Saturday 14th April 2018
A lovely dog walk in the morning and suddenly it feels like Spring! I had forgotten what it felt like for the sun to warm me right through to my bones. Walking through the forest and letting the sun warm me, such a good feeling.
I walked the part of the forest that leads up to the 'secret spot' - a place that Frankie and I discovered last year and decided would be a great place for a secret camp. We have been up there several times in the latter part of last year and built little features, had a little camp fire, toasted a few s'mores. I had an idea that this spring and summer we might build a little shelter out of fallen materials, and do a little bushcraft, do some deer-spotting, sleep over etc.
I walked up past the ruined cottage, and the dogs were great on recall, and we were having a great time right up until I came across the spray markings on some of the trees. It looks as though the forestry managers may be preparing to either fell a swathe of trees in this part of the forest, or marking out where they are going to cut down and clear a forest track for the logging vehicles. The only other alternative I could think of was that they were marking out growth boundaries of successional planting, e.g. year 1 planting, year 2 planting etc. Anyway, I still had a great time, just that this brought it home to me that things don't last forever, and everything changes. Both of which are Good Things.
If it does mean that the secret spot won't be secret, then we'll just have to find a new secret spot. Shame, because this one was well-hidden, very practical, and quite idyllic. And great, because the next secret spot will be different, and exciting for new reasons, and finding it and using it will be a huge amount of fun all over again.
Anyway I took a few photos at various moments so here are a few from today:
There isn't much left to see of the ruined cottage just off the top of the ridge.
Me with the ruined cottage in the background. You'd never know it was there...
Following the deer trail through the forest to the ridge. Pidge is closest to camera; Maisie mid-picture in harness; Hector just visible at top in red coat.
There was a cottage here once. Nature always wins in the end.
The secret spot is not so secret! Signs of others having passed this way.
Dogs playing in the stream. There have been local cases of Alabama Rot so we always clean up after a walk.
Hector watches over all of us.
Back home, checking on the goats. Sooty is to the left; Bertie to the right. Gentlest goats ever.
Guests also came today, old friends. We had a good catch-up with nice food and great conversation. This is what the holidays should feel like :-) Today also brought interesting news of a potential new career move, something to consider. It would be a role I am well-suited to and would enjoy. Just that the commute, the hours and the holidays would leave me slightly worse-off with regards to spending time with family, which is something very important to me.
This brings me on to another aspect of my life that I haven't talked about much so far on Steemit. I have been gearing up to go live with a small-scale online publishing business. Initially publishing education resources, the long-term plan is to publish resource materials, training courses, services and books. I haven't gone live with it yet and I am just planning out what I need to do from a legal and administrative standpoint, in addition to developing and marketing product. I'll be posting about what I am doing on the business front quite soon in a semi-regular series. I figure that if I need to piece together a lot of this stuff, some other people might benefit from my sharing my journey and process.
The business will be called Powerful Wonders Ltd, and will be run out of powerfulwonders.com and I'm aiming to start it off small and grow it steadily until I have a decision to make regarding whether I should switch to doing it full time, or stick to the day job and do it part time. Regardless, I'm giving some thought about adding some metrics related to business in The Daily.
After the guests went I spent some time with my son, had a cup of tea, and psyched myself up for the gruesome tasks. I togged back up in my protective gear and headed back up into the loft to clear out more insulation and debris from the rat infestation. I didn't find any more little corpses in the tunnel kingdom they built for themselves up there, and boy did they leave a lot of evidence of their existence for future archaeologists like me ;-) Seriously though I look like CSI when I'm up there in the crawlspace, because I'm even wearing a respirator to avoid inhaling rat poo dust. While I am sure that William Burroughs would have turned it into some kind of mythical elite drug, I've read up on the things that can happen to a human who inhales it or comes into contact with it and so I'm 100% covered and after I come down from there and have cleaned up the general area, I decontaminate like I've been in a nuclear accident :-)
Writing
With my main computer down and out, I'm cut off from my Dragon voice recognition software and Scrivener my writing application. I'm having to adjust to writing the more old-fashioned way, typing manually :-)
I'm adding my miscellaneous word count to my running totals and that is proving quite illuminating because even on days where I think I am not very productive, I am actually very productive.
I also wrote some revision materials for my A level students as we are back in school on Monday and they are in their final few weeks leading up to their external exams. And I can't discuss sociology revision without an honourary nod to @revisesociology whose website revisesociology.com has been invaluable for both myself and my students over the last couple of years.
I also worked on some education material that I am soon going to be offering for purchase on my education publishing website. 11+ exam style questions are still very popular and it seems that parents and students can't get enough of them and have a thing about not repeating material that they have used before. While I personally think that this is a great shame as re-use has all sorts of benefits, I am happy to do my bit and help meet the demand for new material :-)
I also made quite extensive notes on some fun new ideas for what are essentially going to be Sociology posts. I started off with some nice simple ones to do with aspects of British culture, and soon was entertaining myself with some rather rude ideas for articles and posts about more risque subjects lol.
Health
Apart from a good healthy walk in the forest this morning with the dogs, I have been reasonably active, popping down the paddock to check on the horses and goats. The missing element so far in my exercise regimen has been doing at least one 7-Minute Workout - a pretty rigorous HIIT session that I eventually plan to build up to two or even three per day. If I am going to get my weight down and get fitter, things like HIIT are going to be crucial.
Steemit Goals
It keeps building steadily. My Reputation is up to 39 now. My posts are over 200. In addition to feeling like I am getting my feet under the table here at Steemit; looking at those numbers helps me to feel established too.
I am noticing that some accounts seem to be auto-upvoting me, or else their owners are online a lot and being very kind by upvoting all of my posts. Every little helps and it all adds up. I am looking forward to continuing my upward journey here on Steemit. It's funny that when I first joined the buzz was all about earning and cashing out with the dollar price high, and now that has dropped significantly my buzz has grown around the whole concept of community-building and sharing.
I'm getting there anyways, and today was just one more step in that right direction. I'll be charting my progress as I go and we'll see what works and what does not work for me. And hopefully, some of what I learn along the way will be useful to some of you, too.
Peace be with you all xxxx
I should mention @angelacs SIBWA Challenge too - the reason behind my managing to post every day on Steemit and develop not just good habits and also develop my consciousness as well.
She has a new challenge beginning each Sunday - one has just begun today in fact! - so look out for those posts as they go up. I heartily recommend giving her challenge a go though - it is free, it is fun, and it gets me active on Steemit each day in a way that brings value to others, so imagine what doing the challenge can do for you! :-) See you in the challenge posts ;-)