Fat Bunny

  • Ranking My Top 5 Regrets…

    Wouldn’t that be a depressing way to spend your birthday? What I did instead was have a bit of lie in until the cat decided his breakfast was late. Then I had breakfast at the village markets with my ex-wife who gave me a lift out to collect my car from the farm and she kindly paid for my bacon and egg roll and a coffee. She also gave me an annoyingly thoughtful card with a water colour of the farm creek and a Tolkien quote inside. She also signed it “Your Ex-Wife” because she is only slightly less hilarious than I am.

    At least two of my regrets involve her, maybe three…

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  • Like a Bird on a Wire…

    Working at the farm is frosty hands and muddy boots and very solitary this month. Which is understandable because if I had a choice I wouldn’t move from the couch till spring. Maybe next winter that will be an option for me.

    I am in clearing paths mode this month, mainly clearing a path through the pine trees to the shipping containers. The main road to them is a messy clay slip and slide until August however the path through the pine tree is surprisingly solid due to huge quantities of fallen pine needles.

    While clearing out the random tire puncturing bits of metal that are lurking under the leaves I discovered another one of my father’s home made targets. I found one last year around this time as well, and while I don’t really do mystic meg stuff it is hard not to feel the coincidence a bit more at this time of the year. With my stepmother’s birthday yesterday, my birthday tomorrow and my fathers birthday and anniversary of his death in a couple of weeks it definitely makes winter feel harder.

    I have decided to mount the targets in this off cut for now, just to make sure they don’t get lost, and so I can see them while having a coffee break at the farm…

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  • Just wait till spring…

    Everything is either grey or mud at the moment, especially all the bits of ground that have had heavy machinery all over them for weeks. The deciduous trees are basically sticks, the grass that hasn’t been run over or buried is barely hanging in there.

    Today the tiny house was moved to its final location, which is looking very bare and uninviting right now, but once again it’s going to be a wait till spring situation. Decks, planters, sale shades and lighting will make it a magical place to be again.

    It’s going to be a busy winter of making paths and preparation for spring planting and turf being laid. This winter I’m betting a lot of my mental health on spring being spectacular, and on me being in a position to enjoy it.

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  • Just wait till spring…

    Everything is either grey or mud at the moment, especially all the bits of ground that have had heavy machinery all over them for weeks. The deciduous trees are basically sticks, the grass that hasn’t been run over or buried is barely hanging in there.

    Today the tiny house was moved to its final location, which is looking very bare and uninviting right now, but once again it’s going to be a wait till spring situation. Decks, planters, sale shades and lighting will make it a magical place to be again.

    It’s going to be a busy winter of making paths and preparation for spring planting and turf being laid. This winter I’m betting a lot of my mental health on spring being spectacular, and on me being in a position to enjoy it.

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  • Boxing Day…

    It was an infrastructure day at the farm. The area that was being cleared for water tanks suffered from an attack of me having a Plan B moment. So instead of the impractical placement of tanks I decided this empty space was a better place for storage.

    Shipping container storage to be precise.

    Financially it makes sense, and will allow me to stop paying for storage in town. My unreliable maths says they will pay for themselves in 13 months, maybe faster if having easy access to the things I need to sort/restore/sell removes some of the friction in that area.

    One seemed like not quite enough so I decided to play it safe and get two. Which is a risky move because junk expands to fill available space, so I will need to put a deadline on converting one from storage to a workshop space within 12 months.

    In a rare attack of forward planning I had them placed 3m apart so I could put a sail shade between them to provide some extra parking for trailers etc. I will also get the driveway extended down here eventually, but that’s not in this years budget.

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  • Time takes a cigarette…

    I was really making some progress three years ago. I was just out of short and poorly thought out relationship, I was on a serious organization kick, and I was on a self managed therapy program.

    Two years ago I was still grieving the loss of my father, desperately trying to come to terms with changes to family, and struggling to keep my health from failing completely.

    One year ago my health was as low as it was when I ended up in hospital for months, my mental health had taken a backseat to absolutely everything else, and my only relationships were surface level and fleeting, or baggage laden.

    And now?

    I’m still grieving, I am on yet another round of hard to pronounce medications that will hopefully help, I am still struggling to put my own needs in front of even the smallest of other peoples needs. I haven’t even attempted anything resembling self care in months, all my helpful therapy books are collecting dust and it’s only valium that has kept me from drinking again.

    I should add here that’s it’s not all doom and gloom and not just because I am as incapable of feeling despair as I am of feeling joy at the moment. However I can see the positive stuff like renovation progress, children becoming who they are meant to be, and the cat definitely seems fairly chonky and content.

    I’m also fairly confident that I won’t be completely broke when the cabin is done enough to move into. If the new meds work I may even be able to get enough done to move before the credit cards hit the limit, which would be great since apparently I already have the maximum amount of credit available that’s possible.

    I have a shipping container delivery tomorrow, if it doesn’t rain, which is the next step in getting out in front of costs. Paying for storage was justifiable when I was making money from selling restored furniture, but all my available energy has been farm related for years and probably will be for another year. Shipping containers will pay for themselves in a year, maybe less if I can sell some items as I swap from rented storage to my own. There are a bunch of other things that need attention soon but I am trying to concentrate on the one step at a time mantra.

    Someone reminded me that it will all be worth it when I am on the veranda with a cup of coffee…

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  • Breaking Eggs…

    Hopefully it makes a tasty omelette eventually, because at the moment it’s just a big scrambled mess.

    On top of all the carnage caused previously by tree removal, and now by heavy equipment reshaping the landscape, it is also late autumn so the trees are bare. It is definitely making it look like I have too far clearing things, even I am starting to worry.

    I’m reminding myself that most of what has been removed was pines at the end of their lifespan, diseased trees, and over crowded saplings that were strangling each other. Some trees that I was sad to loose were just too close to the house or powerlines etc. and also a bushfire hazard.

    With the new drainage system the driveway into the property should now be usable in all weather, and stop washing away the bases of the trees that remain. There is a lot more landscaping and gardening to come, and I am placing a lot of faith in next spring being a good one.

  • Making Myself Sad…

    I’m still recovering from todays endo and colonoscopy, they rummaged around quite a bit apparently. It certainly feels like they did and any food I put in is making a quicker than normal journey through. From the still slightly buzzed chat with the surgeon I have an exciting new regimen of drugs to look forward to when I see him in a couple of weeks. So that seems fun.

    I decided some pain killers and some good TV were in order. The new Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman motorcycle adventure LONG WAY HOME was released today which seemed fortuitous since I had enjoyed the previous ones. Turns out that one of the main things I enjoyed about the show was watching and discussing them with my father. My father was a far more of a rider than I ever was, I only rode because he did.

    Now watching just reminds me of trips and adventures that won’t happen, and of time that got away from us both as life threw a few too many curveballs at us. I have also got that feeling of time getting away again as life is springing leaks a little faster than I can patch them at the moment. So I definitely need to get a few wins on the board soon because my motivation is taking a hell of a beating right now.

    The farm is currently both my reason to keep going and a constant reminder of lost opportunities. I better get back to work this week, once food stops going through me like a dose of salts through a short grandmother.

  • I Still Care…

    When I tick the carer box on just about every form I fill out these days I still feel like it’s not a real thing. 20+ years of primary care for two ASD children, plus an ex who is definitely on the spectrum but I still feel like I would be judged to be more useful by the world if I was mucking out cow yards or selling realestate. I know I would probably be less tired loading manure everyday than I am from just keeping a household functioning and appointments kept.

    I also thought that there was a pretty good chance I would also have been caring for my father at some point, and now that that isn’t going to happen, and also that there is small chance one or both of the kids will be able to function in the world without as much help as in the past, I am starting to dread my freedom.

    If you have spent your whole life caring for people you get very used to putting yourself second, or third, or etc etc. but it also helps you justify why you’re not doing anything for yourself. Now I am starting to feel like I have done nothing with my life, and I have no idea how to deal with that. I don’t want to volunteer as I have done my time and I don’t think I can give up any more of myself than I already have. I also don’t have any thing I feel like I can enjoy anymore. I have had depression so long that it feels normal to not be able to experience joy or peace anymore.

    At the moment I am trying to convince myself that the peacefulness of the farm will help, and that removing the renovation and running two houses stress will solve all my problems, it won’t but I need something to keep me going. At the moment I really need that as I have a pile of medical shenanigans going on, children in need of unwavering support, and a grab bag of guilt randomly thrown in for good measure.

    I am throwing the on breaks, dropping anchors etc until the end of next week. Depending on what tests show, how assessments go, and how the wind blows it will be either a bad month, or a terrible one.

    Good and easy doesn’t seem to be an option at the moment.

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  • Laws of Subtraction…

    Not being able to see the forest for the trees is not always a metaphor. I could literally not see the forest that surrounds the cabin because there were trees (and junk) in the way. There was a definite claustrophobia to the property that kept it dark and damp and even foreboding at times. Unhealthy trees crowded and strangling each other, the forest floors starved for light under the years of leaf litter. Even after much of the junk was gone it still felt dead.

    Sometimes you just have prune things back hard, and in some cases remove them all together to let the sun and air in. I know people’s instinct is to save all the trees, but in this case the trees were harming each other and the health of the building. There are probably only half the trees in the area surrounding the house now, and the sunlight and airflow has dried out the house and allowed the ground to drain and start supporting growth again.

    This is now as “bare” as it will be. New specimen trees will be planted, and formal garden areas will be created around the cabin. Which will be set against the background of the mostly untouched forest on 3 sides and the creek frontage on the other.

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