exception of a lack of a tribal/community feeling. DW is on the same wavelength so this will be something to continue to explore going forward. Integrating more into our local environment, becoming more human and largely doing away with mediated or outsourced experiences.

His giving up of technology gives up the often artificial facsimile of community in many online arenas in exchange for real community in his local area. As mentioned in this journal, I have tried to do the same but realize that I do need to make a stronger effort. He mentions thoughts he has when a neighbor or nearby farmer is walking up his path, "no, he can't come here right now. There's so much to do." And attributes such thoughts to a cultural western industrialized upbringing where one must be productive all the time. Even to the point where one may feel unproductive when eschewing tasks for an afternoon reading in the sun. But the reality is that most stuff can wait and often the same people who come to visit are willing to help in whatever tasks, making the process quicker and more enjoyable.

I have been working with the Plotkin models with the EcoMMG and have identified my North sub/loyal solider as a corporate lawyer (or at least my imaginary depiction of what a corporate lawyer is). This lawyer likes to pre-empt all conflicts by censoring my outspoken thoughts and actions to be as inoffensive and conflict avoidant as possible. It evolved to the extent where this sub muted all emotions, censored my own speech and promoted inaction, all in hopes of avoiding any possible rejection or negative reaction. This helped me at a point in the past, nearly 2 decades ago now but is now outdated in my current setting and I have developed more mature approaches and means to deal with such situations. So far I have been working to increase my understanding of this loyal solider, notice the situations he presents himself and hopefully in the future align him in positive causes that best suit his abilities. The continued developments in this area will no doubt help to strengthen bonds in my local community and improve both intrapersonal and interpersonal communications going forward.

Frugalchicos
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by Frugalchicos »

Hey. Those books seem quite interesting. I will check them out. The Moneyless man’s approach seems to be similar than The Freedom Manifesto’s

If I were you, I would give a try to speak in Spanish with your wife. I know it might feel weird because you met each other speaking in English, but once you get used to it, it would feel more natural.

horsewoman
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by horsewoman »

I second that commment by @frugalchicos. My daughter and I speak English at home a lot (even though we are both Germans, in Germany). It was wierd at first but now we are so used to it that we even do it in public sometimes. Her teacher freed her permanently from homework in English because she's so far ahead of her class mates.

jacob
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by jacob »

horsewoman wrote:
Wed May 11, 2022 9:24 am
Her teacher freed her permanently from homework in English because she's so far ahead of her class mates.
I've often wondered how this situation is best handled. In my time/country, the solution was to turn these children into unofficial TAs. This did not go over well with the other children. Being too far ahead was frowned upon.

chenda
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by chenda »

jacob wrote:
Wed May 11, 2022 11:16 am
I've often wondered how this situation is best handled. In my time/country, the solution was to turn these children into unofficial TAs. This did not go over well with the other children. Being too far ahead was frowned upon.
In our primary school there was a tradition of moving then up a year. It was always a bad idea as they were orchestrated by both their peers and classmates.

Fortunately language learning was/is so badly taught here that no one got anywhere remotely close to fluency, although a few 'lucky ones' who demonstrated some modicum ability in either French, Spanish or Italian were punished for it by been made to also learn German or Latin. German been considered particularly challenging and Latin particularly pointless.

As an aside, I am genuinely so impressed by the native level fluency of most of the non-native English speakers on the forum.

horsewoman
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by horsewoman »

@jacob she's in a Montessori school. One of the cornerstones of this educational system are age-mixed classes. Another one is a focus on self-dirrected learning, so kids are used to widly varying levels of progress in the different subjects. Furthermore, there are no grades, so it's no so easy to compare. So far, my kid has not been bullied or anything for being a pretty smart cookie, she's well liked in her class according to her teacher (and her).

@chenda English is everywhere and ridiculously easy to learn compared to most other languages.
Written English is even easier, because the non-existent rules for pronunciation won't trip you up (the only real difficulty in the English language, IMO).
I'm learning Spanish and Irish and it's a lot harder to find content that interests me and that is appropriate for my skill levels, compared to English.
German is probably nearly as bad as Irish, I'm glad I've got that covered by accident 🤣.

chenda
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by chenda »

horsewoman wrote:
Thu May 12, 2022 11:30 am
@chenda English is everywhere and ridiculously easy to learn compared to most other languages. Written English is even easier, because the non-existent rules for pronunciation won't trip you up (the only real difficulty in the English language, IMO). I'm learning Spanish and Irish and it's a lot harder to find content that interests me and that is appropriate for my skill levels, compared to English. German is probably nearly as bad as Irish, I'm glad I've got that covered by accident 🤣.
Interesting, I thought English was notoriously difficult. I like languages but I have absolutely no aptitude for learning them at all. My parents tell me I was a bit slow to learn English, although I have some clear memories of been a toddler and not wanting to 'use my words' so maybe I was just a difficult child :lol: I have been thinking of learning some Afrikaans which is supposed to be the easiest language for a native English speaker to learn.

theanimal
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by theanimal »

I set up a water catchment system at the beginning of last month. It’s primary purpose is for our garden but we will also use it for everything else (drinking, washing, bathing etc) from late April-late Sept/early Oct. The system consists of gutters that lead to pvc pipes that feed into a 1000 gal water tank I put next to one side of our house. Early May we had about a week of rain followed by a few days of snow. We were able to get about 200 gallons during this time! By my measure, each inch of rain will yield us 800 gal of water. Interior Alaska is a frozen desert, there isn’t much water here. The historical average is about ~13 in per year with the majority of that coming from snow and more recently 17 in/yr on average over the past couple decades. Next year we should be able to start the summer with a full tank due to the snow melt. With that it should be sufficient for at least a month and a half without any rain, for our purposes, with most of the water allocated for the garden. The thrill in watching the tank fill up is equal to the thrill I experienced for the first month or so from composting our humanure last year. Sometimes the simple things are very magical.

Speaking of compost, I had to battle a fly infestation mid-month after they invaded our pile. My balance of browns and greens was clearly off with everything frozen over the winter. I added lots of sawdust and after that didn’t work, began to turn the pile daily. Within a couple days, the flies had moved on. I was amazed to discover that nearly all of our waste from the previous winter had already largely broken down and composted after having only been unfrozen for ~3 weeks. More magic!

Another miscellaneous project from the month were redoing our stairs that lead to the front porch. They consisted of premade stringers that were sized incorrectly (due to my error) and resting on a temporary base of scrap wood and deck piers. I removed all of that and redid it so that it is now permanent with some pavers at the base. A couple weeks ago a friend asked me to help him out on his farm so I spent a few days over at his place digging post holes and stringing about 800 ft of fence. Good lesson/refresher as we are planning on fencing our garden this summer.

With the snow melting off and the occurrence of green up I have finally had the chance to see how the food forest fared over the winter. And so far the results are much better than expected. 80% of my apple trees (~20) survived, and almost all the Siberian pines. None of the hazelnuts seemed to survive the winter. I think the soil on this plot is too moist for them. It is too early to tell about many of the berry bushes and smaller shrubs. I planted a couple dozen more trees and shrubs including American Plum, serviceberry, silverberry and I think gooseberry. I also seeded some more rye and alfalfa that I had leftover from last year. The water design (swales and berms) wasn’t implemented as good as it can be so I’ll be modifying that sometime in the next 2 months after things dry out a little more.

I also planted the garden about a week and a half ago now. We are still awaiting a lifting of road restrictions so that we can get more soil (to make new beds, fill greenhouse beds and amend some of the old) but things are about 80% planted. I collected some of our soil and sent it off to a lab to get tested to figure out what the issue was last year. Turns out our soil was extremely deficient in nitrogen and a bit too alkaline. I cheated and bought some artificial fertilizer which seems like somewhat of a failure but was unsure of being able to get adequate amounts from such a low deficit with things like coffee grounds (which we’d have to get from elsewhere) or diluted urine. Next year we will be able to use our compost so ideally this will only be a one-time issue.

The wilderness race that I did with DW last year and solo a few years ago occurs again in a couple weeks. I’d like to do it again but have not had any luck finding partners. I’m tempted to do it solo but I think I’ve come to the conclusion that it is too intense of an experience for me. A combination of a heightened emotional state by being by myself in such a wild landscape coupled with things like bears lead to high highs and very low, lows. There’s a chance I’ll still be able to find a partner for this year, but if not there are some people who have expressed an interest in participating next year.

I’m still playing the ukulele just about daily for about an hour. I’ve recently found tabs for some of my favorite Spanish songs so now I’m able to work on both skills at one time. Dos pajaros con un tiro. It’s a whole lot of fun. I’ve made an increased effort to speak more Spanish at home with DW and on my own in terms of thinking. It’s been helping. I think I may have already mentioned it here but we are planning on speaking only Spanish at home with our daughter so ability should only increase from that point on. No reason for not starting that earlier either as many of you have pointed out above.

PFD Year: Month 5
Total Monthly Spending: $349.77
Monthly spending as percentage of monthly target: 110%
YTD: $2,019.97
  • Food: 90
  • Dogs: 42.79
  • Gas: 54.08
  • Car Insurance: 32
  • Phone: 8.25
  • Garmin Inreach: 12
  • Spanish lessons (4): 59
  • Spotify: 6.5.
  • Propane: 19.75 for Kitchen/Grill
  • Misc: 25.4 Mostly clothes/flip flops
The state finally agreed last month on a number for this year's PFD, $3,200 to each resident versus my estimate and goal of $3,800. Unless something radical changes, I won't fall under the actual number, but I am still intending to get as close as possible (ideally under) my target. Regardless, it should cover a very significant portion of my expenses for the year.

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mountainFrugal
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by mountainFrugal »

Great progress on many fronts! I look forward to the day when I would feel comfortable enough to even enter a race like that. Looks fun (after the fact). My college friend's parents spoke different languages to her depending on what room they were in in their house. She was really grateful for this even though she only used the other languages occasionally (German and Spanish if I recall).

guitarplayer
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

@theanimal glad to hear the ukulele project is on! I like guitar but ukulele is just so much more handy, for travelling particularly. My favourite Spanish language song to play and sing is chan chan, DW appreciates.

@mountainfrugal this is such a cool idea to make languages room dependent! Then possibly also rotate, so week1/kitchen/language1, week2/kitchen/language2 etc.

7Wannabe5
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

My take on artificial fertilzer has changed a bit after doing some hydroponics this winter and being semi-amazed at the perfect growth of some of my plants. Kind of like a reversion to "Wow, maybe it really is just chemistry?!"

theanimal
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by theanimal »

@mF- I think you'd do well in a race like that. You have a very comprehensive planning and analyzing skill set which would be valuable in preparing for such an endeavor. The rest is more or less mental fortitude, persistence and dealing with foot pain.

DW is a big proponent of speaking Spanish to our future offspring due to her upbringing. Her mom immigrated from Costa Rica and thus is fluent in Spanish but did not teach any of her children. DW wishes she was able to learn it at home but ended up learning it after living for a while in Mexico. It seems almost wrong not to do it if one has the ability, given that children can pick up languages so easily.

@guitarplayer- Thanks for the suggestion I'll have to try that one out. I do like Buena Vista Social Club and was looking at tabs for some of their other songs this past week. Chan chan seems to be more attainable for the level I'm at now.

@7w5- I'll be curious to see if it does the trick as my initial impressions are tending to be more skeptical that little white balls can improve the soil. I understand it's the norm but my mind doesn't seem to grok the viability.

zbigi
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by zbigi »

jacob wrote:
Wed May 11, 2022 11:16 am
I've often wondered how this situation is best handled. In my time/country, the solution was to turn these children into unofficial TAs. This did not go over well with the other children. Being too far ahead was frowned upon.
I think it's quite common to just move the kid up a grade. They wanted to do that with me, but I didn't want to roll with older kids, so I just stayed put and kept answering most of teachers' questions to keep myself stimulated in the class... It didn't exactly made me popular, I think I made some other kids feel stupid and it must have made them jealous. This taught me a valueable lesson about camoflage and playing my cards close to the vest.

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Jean
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by Jean »

a very gifted good friend of mine regularly complaind about how learning two languages as a small child left her without a home language.
otoh, child that only learn one language until school starts seem to have no problem learning a second one to fluency later. The only exception i met was remarkably dumb, which i don't imagine your child will be.
what i mean, is that the advantage of talking to your child in a second broken language are not evident to me.
my partner has a different mother language than me, so i'de very much like to find an answer.

i also jumped 1 class. it was ok because my best friend was in the upper class and a very popular type, so no one annoyed me.

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