Hello Everyone! **Routinely benefiting from routines, The mucky muck, Tree debris processing, Terrace building & Planting black locust trees is so xyz!** Alright, I am behind schedule with my writing routine this morning after letting myself sleep in an extra hour... and then sort of dicking around sipping espresso for far too long once I was up and about. All of which is fine by me, because between the rainy weather, the dull ache in my joints... and the way that I am still feeling half asleep... it is hard to feel a desire to rush. Basically, I am in no hurry to 'get into gear' this morning regardless of wanting to remain on track with my routines. Having finally nailed down my writing routine (for this adventure) I gotta admit, that I often awaken feeling excited to dive into spelling things out each morning. Coincidentally, the consistency has been really beneficial for me in a number of ways... and although I am far from where I want to be with my morale (and overall productivity) I am far from being fully displeased with it either. It is challenging to spell it out in a meaningful way... but spending a few weeks waking just as things grow quiet around here (when the traffic stops each night) and then 'soaking up the silence' for hours on end... has been providing me with a nice break from the norm! During all of this previous year, I have just been so beaten down by the scenario, the challenges, the resource shortages, the wild events going on beyond my little bubble... that to say that I have had to 'dig deep' to keep plodding along... would be inadequate. What I still ask myself is: How much better and perhaps even less traumatic would my experiences here have been had I had my beloved music therapy to help buoy my spirits? Early on during my stay here, I could have easily drawn a line so deep and so broad over the music thing... that it would have been more akin to a damned fighting trench than anything else. In other words, I knew better than to 'dig in' on that front and get a bunch of stress, hostility and bad experiences attached to something that I love so dearly and that has helped me invaluably over the decades in ways that I will never be able to adequately express. For the most part, I try not to think about it all... but there have been a ridiculous amount of days where I am working on stuff and am like: Oh yeah, if I only had a beat to work to... I could really dive into this! The truly ridiculous thing is that having music playing while working is not some abnormal thing... and it really leaves me wondering what the real issue is when people dislike hearing it. Going forward, I will undoubtedly keep the *option* of playing it open (as I have done this entire time) because although I have been exercising restraint... that may not always be what is called for... or what is needed. Keeping the peace only goes so far when none of the peace being kept is my own... because at that point... I am merely facilitating myself being infringed upon. Hence taking the route that I have with it all, where said option is 'there' and sure I can exercise it within seconds... by plugging in a few cords, pressing some power buttons and hitting play... but I simply do without it instead. Thankfully, not indulging in allowing a bunch of resentment to build up around the topic has been rather straight forward... mainly so by continually chronicling my challenges with it all in these entries. I better get back on track here and get to detailing some of what all that I got accomplished yesterday... because the sun is up, daylight is burning and I am already super off track with my posting schedule. If today turns out to be like yesterday, then as far as the weather goes I will only have a small window to get things done outdoors after the sun dries things up some, before it becomes blistering hot... and before it starts raining again by late in the afternoon. Just slogging around in the muck and not slipping is pretty intense even during that 'optimal' time frame... due to how the muck looks dry but actually is *not* dry at all. Which is part of why I kept delaying starting that terracing project for the short steep slope that forms the downhill portion of the pad that the new building is sitting atop of. Knowing that neither the weather nor the muck were on my side, I tried to get as much done as I could as rapidly as I could... but at a very slow and steady pace. In the end, I wound up using the battery operated circular saw and chainsaw to process a bunch of the tree debris (stacked near the driveway) that were left from when we initially cleared the building site to use as terracing material. Long story short there, I turned a good third of that tree debris pile into stakes and poles of various sizes... and piled all the smaller branches in that same place that I have been staging trellis building material in the gulch near the gravity-fed water system. I actually wound up with a pretty decent size pile of trellis material... and more than enough material (poles and stakes) to get started on constructing the terraces. Making the best of a bunch of 'less than ideal' options I used a very long yellow pine tree 'pole' to begin the first terrace... that ran from the edge of the porch opening (near the door) all the way to beyond the rear of the building. Mostly the terrain there accommodated the pole quite well... but there were a few places (mainly where the heavy machinery had left deep ruts) that I had to dig out some soil in order to get the pole to be firmly lodged in the embankment. None of the myrtle stakes that I used to anchor the pole in place were all that long... because at that phase of things all that I wanted to do was adequately secure the pole so that it would not move around while I added smaller poles beneath it. Not to put too fine of a point on it... but I set the pole at a slight angle (draining towards the retention area) but I also gave it a bit of a 'belly' so that the water would not 'jet' along the terrace once it is fully complete. Once that was done, I did my best to fill in as many of the empty cavities uphill of the large pole (and its 'weir' structure) with those clay clumps (that I mentioned in an entry a few days ago) and then walked back and forth across it all to tamp the clumps into the weir. Which did not work super well as far as embedding them into the weir goes... due to how 'dense' the clumps were... but overall it did make for the start of a solid terrace. Prioritizing that project had been nagging at me for days and days on end... and I was pretty stoked with how the first phase of it came out even if shoveling all that damp, moist, stick-to-everything clay was grueling. Heck, just making such a massive dent in that big tree debris pile left me feeling like I had achieved something epic... but by the end of the day I also had my first terrace in place and plenty of material to build the rest of them. Quite late in the afternoon, I also went into the fenced garden area... and shuffled several small black locust trees from on the ground up onto the shelf so that they can get more sunlight. I had originally only intended to take the largest tree and plant it in the new grove... but when I saw how well the tiny trees were doing I decided to dedicate some time to them before moving on to planting that lone sapling in the Mimosa Meadow. Right now all that I really want to achieve with the black locust is getting as many of them growing as I can in the limited sunlight areas... and focus on 'establishing' them (or more specifically those strains) around the property. The quicker that any of them get into the juvenile phase of growth... the more rapidly that I can begin making root cuttings... and can skip the slow process of growing them from seeds. So much of the super sunny area that I have here, is now occupied by the new building... but in many ways that is good because I can use the water from it for irrigation... and the slope that is being terraced will make a fine garden. The other nice gardening spot is where the tree debris pile currently is... and that is the area that I want to use to put my potted black locust trees at... along with a thick hedge of Egyptian wheat. That kind of wheat is a new one to me but I stumbled upon it the other day as a nice solution for creating some rapid (and very tall) privacy screening... which yup I desperately need. I am also hoping that it will help with keeping the large clouds of limestone road dust from billowing across the place like a fog whenever a vehicle passes at more than idle speed. Ultimately, I know that it is going to take a tremendous amount of effort to sort that entire area (where the building is located) out... because it truly is a long list of small (but necessary) projects that need to be done there to make it a functional area. As of now it sure makes for a very nice loading zone, staging ground, storage area and what not... but over time I do have a solid plan to turn it into something much more than that. Virtually all the space *around* that area needs attention also... because I have yet to clean up any of my big root piles... or even do more than section up that giant sweet gum tree that I almost accidentally dropped on my own power pole. I am still eyeing those logs (and what remains of the crown from that tree) to either be used to grow oyster mushrooms in the shade... or become a retaining wall at the foot of the slope below the building where they might get too much sun for oysters to grow. Well, I have meandered on enough for several entries at this point... and best get to wrapping this particular entry up (or down) and get on with the much more tedious editing and posting portion of things. With the way that it is still super hazy from the wildfires outside... and overcast... it does not look like things will be drying up anytime super soon... so at least I will not feel like 'daylight is burning' while I get this routine wrapped up... and begin preparing myself for the next one. I hope that folks are doing well. Ciao for now and always remember one of many golden rules: Dormiens Vigila! ![](https://images.ecency.com/DQmc9BNAMoV6NLfsTWqvNRtgrsu36GTG9Er3V2BNEE2jp6a/img_2025_06_09_13_43_26_468.jpg) *The terrace needs a lot more soil and clay added to it but it is a good start!* **Thanks for reading!** **Please check out the [Homesteading Community](https://ecency.com/created/hive-114308)!** ***Cheers! & Hive On!*** *All content found in this post is mine!*

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