Building separatism

and saw a fully green, healthy looking tree up there! This confirms what I've been hearing; the only alive part of the tree is the layer underneath the bark. A tree can fully survive without the middle, all the water and the balance is managed by the edges! This is why you can have a fully hollow tree live for a long time. It doesn't need the middle to live. (article confirming this)

I see this beech tree has red dots which I assume means the forester company decided to take it down. I guess it's a fall risk. But it's a shame since it's educational! And so pretty and green. And I bet animals live in those hollows.

Raindrop is starting to get a grip. Go Raindrop.

I've sniffed around and discovered they both have flower buds!

Or perhaps you can repurpose some other glass or mirror to amplify the heat. Good luck!

My next project, together with firewood securing, is fixing the well. I recently realized the over-ground infrastructure is almost crumbling to touch. It would be disastrous for me if my well broke. So I'm fixing it with dirt and rocks.

Working with dirt that has a high percentage of clay taught me it's better to do a thinner layer, wait for it to dry, fill in the cracks, then do another layer and let that dry too. It's more secure and robust that way.

So I was gonna take it easy! I got up at 6, had breakfast, and started bringing in firewood. After two trips I noticed I was incredibly tired and that my body didn't recover from yesterday, so I thought, okay lets switch tasks!

I climbed the ruins, collected clay, dirt, got some small rocks and sand-like powder, and spent some time lining up the well with it all, trying not to make it crumble further.

I was just about to call it a day when I looked at my seedlings and gasped; they were getting eaten. I left my tray in the grass so they could get some direct sun in the morning, and some kind of tiny jumping bugs were all over them. If I get near, the bugs just jump away very fast. They're round, black, some have red lines or dots.

I have seen these bugs before, they were chomping at my potatoes, but the damage wasn't critical and potatoes remained healthy, so I let them chomp. But my seedlings! Any damage is lethal to a baby plant that doesn't even have one true leaf out.

I saw the neighbour watching me so I went to ask her if she knew this type of bug and how to resolve the issue; she insisted poison was the only solution. We argued. I felt that because I left my seedling tray in the grass, the jumping bugs easily found them; but if I put them on a tall pillar, bugs would have a harder time getting up there. These bugs didn't seem to fly, just jump. She said it would be for nothing.

So then out of spite I went and built the pillar, dragging big bricks from the ruins and melting in heat. I'm not sorry because having a pillar with some plants on top is a beautiful yard feature, it looks amazing. I have now been working for 5 hours and didn't even make food so I am not feeling very well.

So I guess when you have your own yard, how do you stop yourself from doing projects before you melt? If you know you could do something And feel a bit spiteful, how would you pause to think about the state of your body? There's a rush of achivement at your fingertips! Of course now I can't move and everything hurts.

Btw seedlings are okay on the pillar for now. I've been checking every 5 minutes. No jumping bugs.

I'm not befriending them

But this morning they saw me on the street and invited me for a cup of coffee, so I sighed and went, thinking, I guess I should see what they're like.

The inside of their house looked professionally decorated, which gave me another ick, why is this expensive house in an old village. But I was polite, I could talk to the german guy in english which I assume, I was the only one in the village who could. The lady showed me her garden, which I liked, the two kittens they saved, the well she didn't use. Then we sat and talked.

Talking to the lady was fine, we were just exchanging normal stories, she turned out to dislike the neighbours and find them too gossipy. But then the guy interjected to inform me he was anti vacc, and I sighed, lots of people here are. He told me he sold a company of hundred employees because he realized the pharma is bad, food in stores is poison, and people in power are actively trying to kill the population.

I was just politely nodding along, and they started to talk more politics. They wanted to sus me out so I just off handedly said I'm a leftist, feminist, anti racism and fascism, and the lady stopped me and said "Well we don't agree with you there," and I stared at her as she recited a fascist manifesto at me! She claimed it's okay to fight for a 'pure germany' and why should all these afgani people live there at the cost of the government!

She said that to me in my calm little village where I live!

My brain was yelling 'omg these are fascists omg these are fascists' while I tried to say something knowing I was outnumbered and need to get home. They continued telling me feminism isn't all that either bc they were in Kuwait and she felt very safe and she knew all women were safe there, I refused to comment. And then they started excitedly talking about how perfect things are in Dubai and I was just. Speechless. These are rich oppressive people who live in a bubble that doesn't touch reality. I was right to be icked! I was right to avoid them. I didn't dream I would hear bs like 'pure germany' this close to my front yard, I thought people had to hide that shit.

I got out of there shaken and shocked.

I want to preface this by declaring I'm not trying to get firewood for heat. I've already tried a winter with no heating and it went fine. I need the wood for cooking, though cooking in a firestove inside will add some welcome heat too. But this is why I don't need an enormous amount of wood, just enough to boil some soup.

I set up my shed to have spaces for thinner and larger pieces, and I was off! The path towards the forest is uphill so I was huffing by the time I got there. I started breaking the branches I found into manageable little pieces using my hands and knees, and immediately got all tired and sweaty. I realized on my second trip the method is unsustainable and I need to set them on an uneven place and step on them; that way less energy is spent on breaking.

Some of the thicker sticks would not break at all, despite looking very dry, so I immediately started thinking maybe I could use that for building, or maybe for tomato support in the garden, since they're so tough. I left them in the forest for now.

I packed all my broken up pieces in two big bags I had for this purpose, I'm sure this is a normal way to bring firewood home.

My first trip was the worst, and then I started getting smarter about how I do it, how much to stuff in a bag, and I really enjoyed the part when I set them all down and categorize by size. I love sorting. It's not too bad of a process, I can do this.

My great aunt is like that: she only has her husband and her son who rarely visits her, so she's constantly calling me and inviting me to her home, even though I live four hours away lol and I do go sometimes but she still insists I visit her more often but I have my own life you know...

Also, her having no topics to talk about also doesnt strike me as weird; again, she's probably just bored and wanted to get out of the house even if she mostly stayed silent and watched you work. My great aunt is never silent but when she runs out of topics to talk about (which happens often since she calls me twice a week) she simply starts re-telling me old stories or her worries and complains that I've heard a million times already.

ok we are studying lonely people behaviour. I guess that makes sense, and yet it's so difficult to imagine for me who yearned for peace and quiet for a decade. Thank you for explaining though! I guess I can imagine how it would feel to yearn for any interaction, even if repeated one.

I do feel like it's my duty to entertain them so I sometimes tell them stories I heard from the internet. They always want me to come over, and to me this is weird too, I can't imagine dealing with a guest constantly.

This morning I was setting up my shed and the neighbour appeared beside me, she walked all over to the shed to find me. She said ''I could hear you were doing something, but didn't know what," and then she watched me arrange the wood pieces in there.

I invited her inside to sit and chat, and she didn't seem to have any topics she wanted to talk about, she just sat and waited for me to talk. Eventually she decided that the walls are 'not so bad' and that I can 'fix it all up', despite every day prior to this saying the house will crumble any day now. She insisted my praying mantis was actually a grasshopper and I could not convince her otherwise.

She left soon after, and I was puzzled to why she came. I wasn't making a lot of noise or anything like that, my shed just has some dry branches which I was sorting out by size.

I took out my bike. There was still a road I haven't explored, villages and nature I haven't seen, and I was excited. I grabbed my phone and backpack, had some water, and started off.

I immediately had a good time. New trees, new forest entrances. New pathways to places I didn't know. It was beautiful. It was such a pretty road. And I live here, this is mine now.

The first village had a pretty stream of water going through it, my neck was straining to see as much of it as I could. There were ducks in there! I was overjoyed. I haven't seen ducks yet, I thought we had none.

I kept looking at the trees, thinking about what I wanted in my front yard. I had decided on a linden. They have broad leaves, smell amazing, make heavy shades and look beautiful. And they used to be sacred in our pagan lore. And they give out a tea ingredient.

I stopped by the road next to a glorious looking linden and collected some seeds. If I can sprout them, this could be my tree. I'm not telling the neighbours.

The next village had the whitest birch trees I've ever seen. They stood out, looked like someone painted white crayon over the background of the village. Saw people picking plums, in the old timey outfits you see in children's books.

I concluded every type of tree makes good shade if there are many growing at the same spot, so I might just spill some seeds on my desired place to see what happens.

I saw many sunflowers, more than I've ever seen before. They smelled like honey. I biked past many corn fields, and on my way back, subtly stole a few. Snuck deep into a field, bike hidden. Stuffed them in my backpack so I didn't look suspicious on the road. Later on I saw a guy openly walking out of the field with two full bags, bike abandoned on the road. Way less subtle, I thought.

I found blackberries on my way back. Checked out a few forest paths, new places I get to look for mushrooms in. Got home exhausted but so happy. That was a perfect way to spend the morning, and all I wanted from my new life. I should take breaks to have this, hopefully nothing will collapse if I sometimes have a fun time.

I was in my kitchen, grinding more oats into powder, when I heard a quick knock on the front door. I thought, oh it must be my neighbour again! She's the only one who comes over.

So I stood up, but I didn't have time to make two steps before I found myself face-to-face with a stranger. She didn't wait for me to open the door. She let herself in and ran all the way to the kitchen before I had the time to get up and make two steps.

She was unkempt and smelled strongly of smoke and alcohol. I froze. She started talking about bringing something over.

'I don't know you,' I mumbled.

'I'm your neighbour, I saw you in the front yard!' she laughed, as if this explained everything.

'You came in without waiting for me to open the door,' I stated.

She said words I couldn't understand, and came closer to me. I watched her with a horrified exprresion.

'You've scared me,' I said, because this wasn't obvious to her.

She laughed and tried to hug me. I backed away.

I asked her for her name, so we exchanged names, and then the tension in the air got so bad she decided to leave, so I escorted her out.

I was upset and shaken. Why was a stranger walking into my house without asking. Felt like the house wasn't even mine if anyone can walk in.

I talked to my neughbours about it later, and they laughed and said 'Oh that's our neighbour Betty, don't mind her, she did it because she was drunk and high.'

This did not comfort me. Drunk and high stranger was worse.

They explained front doors aren't that important in this village and people just bypass them. I don't like that, it makes me want to lock up everything at all times. Only it's inconvenient, because during the day I go in and out a lot; I don't wanna be locked up at all times. But this is ridiculous. The second time someone walked past my front door like they were a joke rather than a boundary.