Shortly after 9/11, on Thanksgiving day, 2001, we moved to the house where my parents still live. We ate Boston Market with cardboard boxes for tables because mom's kitchen wasn't set up and equipped to make Thanksgiving supper. While we ate, there was a neighborhood hooligan that rode his bike up and down the street doing wheelies and hollering like a feral human. Sometime in the month between Thanksgiving and Christmas, he and I started down the path to being best friends. It all started with a note on our doorstep that said something along the lines of "I challenge you to a stick fight. Saturday at noon, under the lamp post." What self respecting teenage boy could refuse such a challenge?
I'm adding this one to the "moral manly memes to live by" folder 👍
It's eighteen years and eight months later now, and that raucous childhood hobby has reared back up again. Bloodlust. A need for meditative violence. And now it's a good form of cardio too 😉
Feral Nate
For a couple of weeks in our manly men group chat, my challenges have rang out for stick fights. Nobody's been home or off work though, so Tuesday was the first time we've been able to do anything. My friend Hayden, from the next town over, came over and we set to work at becoming more feral.
Feral Hayden
After doing a bit of warm up by way of drills that our other buddy taught us, we started out. We're learning, and I like to go slow. So after each blow we stopped to analyze things. One thing we learned quickly is that our hands were gonna get hurt and life would be easier if we had both hands in service. So we made shields out of bucket lids and pallet wood. Now we can fight like real Gauls.
Farmer Sam busted my knuckle!
Hayden's wild child busted Hayden's knuckle!
If it's stupid and it works, it's not stupid.
Earlier that same day, right when I got home from work, I set out making a rabbit waterer. They had a similar system at the farm where I bought the rabbits, and I wanted to have a better setup than the water dishes I'd been using. The dishes are easily spilled and need filled usually twice a day. With the watering nipples, the bucket shouldn't need filled for a couple of days.
Rabbit waterer closeup
I used a couple of tee fittings off the bottom fitting so that I could run two lines down to the cages and one line up and open on the end. The open line shows me the fill level so I can easily tell if it needs filled. The bucket sits on top of the rabbit cage, with a couple of inches hanging off the back to let the fitting hang free. I didn't want to run the lines inside the cages in case the rabbits get a craving for plastic tubing and spill all the water.
Runny bunner
An excellent day, Tuesday. Then it rained all night Tuesday and through til Wednesday night. This morning it wasn't raining. I didn't need to water my potato patch 👌 It's been nice routine getting home and watering it, but when God does it, it's even better.
Big view of the rabbit waterer
It's looking like I'll be at a protest this weekend. Before then I'll try and spread some more mulch. Maybe I can mulch an axe throwing lane for my other new daily hobby. I found a large standing dead oak tree at church that the pastor said I can harvest if I cut it down. I plan to make targets with it once I get access to a chainsaw. That'll be a really fun project!
It's been a slow week because of the rain. I've started letting a few okra poda get overripe so we can have okra seeds for next year. Also eating a couple of fresh small pods a day as a snack. It's the only thing producing right now except tomatoes, which I've been loving on fresh pastured eggs a couple times a week.
I'm hoping we can get the house repairs done soon so we can focus on fun things like getting chickens. I need chickens to go with all the black soldier fly larvae that's coming up in the rabbit manure. Yay for fertile cooperative systems. I've got half a mind not to eat this year's young rabbits but rather keep them as manure machines. The poop from these critters is incredible! I wonder how much to use in a bed or around a tree... anyone have an answer to that one or know where I can look for them?
Always things to look into and learn about :)
Love from Texas
Nate 💚