There's nothing quite like the endorphins after a solid Jiu-jitsu class. #grownostr #growyourself

Best dog ever.

#dogster

#grownostr

Wrapped up a fairly sizable job today- 1,400 square feet of sod. Laying it was easy. Digging out the massive concrete footers and all of the soil prep was a bear. But I had priced it appropriately and still came in under estimate. Happy customer, happy Kerry. Had creek turtles for company.

#grownostr

#growyourself

https://nostr.build/i/82bc123116a03a5bb42e27a629f999c7ccea96e1720004c8f504321c8b019c5f.j

Sod job today. It's not permie related, but it feeds me a lot of meals while I add more permie type work into the schedule. #grownostr #growyourself

A friend who works at a high end local plant nursery sold a bunch of perennials to an elderly man whose property was once featured in Birds and Blooms. He asked her if he knew anyone who could do the planting for him as it's hard for him to get up and down off the ground now. She gave him my number. I'm heading over there soon - an opportunity for a little earning and education.

I use my discounts several times a year. Even if I didn't, the value I get from TSP is multiplied many times over the yearly subscription payment.

The 2019 thread is not dead... we're fixing to get to the good stuff... after I recover from a physical ass kicker of a day. In other news, always assume a concrete footer you're digging up is actually 3x the size you *think* it might be.

It's that time of year where the afternoon storms come in and force a stop to the job at hand.

Mullein. Respiratory support. Very useful, I research my plants via pfaf.org

Broadfork is the way to go for plucking out monkeygrass. Still tedious but the coverage can't be beat.

Just had a much needed rainstorm - one, because I had thirsty plants, two, I needed to park myself at the desk to get caught up on design work and correspondence.

They're definitely finicky to start but once they're in the ground you'll be good to go. Escaped chickens dug mine up several times but they still established well after a year.

Feeling "supported" vs feeling "understood" vs feeling "valued " - I'm still working this over in my mind but this is loosely how my interactions with people have evolved over the years. I had friends who "supported" my identity at the time and while I felt "understood" that actually didn't do much to help achieve my goals. Once I began to build relationships that were based largely on exchange of value and the discussions of ideas/approaches - then growth began to happen. #grownostr #growyourself

This is now around September 2019. By October I decide to turn in my notice of resignation to the EMS company. I just wanted to bring that era to a finalization. Only my former full time partner and the union president knew it was my last shift. I'll tell some stories from those 15 years but right now it's not relevant. I picked up nearly full time hours for the bakery and promised them I'd remain for a minimum of one year.

I had the vague notion that I should do something with the skill set I'd cultivated over the years but wasn't sure how to go about it. At that moment, I just wanted to earn some money to keep our mission moving forward. I had a few mowing customers - small yards I did with an electric Ryobi mower. I was starting to get the inkling of that side hustle / entrepreneur mindset. But I wasn't ready to walk away from the perceived security of regular wages. I also really needed to get my stress levels down. I called up a friend who's family ran a small bakery. I'd worked there part-time a few years back but left when the wages just couldn't cover what we needed to earn. I knew they needed a maintenance/dishwasher/handyman type and I secured the position.

So for several years at this point I had been doing the urban homesteading thing on our 1/5 acre city lot. I had a food forest, multiple raised beds, chickens, quail, various types of composting systems, hydroponics, two ponds. I was becoming familiar with urban foraging, plant ID and otherwise reading the land around me. While this offset a bit of our grocery bills, it was mainly my way of maintaining a sense of groundedness when other aspects of my life felt adrift. #grownostr #growyourself

Another aside: I just told Angel that I felt like my brain was an internet browser with about 500 tabs open. Maybe that's why my CPU seems a bit slow at times. #grownostr

I should also mention that we'd gotten ahead enough that my wife was able to leave her job in corporate healthcare not too long before. It was a huge goal of mine that she would not need to work. I was not willing to reverse that decision.

Sometime during the summer of 2019 I went parttime on the ambulance. That meant I could schedule shifts as I liked and figure out what else I wanted to do. I don't recall how I came to the decision but I had the idea to join the local Carpenter's union. I saw the trades as useful for a number of avenues. After OSHA cert and a scaffolding class I started with a job doing steel stud framing. It took me about a week to realize that place was just as corrupt, negative and useless as what place I left. Worse, I was at the bottom of the totem pole where before I'd had enjoyed a decent amount of senority. #grownostr #growyourself

Strong work!