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dragonlady7via http://ift.tt/2qV86Mu:
Chicken processing today, which went very smoothly. It was cold and rainy today, which was perfect– there’s a big burner that always makes it hot wherever we’re processing, and it’s murder on hot days, so we’re always glad if it’s a bit chilly.
I didn’t sleep well last night– it was pouring rain, and very windy, and around 10pm I had to get out of bed and go outside in the pouring rain to fix the roof flap that goes over the top hole in the yurt, so I got soaked and it was pouring and noisy and scary outside (I don’t like it when I can’t hear things coming, you know?), and the creek’s been in flood stage for days because it’s been pouring for days. I like hearing it, but I’m hearing A Lot of it, and it’s a bit scary too. And then the wind was thumping the roof’s loose corners around, which I didn’t need. So I was awake late, and up early for slaughter, so. And the night before that, it was rainy and thundery, and I didn’t sleep well. So I’m fucking exhausted by now, and desperate to really get a good sleep. And it’s super super cold and damp and dank and gross out here.
So I made myself a giant travel mug of chamomile tea with honey, and spiked it with whiskey, and I’m drinking that and that might have been overkill, I’m nodding off and it’s just past 8pm.
However.
What’s saving my life is that there are two 100-foot extension cords plugged together coming out of the greenhouse (one goes through the length of the greenhouse, the other comes from the yurt, and they meet right by the greenhouse), and I have a space heater. It’s a tiny electric one, very underpowered, but I’m reassured that it’s only a 15-amp circuit in there, so I can’t possibly melt an extension cord– the fuse would blow long before. So I’m all good. I bought a waterproof cord connector on Amazon and it arrived today, just in time for the rain to stop. I’ve been keeping the connection safe up til now by putting a big board over it and weighing the board down with a sandbag, it’s very high-tech but I tell you what, 100% effective.
Oh the whiskey’s kicking in, I want to go back to the bit about wanting to hear things coming– here’s the thing about sleeping in a canvas shack in the woods by myself. There’s a sweet spot when it comes to noise. In a pouring rain, it’s too noisy; I know that if anything approached the yurt, I wouldn’t hear it up til and possibly including when it came through the door. (Last night I’d rigged a blanket fort, so I couldn’t see the door– it was to block the wind that kept coming in the door, but it also meant I was unable to see anything.)
But on a still, still night, it’s too quiet. You can hear everything, and every tiny noise is terrifying. Last summer there was one really still night and I lay awake through half of it, and at one point a deer walked down the creekbed, splashing a little, then came up the bank picking its way through the undergrowth, crinkle crinkle clatter, and stood next to the yurt, browsing on something, and it was goddamn terrifying. I knew it had to be a deer, nothing else would have legs that long coming through the undergrowth. But it was still blanket-clutchingly terrifying.
No sir. Give me benign white noise, but not too much of it.
Chicken processing today, which went very smoothly. It was cold and rainy today, which was perfect– there’s a big burner that always makes it hot wherever we’re processing, and it’s murder on hot days, so we’re always glad if it’s a bit chilly.
I didn’t sleep well last night– it was pouring rain, and very windy, and around 10pm I had to get out of bed and go outside in the pouring rain to fix the roof flap that goes over the top hole in the yurt, so I got soaked and it was pouring and noisy and scary outside (I don’t like it when I can’t hear things coming, you know?), and the creek’s been in flood stage for days because it’s been pouring for days. I like hearing it, but I’m hearing A Lot of it, and it’s a bit scary too. And then the wind was thumping the roof’s loose corners around, which I didn’t need. So I was awake late, and up early for slaughter, so. And the night before that, it was rainy and thundery, and I didn’t sleep well. So I’m fucking exhausted by now, and desperate to really get a good sleep. And it’s super super cold and damp and dank and gross out here.
So I made myself a giant travel mug of chamomile tea with honey, and spiked it with whiskey, and I’m drinking that and that might have been overkill, I’m nodding off and it’s just past 8pm.
However.
What’s saving my life is that there are two 100-foot extension cords plugged together coming out of the greenhouse (one goes through the length of the greenhouse, the other comes from the yurt, and they meet right by the greenhouse), and I have a space heater. It’s a tiny electric one, very underpowered, but I’m reassured that it’s only a 15-amp circuit in there, so I can’t possibly melt an extension cord– the fuse would blow long before. So I’m all good. I bought a waterproof cord connector on Amazon and it arrived today, just in time for the rain to stop. I’ve been keeping the connection safe up til now by putting a big board over it and weighing the board down with a sandbag, it’s very high-tech but I tell you what, 100% effective.
Oh the whiskey’s kicking in, I want to go back to the bit about wanting to hear things coming– here’s the thing about sleeping in a canvas shack in the woods by myself. There’s a sweet spot when it comes to noise. In a pouring rain, it’s too noisy; I know that if anything approached the yurt, I wouldn’t hear it up til and possibly including when it came through the door. (Last night I’d rigged a blanket fort, so I couldn’t see the door– it was to block the wind that kept coming in the door, but it also meant I was unable to see anything.)
But on a still, still night, it’s too quiet. You can hear everything, and every tiny noise is terrifying. Last summer there was one really still night and I lay awake through half of it, and at one point a deer walked down the creekbed, splashing a little, then came up the bank picking its way through the undergrowth, crinkle crinkle clatter, and stood next to the yurt, browsing on something, and it was goddamn terrifying. I knew it had to be a deer, nothing else would have legs that long coming through the undergrowth. But it was still blanket-clutchingly terrifying.
No sir. Give me benign white noise, but not too much of it.
