reepicheep's journal

Where are you and where are you going?
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George the original one
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Location: Wettest corner of Orygun

Re: reepicheep's journal

Post by George the original one »

Cordless electric chainsaw, eh? Heavier, a bit slower than gas powered, but at least you don't have to store fuel for it and maintenance is a breeze.

Big BCS tiller with the differential. At least you don't have to wrestle it to turn around like I do with my smaller BCS.

reepicheep
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Re: reepicheep's journal

Post by reepicheep »

@George the original one, the frickin' BCS is such a beast. I do need to wrestle it around...it takes all my body strength to turn, and then some. I collapsed onto the ground at the end of several rows.

I have begun kettlebell workouts twice a week.

Upon purchasing the chainsaw, I learned that I need to clean it after every use. Like owning a gun. Ugh.

Would horses be easier?vContemplating buying a tractor.

My biking has gone way up, which is great because I really missed it. The last time I did a bike trip was when I did that giant circle in Europe and met ERE folks in the Netherlands for a meet-up. An older kiddo on site did a tune-up for me and now I'm heading off-campus twice or week or so. I lead a longer community ride on Sundays*, and a Wednesday morning shorty (1 mile round trip) to get eggs with the kids.

*Not this week because I have been going through the worst seasonal allergies of my life the last two days after helping prep a grass circle for Beltane by stomping on/laying on three-foot high grass. Next year I'm going to advocate that we cut it two days in advance...yeesh.

https://becomingsee.com/lost-valley/bik ... dbreakfast

George the original one
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Re: reepicheep's journal

Post by George the original one »

reepicheep wrote:
Sun May 03, 2020 7:22 pm
Would horses be easier?vContemplating buying a tractor.
Both require infrastructure that I think you don't have: storm shelter. Horse requires daily attention, but probably will give back in affection. Tractor is like a chainsaw, must be put away clean after every use. Tractor is like owning a pickup... everybody wants to be your friend. Vet bills on a horse are far higher than mechanic bills on a tractor. It's probably easier to train you to use a tractor than it is to train a horse to do what you want?

The BCS outweighs you by how much? :lol:

reepicheep
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Re: reepicheep's journal

Post by reepicheep »

@Gerge the original one,

Yes. No barn/storm shelter, really. We do have something called an "art barn" but it is an outdoor kitchen/living space/tie-dye zone.

We have a tractor. It's been broken and no licensed mechanic will work on it because it was illegally imported from China. It's not unfixable...just not fixable by any of us. It's impossible to have an 80 acre property and not have a working tractor and get much of anything at scale done. Not with the kind of manual labor ethic we have here...people aren't starving enough.

The BCS probably outweights me by 2 or 3. Pretty much anything over what I can lift easily is just "damned heavy" though, so it's hard to say.

enigmaT120
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Re: reepicheep's journal

Post by enigmaT120 »

Does the BCS have the kind of brakes where you can stop one wheel at a time? For sharper turning?

Reading your story of the hung up oak tree really makes me appreciate the winch on my old Toyota. I've never had the truck stuck and have only used the winch to pull down hung up trees. The trouble with the thinning work I'm doing in my woods is the trees frequently have no place to fall!

I did buy a tractor for logging, last summer, but I'm not ready to start logging yet and have only used it once to push over some apple trees.

reepicheep
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Re: reepicheep's journal

Post by reepicheep »

@enigmaT120,

Not that you say that, it did have two separate hand brakes. Possibly stopping one wheel at a time would have been a thing I could have done. I received only the most cursory education in how to drive it.

I'll try that next time.

Does your tractor have a steel roof? I heard those are good, for logging, and then I watched a friend of a friend take down a hung up tree with his roofed tractor. It was a useful addition in that particular circumstance.

reepicheep
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Re: reepicheep's journal

Post by reepicheep »

Updates:

1. Still chainsawing when the occasion calls for it.
2. Starting tiny house construction Monday. Thinking of names. No good ideas so far.
3. Bookkeping job, now that I've been at it for four months, is significantly less of a clusterfuck than it was. The secret: Refuse to give anyone any money until they do things the way I want them to (generally this means they need to turn in a properly filled out invoice/receipt). I have the full support and backing of my boss, which is nice. And novel.
4. I take a shot before I go to meet-up, which is our once a week communal decision making meeting. No decisions get made and usually I skip it, but I decided to go today to show my face. Leaving at the half-way break and drinking beforehand seems to be the key to everybody else's continued health and well-being.
5. Might want to get a real job after this. Kinda spending down the stash to do this tiny house thing.
6. 95% out of the stock market at this point. Got out with very minimal losses in some accounts...will take 12k in capital gains this year, overall. Mostly in 1 month to 5 year CD's. Got some at a 3% rate before the SHTF, a couple months ago.
7. Wrote a thing: https://becomingsee.com/lost-valley/bel ... d-carnival

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Egg
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Re: reepicheep's journal

Post by Egg »

Egg wrote:
Fri May 01, 2015 11:12 am
Thanks for writing your journal btw. We have a few similarities in situation, so it's particularly interesting to me.
Oh my days. I don't think I've seen your journal since I posted this five years ago. What a fucking rollercoaster I'd missed!

Cool blog too. I ventured into your 'Edges' section, despite myself. I way overestimated the degree of parallels between us (we joined and left the military at similar times - I think that's about the sum of it) but your writing is even more interesting than I could have guessed back then.

Hope the mental health is treating you kindly, and good luck with all the tiny house stuff.

reepicheep
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Re: reepicheep's journal

Post by reepicheep »

@Egg,

Yeah I scared quite a few people there for a couple of years, including myself. Doing much better now, although I had a rough week when the pandemic started (like many folks, I imagine). But I'm pleased to rem-make your acquaintance, virtually.

Edges used to be password protected and just a small number of folks knew the password but...at a certain point I said "fuck it" around my personal privacy (and all future prospects of working a "normal" job) and just decided to write about my real life. That said...the really explicit stuff isn't published there.

What branch were you in, if you don't mind sharing?

Thank you so much for this comment: "but your writing is even more interesting than I could have guessed back then"!

Happy little ducky you've made me!

flying_pan
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Re: reepicheep's journal

Post by flying_pan »

reepicheep wrote:
Thu May 07, 2020 11:25 pm
7. Wrote a thing: https://becomingsee.com/lost-valley/bel ... d-carnival
We did Beltane too, with fire and Maypole! My wife is really into pagan stuff, and I am totally cool with interesting holidays. The ones from the US look very bland to me, our Russian holidays draw much more from paganism :)

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Egg
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Re: reepicheep's journal

Post by Egg »

reepicheep wrote:
Fri May 08, 2020 10:54 am
@Egg,
@reep

I'm glad you're feeling better these days. Almost goes without saying, but it's okay not to feel okay - whether or not there is an obvious external factor in play e.g. coronavirus. I'm rooting for you...

As to your question, I was in the navy, although I may as well have been a Martian during those years tbf I feel so detached from my experiences (also nobody I meet ever guesses I've done a day of military service in my life, so it can't have rubbed off on my personality all that much).

theanimal
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Re: reepicheep's journal

Post by theanimal »

Thanks for sharing your writings. I've enjoyed reading them.

reepicheep
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Re: reepicheep's journal

Post by reepicheep »

@flying_pan I might have been happier if there was more vodka!

@Egg, yeah. I do try to remember that. Sometimes it's pretty frustrating. Rooting for all of us, right now. Oorah?* (or is that just the Marines?)

@theanimal thank you!

*Edit: Egg is from the UK...

reepicheep
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Re: reepicheep's journal

Post by reepicheep »


reepicheep
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Re: reepicheep's journal

Post by reepicheep »

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Last edited by reepicheep on Mon May 18, 2020 11:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.

theanimal
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Re: reepicheep's journal

Post by theanimal »

Hell ya! You've started. Looking forward to watching your progress.

mooretrees
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Re: reepicheep's journal

Post by mooretrees »

That's so exciting! We're getting close to putting our sub floor in too, and we're going with sheep's wool. Definitely will be following your progress!

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Egg
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Re: reepicheep's journal

Post by Egg »

Niiiice!

Btw, I guess you know this, but your full name appears in the google photo link. If you're totally "out" about your IRL identity that's cool, but just wanted to make sure it's intentional.

reepicheep
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Re: reepicheep's journal

Post by reepicheep »

Yeah. I'm aware. Thanks!

reepicheep
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Re: reepicheep's journal

Post by reepicheep »

Video of the whole week!

https://youtu.be/HwPhNYKFKkk

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