last updated 5.22.26

May 22, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts I'm loving my new work schedule. I can't believe I lived for so long any other way. I definitely had the right idea way back when. This is how life should be for everyone. I think it was when my mother got sick that I stopped working and was living off my savings to take care of her. After she passed away, I was so anxious to replenish my finances that this was when I considered working full-time like everyone else. Putting our personal lives on hold for 5 out of 7 days a week to give our time to a job or some company is completely unnatural especially when a lot of employers don't care about their employees. If we're giving them the majority of our lives, we should never have to worry about the majority of our needs like health care which I've lived without for most of my life because I couldn't afford it, even when I worked full-time. This is true for many people and a reflection of how sick our society has become, no pun intended. Read any anthropology book on early human culture and you might be surprised by how little time we spent hunting and gathering. A few hours over a few days. It was a lifestyle of leisure and equality when people took care of one another. This is how we lived for 90% of human history. Food was all around us and when it wasn't, we simply walked somewhere else. There were only a couple million people on the whole planet. Everything was plentiful. In a very short period of time, our population has exploded creating scarcity and competition. Now there are millions of people in every major city. We've literally created our own problems. Stories of how brutal and grueling life was before modern civilization only serve modern ideologies rather than accurately depicting what life was truly like for us then. Because I'm so healthy and low maintenance in addition to all the sacrifices I've made, I've been able to adopt a similar low-stress existence outside the box of the typical American lifestyle, but the average person can't. They are pigeon-holed into working their life away or the alternative which is to cheat the system by trying to make money without working at all which is becoming more and more possible, but this is not sustainable. Real work is a good thing and not something to be avoided. Working for the system is not the same as real work. An honest person after spending their entire lives working for it has to live with the ever present fear of finding themselves broke in their old age if their money runs out. Is this progress? Even living off the land isn't as difficult as what we've been told. It's not hard. Farming is difficult because farming is about trying to make money, not food. Growing and raising enough sustenance for ourselves and our families is easy. Trying to do it while working for a system that demands 5 out of 7 days of our lives is what makes it hard. Anyways, going back to three days a week is a game-changer. I can't buy and accumulate a lot of material possessions living like I do, but the peacefulness is more valuable than any product created by a consumer based economy. The pace of my life is much more natural, livable and relaxing compared to hurrying all the time chasing a dollar, a make believe idea. It's much more productive, too. I ordered some rear fenders to replace the ones on my truck where the sheet metal has become very rusty. Since I was 17, I've used bondo for any body work my cars and trucks have needed, but cutting out a whole section of a vehicle and welding a new piece of metal in its place will be a first so that should be a fun project. The honeymoon is over at the new farm and like any job it has its challenges, but I still think it can work out. I had to have a talk with the mother and daughter, the two owners I interact with the most, the other day after we finished slaughtering 250 chickens and turkeys. As it turns out, in addition to the 3 owners, I have a 4th boss who showed up on Wednesday morning and started barking orders at me without even explaining who she was or what her role on the farm is. Apparently, she only works one day a week, yet still acts like she's in charge. All things considered, I handled it well. It was a very busy and hectic day and this was not the time to bring up personnel issues so I waited until we were all done and asked if I could speak with the mother and daughter briefly before leaving. I wanted to include the woman in this conversation as well who I assumed must be a family member, but it turns out she's not and wasn't around at that moment. Two of the guys I work with were sitting in the office so the mother asked me if it needed to be in private and I told her "No, not necessarily. If you don't mind, I don't mind either," so I explained that people talking to me the way this woman who I have no idea who she is was unacceptable. No one gave me any type of training. They just threw me in the mix with about 15 other people who all knew exactly what they should be doing then kept telling me I was doing one thing after another wrong. I've worked on more farms then all of them have combined, but every farm does things differently and every job requires developing a new skill specific to how a particular operation performs a task. Being aware of this, I have never had a problem taking direction. I love to learn, but being constantly criticized all day when no one properly showed me how they'd like something done is a completely dysfunctional way of training a person. I told them that I choose to be polite and professional with everyone I interact with, but if people aren't going to be polite and professional back then I can use another side of me if need be, but this won't be fun for anyone and I'd rather not have to do this. They were a little stunned, but knew that I was completely right and immediately apologized. Even the woman did, repeatedly, when I saw her the next day. The farm doesn't usually process both chickens and turkeys on the same day so there was more packaging to do the following morning and she came back to help. From what I've gathered, she used to work on the farm full time for a number of years, but now works for herself as some type of farm consultant, I think. My friend, Keith, who owns Stone Soup Farm, a big organic vegetable operation closer to Boston taught me something very valuable when I worked for him back in 2019. He was my boss then who became my friend. His farm is one of the most impressive that I've ever worked on. Whenever I'm in the area, I stop by to say "Hi" and every time I do, he has taken his operation to the next level and I'm always blown away, but even more importantly it's how he speaks to people that is more next level. He always asks, never orders, while constantly using words like "please" and "thank you.". He doesn't need to be this way. His farm is so successful that he could be a jerk and people would still want to work there, but he's not. He's a pleasure to deal with. He's not a pansy either. He's a bad ass, hockey player, farmer who crushes it every day while he and his wife raise three daughters living on the farm. It's inspiring. He showed me that when you're really good at something, better than most, it's an opportunity, not to use your advantage to talk down to people and bully them, but to lead and encourage them by being a positive example. This is how I've always tried to be, but he does it on a level far higher than I've had to running an operation as big as his with many employees to manage and countless moving parts in addition to trying to make a profit growing healthy organic food which is no easy task. Addressing issues without sounding negative is something that I had to do last season and because of this we're all still friends. Recalling how Keith interacted with people was a very helpful reminder that it can be done. One of the guys in the office thanked me the next morning for speaking up on Wednesday because he has struggled with this same dynamic himself, but hadn't been able to find a way to address it. I received this text from the daughter owner later that evening. "Thank you for taking the time to talk with us this afternoon. We really enjoy working with you and appreciate the hard work you put in each day. We also appreciate your feedback and will do our best to be better moving forward. Open communication is important to us and we're glad to be building that as we work together. We're happy to have you as part of the team and look forward to continuing to work together." My response. "Oh, good. I didn't just get myself fired, phew. Seriously, thank you. I know you're a tight nit crew and I respect and admire this. I assure you that I am not high maintenance, but setting a healthy precedence early on is worthwhile so again thank you for being receptive. Looking forward to a great season. See you in the morning." Met up with missButterfly again today and it got pretty intense initially, but we worked through it and ended up spending a couple hours talking which was very nice ending with a warm hug. I consider this a victory and I'd like to quit while I'm ahead regarding the whole situation which is what I've tried to do countless times from the beginning. She has said that she's sorry repeatedly, I've accepted her apologies, but I know she wants more. The girl who for over a year bombarded me with the same statement that she's not looking for a relationship while I did nothing to imply that I wanted one has clearly changed what she wants without actually acknowledging this. Most recently, she's been talking a lot about us working together and though it would be really good money for only a few days work every once in a while, I'm not sure it's a wise idea. In order to properly move forward and develop an actual friendship, I'd have to do more than accept her apologies which I've never asked for. They were for her so that she can learn from her mistakes which I certainly appreciated, but I have no desire to talk about the mess she made so that I can feel better about it, too. I don't want to feel better about it. What she did was wrong. I've forgiven her many times and that's good enough for me. I'm not bitter, but my solution is to never let it happen again and the simplest way to do this is to never let her back in my life because all the elements that allowed her to make the mess are still present in hers which I wasn't aware of when I agreed to meet up with her. If I really liked her and wanted to be with her then I can see the necessity of having to deal with it so that we can move forward, but I've never wanted to be with her so what's the point? What's in it for me? I don't mean to sound harsh, but I don't want friends like her. She's motivated because she wants me in her life. Plus, I have a big truck which is an asset to her line of work. The extra money is tempting, but I'm not sure it's worth dealing with all the drama she created. I guess I'm just trying to make sure that I'm being clear-headed and not close-minded. When I got home this afternoon, I received an email from a different farm who I reached out to 2 1/2 weeks ago before taking the job I'm working right now and they're interested in hiring me. It took them long enough to reply to my email which is not a great sign. However, I'd make a lot more money than I am now and they're much more humane to their animals, but I'd have to relocate which is something I was interested in doing before the season started, not now which would be a major interruption so I figured I should write about it and weigh my options. The farm I'm on now in addition to feeding us breakfast and lunch offers everyone a chicken breast to bring home on processing days, not four whole chickens like I got last year, but I didn't take one, yesterday. It's closer to factory farm food which I don't usually eat. I still might next time. Free food is free food. I just didn't feel like cooking when I got home. There's plenty of leftovers in the walk-in cooler that we can help ourselves to which I did. Will it hurt me to eat food that's not free range or organic for one season? Probably not. I've been eating organic long enough since it became a readily available option decades ago and I'm only at the farm three days a week. On the other hand, it would be great to be back working somewhere that is closer to my values in farming, but is it worth the trouble of quitting where I am and relocating especially since we just ironed out a few things not to mention this new place will most likely want me full-time. They're a youngish couple who are friends with Queen Bee and Shamboozah, but their farm which is about an hour and a half from here is a real working farm, not a non-profit. They're living their dream so I'd be helping them accomplish this, but would I be postponing my own in the process? As less than ideal as the farm I'm on now is, I love the schedule, the very short commute, the great work out and the time it affords me to focus on all my other projects. Could I easily recreate this somewhere else or would I be throwing everything I have going for me right now out the window only to start from scratch all over again? There's no perfect answer. I can make the most of either situation, but I'm already here and wouldn't want to quit a job that I just agreed to even though I came very close the other day, but that was a result of not being treated respectfully. If this continues to happen then it's in my best interest to have options, but I should probably see how this goes and enjoy things the way they are, for now. Man, these entries have been huge lately, but this is what I need to do in order to see things as clearly as one person can. Previous posts 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 January 1, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts Had a nice little reminder this afternoon that I'm not doing enough in the area of making changes. Nothing too major occurred, but the grand canyon still opened right up and down I went. I recovered fine by splitting wood for a couple hours which helped a lot. It happened because I had a little set back with my wood stove project. In doing some research this morning, I learned that I should have soaked the vermiculite in water before adding it to the cement which prevents the vermiculite from absorbing too much water away from the cement when you mix them together. Otherwise, you could end up with dry cement that's too crumbly. Not the end of the world so it shouldn't feel like it is. The only reason realizing that I might have to make the columns over again messed with me was because this required me to ask missLuna if I could store them in her house for a couple days to fully cure. My tiny house neighbor will be back to the property soon so I wanted to get them out of her place, today, thinking that I was almost done. Nope. I'm well aware of the trial and error proces when being creative and making something new for the first time. I've had to take a deep breath and start something over from scratch hundreds of times at this stage in the game. It just comes with the territory. What amplified this common occurrence was that it made me have to rely on another person. I have issues. When and why did I get it into my head that I'm not allowed to ask anyone for help? This is not a healthy way to live. To top things off, I got a call from missButterfly out of the blue this afternoon. She says she wants to talk to me, again, so she can clarify something she said when we last spoke a couple weeks ago. I have no idea what this is nor do I have any interest in finding out. She left a voicemail. I didn't call her back. I can't believe I'm still dealing with this person. I honestly don't know what to do about it. I've been more than patient and understanding with her. On a lighter note, we got a little snow last night so there was a pretty blanket of white covering everything this morning when I opened the door to go outside. Still psyched about having my dream truck parked out there. The bathroom door I finished making earlier this week came out great. I pretty much make all my doors from scratch. It's a tiny house thing. I unscrewed a small cabinet door that my father made for the downstairs bar in the house I grew up in and pulled it off its hinges when I was cleaning out the house a few years ago before they tore it down. My father had carved a map of the North and South Rivers in Marshfield on it which included a small "x" marking where our house was located along the river. It, also, has an old fashioned little wooden sailboat mounted to it and a piece of driftwood with a tiny cottage built on it like the one at Damon's Point. I loved looking at the door when I was a kid. I couldn't leave it behind. Now, it's enlayed into the outside of my bathroom door with an antique brass knob that I scored from that carpentry gig I did a couple winters ago. Very happy with it. As far as making changes, I know that my lack of progress in this area is not entirely my fault. I'm up against our whole system which has been composed to keep us all separated from, if not competing with, one another. It is one of the great advantages the powers that be have implemented for themselves. Add my personal abrasion to asking for help and I've got a major challenge ahead, but I still don't have a choice so something needs to be done. I should probably start with fixing my darn laptop because I have a feeling being able to type more efficiently compared to on this tablet is going to be necessary. To speed up the curing process, I cut the outer cardboard form with a utility knife and peeled it off the smaller column this afternoon before putting it in missLuna's house. It didn't look that bad. Pretty hard, not too crumbly. I still might redo them. There going to experience plenty of jarring when my house is rolling down the road. January 2, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts Today was a good day. Haven't left the property since Tuesday (it's Friday), but I'm making progress. It's been very cold, but sunny in the mornings and afternoons. It was so cold last night that the pot of water on the stove was already frozen before I went to bed. Walked down to missLuna's this morning and grabbed the larger cement column to check how it was curing. I carefully sliced and peeled the outer cardboard form off it and brought it back to her house to dry some more. They seem to be hardening well. She moved both columns to her living room (where her wood stove keeps the house nice and warm) because she had a bunch of clients, today, so I didn't have to enter from the front door and walk through the room where she "treats" them. All I have to do is open the glass slider at the side of her house, reach in and grab them. Made some minor improvements to the ladder rack I built for the new truck. Happy with that. Getting bundled up and keeping myself busy outside all day works like a charm especially when the sun is so bright. My happiness just spills out of me even though I'm completely alone, but I know that this routine is not a permanent solution. I'm thankful that things are good because this is the best place to make positive change from. What this change is going to look like still remains to be seen. I should leave the property tomorrow and gets some errands done. I'll try to make some headway on fixing the laptop. I've tried several more times recently, but the tactics microsoft is using against its own customers is so disgusting that I don't even want to write about it. I'll figure something out. At the very least, I found a computer repair place that will pull all the documents off of it and save them to a flashdrive for 30 bucks. For 100, they'll fix the laptop so I can use it again, but either way I first have to find a notary and sign a legal document stating that the computer is mine so the computer repair place can't be sued by microsoft, the computer manufacturer or an imaginary previous owner if my laptop was stolen. I brought my receipt with me to the repair shop proving that I bought it brand new, but this wasn't good enough. It's insane. Writing and uploading html code to start a new year for this blog was a little difficult on a tablet. Ordered a new tonneau cover for my truck so that I can still keep my tools in the bed and out of the weather when the ladder rack is installed. This is all superficial stuff, but I'm just trying to get my ducks in a row. I need to head to Maine and transfer my old registration to this truck, register the motorcycle and modify the registration for the tiny house trailer to a higher gross weight with all the additions I've made to the house since first registering the trailer a couple years ago. I want to be sure I'm 100% legal while traveling. All it would take is some unhappy cop to ruin my day if anything wasn't . These things need to be done in person so I was waiting until after the first of the year to make the 2.5hr trip. January 4, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts Headed into the strip mall jungle, yesterday, and got a bunch of errands done. Removed the remaining inner forms for the columns and took them with me so they could sit in a reasonably warm truck all day. I put them in the back seat and strapped them in with the seatbelt like a small child. #m to the l to the r Picked up another bag of vermiculite and tonight it's pre-soaking in a bucket of water. Looked at state park campgrounds in South Carolina and seriously considered loading up the kayak and motorcycle and heading down there for a week to build the rocket stove in weather more conducive to mixing cement, but first I need to drive to Maine and get all my registration tasks done. The 5 hour round trip will give me time to think about it. Tried, but didn't make any progress on fixing my laptop. Microsoft offers no customer service phone number that allows a person to speak to an actual human being nor an email address for people to write to. Tried calling a number that an google search provided, but it just turned out to be another scam posing as microsoft. Did reach one automated message that was legitimate offering to text me a link to the proper webpage that fixes log in issues, but it ended up being the same one I've tried dozens of times already with no success. If a person uses this option of having them send a link to your phone, you'll quickly discover that microsoft black lists the phone number you used so if you call back for further assistance an automated message plays that offers no options then disconnects you. Good times. Took the finished columns out of the truck this afternoon, gently placed them in my burn barrel and started a small fire inside them with cardboard and sticks to complete the curing process. I probably won't use them, but it's good practice. I'll make two more tomorrow and let them sit in missLuna's house drying while I drive to Maine. I've thought a lot about getting another dog. It's been years since my last buddy passed away. The major reason I haven't is because I'm not sure if it would be a responsible decision. To own a dog and take care of one properly, a person should have a support system and I don't anymore. Wah. It's about a 15 year commitment and chances are during that time something might come up that may cause me to be indisposed. I could get sick or hurt and brought to the hospital. What would happen to him then? I'd love to have one again, but I'm just trying to be smart about it. Even thought about reaching out to missFlowerchild to have more social contact in my life. I still spend way too much time alone. I've been contemplating hauling my house over to her little "farm" as she calls it for the winter. She has her young son, her sister and her sister's boyfriend living on the property as well. Her mothers there a lot, too. I've met them all and get a long with them,but I'm looking for friendship, nothing else, so that might be unrealistic regarding missFlowerchild. I'm pretty sure she'd want more. Again, I'm just trying to be responsible. This is why I never hear from her except for a couple short friendly texts around the holidays which I initiate. She feels rejected. I like her as a person and she's a smoke show, but I'm just not into the polyamorous lifestyle. She has plenty of projects I could help her with, but I think it would be selfish of me to propose living in my tiny house over there while not being interested in anything other than friendship. I don't know. I'll be driving right past her town on my way to Maine so I'll give that some thought, too. It may be time to create new connections rather than try to extract more from old ones that didn't work out. I'm going to try to keep documenting my days, as mundane as this is, sort of like how taking one single step over the course of miles and days can add up to a long journey on foot that reaches it's destination. I have a little experience with this. January 5, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts Didn't get a lot done, today, but it was still a good day. I need to try to get to sleep earlier. I've been staying up 'til 12 or 1am. This is only because I haven't been getting enough exercise which is often the case in the winter so I'm not physically tired at the end of the day. I still have way too much energy when it's bedtime. I'll need to work on this. I've been sleeping until 9ish as a result and this is a waste of daylight hours. We got a little snow so I cleaned off the panels and the truck, took a nice hot bath, did a couple of little projects and edited last year's blog -lots of typos. Ok, I'll confess. I had a one man dance party, too. Maybe more than one. Oh, and my new tonneau cover arrived so I'll install that in the next couple days so I can put the ladder rack I built back on the truck and leave it on. I've been taking it off everyday when I'm not using it so I can put the old tonneau on to keep the snow out of the bed of the truck and off my tools. Pretty frickin exciting stuff. Tomorrow, I'll do a few errands in Greenfield then try to get a new batch of cement mixed and poured when I get back so it can dry while I head to Maine. I should be able to do both columns. I took notes on how many cups of cement, vermiculite and water each required so now I know how much to mix. The moon's been crazy bright lately. I walk outside at night and can see everything just fine. So peaceful. January 6, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts Made the forms for the new columns, mixed and troweled the cement and vermiculite into them, but only had enough for the larger outer column so I carried it down to missLuna's to let it set. I guess soaking the vermiculite in water, first, changed the ratio. Emptied what was left in the bag into a bucket and it's soaking in the loft in my house, right now. The temperature is only getting down to the high 20's tonight so it shouldn't freeze in the house. I'll mix up some more cement, tomorrow, for the inner column. Reusing the round cardboard forms is a little time consuming, but it makes them easier to remove as the cement cures. They just don't hold their shape very well especially after I cut them in sections to peel them off. If I could find some large pvc pipe, that would work a lot better, but none of the building supply box stores around here carry anything bigger than 4". Maybe I'll look around for a commercial plumbing supply store in the area. I'll probably get away with reusing the cardboard tubes this one last time, but if I end up making anymore stronger pvc is the way to go. I used some for the smaller inner column and it worked great. I don't know if I'm going to make it to where I've always dreamed. The mornings are still pretty rough. I know keeping myself busy with projects during the day isn't the answer. They will help me accomplish what I'm trying to do and it feels awesome when I complete one, but they aren't going to improve my overall life. There's only one way to do that. I said that after I found a decent truck I'd have no more excuses for postponing making changes, but I seemed to have tricked myself into building this stove before I do anything else justifying it by the fact that it's winter and a warm fire would be so much better than a propane furnace. Old habits die hard. January 7, 2026, Turners Falls, Massachusetts Forced myself to get up early, mixed and poured the inner column, cleaned up the mess and put tools away, headed out to do some errands and now I'm parked by the river in Turners not quite ready to go home. I've got to come up with a way to find other people who want to do more than just go along with an unsustainable system. I looked at volunteering at the hospital in Greenfield, but they said I need to be vaccinated. If I don't agree with what our system is doing to us and our planet, maybe I'm not going to find the solution within this system. Duh. January 9, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts Got all my registration stuff done in Maine, yesterday. Now, I can ride the motorcycle on the road if I want. Great time of year for it. Didn't make any plans to head south and didn't reach out to missFlowerchild as I passed by her town. I'm loving this break from the very cold weather we were having. The ironic part is that I turn on the heat more when it's milder like today because it requires less propane to keep the house warm. I'm a fool. Whatever. At least, I permitted myself to be comfortable for a change. Farm pancakes for breakfast. Farm chicken for dinner. Walked down to missLuna's this morning and checked the cement columns for the stove and they're still curing. Removed the inner cardboard on the larger one to open it up to the air. The smaller column still felt soft so I left the cardboard on it for another day. Installed the new tonneau cover on the truck. It's going to take some customization in order to still have a ladder rack as well. It's a little wider than the tonneau I had on my last truck so I had to notch out the rails where they were covering the four rectangular holes along the top edge of the bed that every truck has because that's where the rack drops in. Anyways, I'll finish it tomorrow. I don't watch the news, but it was hard not to come across the video footage of what happened in Minneapolis on Wednesday. I saw it last night. Didn't get much sleep. The incident, and there have been plenty of others in recent years, was so disturbing that I don't know how a person is supposed to go about their day and not be affected by it. One thing to keep in mind, possibly above everything else, is that it happened because people are losing control, first of their thoughts and emotions and then second of their actions. Someone is no longer alive because of this. Her death was not a result of self-defense. She was trying to get away. All the man who fired his gun had to do was step to the side. Even if she was disobeying the law by not cooperating with the agents, they could have simply gotten her license plate number, found out where she lived, given her a ticket or even arrested her at a later time. They didn't have to kill her. She was a soccer mom, not a terrorist. Was she wrong for driving away? That is up for debate, but what isn't is the use of deadly force. January 10, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts Worked on the tonneau cover and ladder rack all day. Had to fabricate some additional brackets. You can make lots of hardware from a scrap metal pile with a grinder, a hammer and a big vice. Got it all done and happy with it. Forced myself to go out seeing as it was a weekend night. I often forget what day it is, but my attempt was uneventful. I tried. To know surprise, what happened in Minnesota is still bothering me along with some questionable behavior of our current president and administration. I'm not political and I don't take sides especially when both parties are acting out of justified unhappiness , but a few years ago, I thought of an idea to strengthen the sense of community in our country, yet I haven't done much to further it since then. These most recent events have pushed me to start doing something. January 11, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts It was mild and sunny, today. Got a lot done. The second batch of columns are looking good. Peeled the cardboard off both of them and stuck 'em back in missLuna's to finish drying. Started replacing the rear differential cover on my new truck. This was something that I knew it needed when the guy sold it to me. It's not a difficult job and he had already bought the new cover and gasket; just hadn't gotten around to doing it. It can get a little messy because you have to drain all the gear oil out of the differential first. There's 14 bolts holding the cover on and some of them turned out to be very rusty. I was lucky to get them all off so I wasn't going to put the really bad ones back on. Got bundled up, fired up the motorcycle and road into Greenfield to buy all new bolts at the auto parts store. It was almost dark when I got back so I decided rather than rush I'll put it all back together, tomorrow. It felt good to know that I have a second vehicle if I ever need one and it wasn't too cold for January, granted I look like the pillsbury dough boy with all the layers I had on. Tomorrow's Monday so I'll head into town and resolve my laptop situation one way or another because I've got a lot of writing to do. January 12, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts Good day. Got the rear differential cover installed. The mating surface needed a lot of cleaning to get pieces of the old gasket removed from the axle along with the rust and grime around the edges so it took longer than I expected, but it came out nice. The sun was warm and bright in the middle of the day so that made it comfortable. By the time I was done, I decided to work on a few other things here at the home base rather than head off the property. January 13, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts Farm eggs for breakfast, checked the columns, had to mix up a small batch of straight cement to strengthen the middle section of the smaller one. It cracked right in half when I was gently sliding the pvc pipe out from inside it which was acting as the inner form. I didn't panic. Put all the pieces back together like a 3-dimensional jigsaw puzzle with a healthy coating of cement to hold it all together, rested it in a piece of its outer cardboard form like a long half-shell and carried it down to missLuna's where it's now drying. Placed the larger column in the burn barrel and started a small fire inside it to complete the curing process. Left it in the barrel to cool after the fire went out and headed into Greenfield to do errands. Called a different computer repair place in Amherst, but they wanted 90 bucks just to look at it so I wrote up a statement of ownership, got it notarized and went to the first repair shop in Greenfield. It only took him a few minutes to get all my files off the laptop and onto a flash drive. He offered to install whatever operating system I wanted on it for another $70, but I just paid him for the data retrieval and bounced. I had my own ideas. I'm ok with paying for a repair when I break something, but when it's part of a systematic attempt by corporations and businesses to extract money from people I don't like to comply. Headed to the strip mall jungle in Hadley to get the rest of my errands done. Picked up some more vermiculite and a piece of 6 inch pvc pipe which will work better as a form than cardboard sonotube. I still have one final piece to make before I can start putting my new rocket stove together. Grabbed some groceries at tj's and a couple of slices of pizza at whole foods. While I was eating, I used a few of the tricks I learned online a couple of months ago when I first tried fixing the laptop myself. Now that I had all my files off of it, I could completely reinstall windows which erases everything, but when it began a new set-up process and required me to connect to the internet like it did the first time when I bought it last spring and didn't know better forcing me to leave the mountains and the hot spring and drive back down into the little town in the Rockies , I didn't. Instead, I manually bypassed this part of the set-up process using a few keyboard shortcuts and created a "local account" which doesn't require the internet, a microsoft username or a password. I'm typing this on my laptop, right now. Finished the rest of my errands and headed back to the property. Pulled the big column out of the burn barrel and brought it inside with me. It came out great. It's so light! Yet, rigid like the cement version of a styrofoam tube. Might have to watch a movie, tonight. It's been a couple months since I've been able to. I still plan to hold microsoft and the laptop company accountable for their incompetence, but now that I can type again, I've got more important things to focus on. January 15, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts This evening, I lugged my big cooler into the house before calling it a day. The recent warm spell has been nice, but it'll be back down into the teens tonight. Bringing the cooler indoors doesn't always guarantee that my food won't freeze overnight, but it helps. I made sure that I poured the water I collected from last night's rainfall into my big aluminum pot so I can melt it down whenever I need some. I got caught a little off guard earlier this winter when I didn't remember to do this so one of my five gallon jugs still has a big ball of ice in it. Luckily, I don't use as much water in the wintertime so one jug has been plenty. The gutter on the front of my house works great for collecting water. I can always fill up a jug down at the barn if I need to, but catching rainwater saves me the trip. I, also, placed a pail of my last batch of vermiculite soaking in water just inside the slider down at missLuna's so that tomorrow I can make the final piece of the rocket stove, the batch chamber. This is where you feed in the wood similar to a traditional wood stove. Fingers crossed it all goes smoothly. I'm just about out of castable refractory cement and none of the stores around here carry any, even the masonry supply who I called this afternoon so I'll have to order more online if I run out. I did some calculating and I think I'll barely squeak by. I've been thinking and writing about my community outreach plan for the last couple days and it's taking shape. I was going to head over to the library and spend the whole day working on it, but the field was so muddy that I didn't want to drive the truck across it and make a mess. It'll be hard as a rock, again, tomorrow. My plan isn't a new idea. I bought a domain name for it years ago, but creating it with the right perspective has been the challenge. Volunteering this winter was a good idea and technically this plan is a form of volunteering because I'm not going to get paid for it. No one will. My efforts, and anyone else's should anyone choose to join me, will be focused directly on people, not financial gain. It's hard for our brains to imagine a world without money, but the world has existed for millions of years before money was invented so if we want the world to be around for a million more, or even a few hundred more, we better find a way to bridge the gap between making money and being a good person because right now money doesn't care what kind of person you are and what's happening in the world right now is a reflection of this. January 17, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts Came in from some night sledding a few minutes ago which then turned into a one man dance party. We got about a foot of snow, today. I went for a drive in the early afternoon during the thick of it wondering if I might find someone out on the road who could use some help getting pulled out of a snow bank. A little past time of mine during the winter. I keep a couple long tow straps in my truck. They work good for pulling people out of the mud, too. I used them plenty on the farm, this summer. Didn't come across anyone. There weren't many people out driving. Ended up buying myself a new sled and doing a few errands while in Hadley. The sled I bought last winter mysteriously disappeared while I was in Colorado. The weird thing is missLuna's neighbor who uses the hill by my house to take her grandchildren sledding, now, has a bright green sled. She didn't have one last winter which is why I bought a bright green one. Theirs were red and blue. Of course, I don't think they deliberately took it. She probably just assumed it was theirs. I heard the weather was especially windy last winter while I was gone so my sled probably blew off my trailer and one of the kids accidentally grabbed it. Why would they think it was mine? How many grown men have a snow sled? I used it a lot in place of my wheelbarrow to haul stuff over the snow back and forth from the barn when I parked down by the road last year. The whole thing's been awkward. No one else uses this hill out here in the woods. I did a little work for the neighbor last fall, but other than that I haven't had much interaction with her. If I'm being honest, I don't think the sisterhood of missLuna and her neighbor who is her best friend are very fond of men. In fact, I know missLuna isn't. She declared this to my face last fall then quickly back-pedaled a little and added "Present company not included." I didn't say anything. The very first day I moved here in the summer of 2023, I hadn't parked my truck and trailer 10 minutes before the woman came walking out of the woods right past where I was setting up. I didn't know who she was or where she came from. It's all trees and forest up here bordering conservation land. She didn't introduce herself, barely said "hello." My guess is that she was checking me out or maybe claiming her territory. Very awkward. This summer she dropped a metal lawn ornament off by the barn because she wanted me to weld it for her, but never spoke to me about it. Just left it there and told missLuna to ask me. She lives right across the road from the barn and walks through the field with her dog all the time, but doesn't say two words to me. I didn't have time to work on my own projects during the farming season so I didn't get a chance to do hers either. Now with my priorities revolving around keeping warm, I still haven't. The next time I use my welder which I haven't touched since last spring, I'll try to fix the rusty old thing for her which I believe is still sitting down by the barn. Anyways, I didn't feel comfortable asking her about the sled even though they've been using it right in front of me all winter long. Eventually, I had to say something to missLuna in a joking kind of way to see if she could do some casual inquiring. I figured it would be less confrontational coming from her. I told her to look for a couple of square holes in the front of it. She said that she checked and it wasn't mine, but I'm not really convinced. The sled came with a flashing light when I bought it, but I figured that this would only break so I took it off. The holes aren't very big. She probably thought I meant big holes like for a handle. It didn't sound like she actually asked her friend. The whole thing is so weird and I could care less about the sled hence going out and buying another one. I even considered buying the neighbor one, too. What doesn't sit right with me is not being able to say anything without the fear of offending someone. This is their little world which feels like its blanketed with a carpet of eggshells. As eager as I am to get out of here, I want to be as ready as I can be when I do so not saying "boo" about anything that they can't handle is what I must do. I've looked around the area for other options, but haven't found any yet. Other than this silliness, things are going awesome. Crushed out the batch chamber yesterday morning and it's been drying in missLuna's house for the past two days. I'll take one of the forms off it tomorrow to expose it to the air. I had just enough cement luckily so that was good. Did some laundry in the afternoon and washed my comforters and sleeping bag. Bumped into two folks who were part of the Native American crew building the mishoon this summer. I had my farm hoodie on which I think helped them recognize me from just some random white guy washing his blankets. Worked on my new project , both, yesterday and today. This starts with first introducing the idea of a new platform to the public on an individual level. People need to know that they are not alone and that there are a lot of other good honest people out there who feel the same as they do. I'm not a webmaster which is why I keep this blog so simple and straightforward, but I would like this new site to be more interactive so I'm going to have to learn how to write so more complicated code or find someone to help me with it. January 21, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts Moved into the truck two nights ago. It was pointless trying to keep the house at a reasonable temperature in this kind of weather. It supposed to get down below zero later this week. Ordered some more refractory cement. The next step in building the stove is motaring the pieces that I've formed together. Seeing as it didn't need to be castable, I thought I could find some locally, but the only place that had some sold it for $16 in a cup smaller than what I buy yogurt in. I'm going to need a lot more than that so I'll have to wait until the 12lb pale arrives, hopefully by Saturday. Heard from mr.Music, last night. I'm going to build a collapsible bed for him. He doesn't have as many gigs this time of year so he recently got his cdl (commercial driving license) so he's working as a bus driver taking kids to their junior high and high school team games which sometimes requires him to sit for hours and hours waiting for events to be over. He's an ex-football player so he says it's been fun seeing his old stomping grounds, but he's a big boy and game after game starts to add up so his back needs a break from sitting so much. He asked me to design him something that he can temporarily lay across the seats when the bus is empty and then fold up and store when he's not using it. I sent him the plans to build it himself a couple weeks ago. They're very straightforward, but he's been working so much that he hasn't gotten the chance. Plus, he doesn't have all the tools. He was going to see if home depot would cut the plywood for him at the store. I've seen them do this for customers, but it'll be quicker and easier if I just make it for him. It'll give us an excuse to hang out for a little while. He's all the way in Fall River, Ma. Maybe we'll meet halfway. My new truck is only an extended cab rather than a crew cab like my last one so it's not as roomy in the back seat to stretch out diagonally. I can't fully extend my legs so I'm not getting the best of sleep. I could pull the rear bench seat out to make a little more room, but it's not really worth the trouble seeing as I'll be done building my new stove soon -hopefully. Sitting in the truck using my laptop to create the new website works fine when the sun is out during the day, but I won't turn the engine on just to stay warm after it gets dark, too wasteful, so I headed to the library in Turners last night which was nice and quiet. Took a bunch of photos during the day and used gimp to make a simple logo that represents people sticking together, no pun intended. January 23, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts Got a lot done. Finished mr.Music's "briefcase bed" today. That's what we're calling it because it folds up flat no thicker than a briefcase. It's more like the size of a portfolio case, maybe a little smaller. Anyways, he wants me to build some more so he can sell them to other bus drivers. I guess there's a need for them. I'm not really interested in this. I enjoyed making it for my friend. It was nice to be able to work on something to it's completion. The rocket stove is coming along nicely, but it's a methodical step by step process slowed down by having to wait for the cure time of the cement. I finished the bed yesterday, actually, but decided to make a simple little handle for it so I ran to home depot this morning and grabbed the hardware I needed. Came out great. I moved back into the house the other day. Only spent two nights in the truck. The house is just more comfortable even with the brutally cold temperatures. As long as I'm bundled up and moving around, I'm fine. Cleaned up the interior of the truck some more, this afternoon. Of course, I cleaned and vacuumed it when I bought it. A small shower squeegy works awesome for getting pet hair out of carpet and upholstery, btw. That was a cool life hack I discovered recently. The guy I bought the truck off had two dogs. Like I mentioned, he's a fireman so he had a lot of extra components mounted in a custom console under the dash all the way down to the floor, a row of switches for plow and emergency lights, a siren and additional horn, a CB and a microphone with a loud speaker. I wasn't sure if I was going to keep all or some of it, but decided to give the whole thing the yank, today. I kept the CB, but disconnected it and stored it under the back seat. I can plug it in temporarily if I ever want to use it. Now, there's so much more leg room for my imaginary girlfriend who I've never met. #mlr Sewed up the driver's seat. There was a tear along the side of it which is very common in older vehicles. Pulled the deep cycle batteries for my solar system out of the shed on the back of the trailer and checked the water levels on them, but they didn't need any so I put them back in. Did plenty of sledding and made it almost all the way down to the road. The field flattens out when you get to the bottom so I made it as far as possible, but it's definitely a lot quicker than walking the whole way. The new website is coming along. I need to hurry up and publish it. I just want it to be reasonably concise and presentable so I'm writing up a few more pages then it'll be ready enough. I can always work on it and make improvements while it's up. I'm going to make little fliers, too, and hand them out. Heard from Queen Bee the other day about some paid time off that I never used this season on the farm so I'm getting compensated for it which was a nice surprise, I guess, and she was asking if they're ever going to get to read my book so I told her I'll send her a link to this new page when it's done. January 27, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts I need to figure out how I'm going to finish making the mini-rmh. Storing the components in missLuna's house is no longer working. I need better access to them and a little more space. Every time she's there when I go to check on them, I have to have some type of disingenuous conversation which usually consists of her telling me yet another story about how she told someone to f-off. Charming. I don't want to be beholden to someone like this. Besides, her German shepherd sat on the batch chamber and broke it in two while it was drying so now I've got to repair it. The cement I ordered online arrived, today, and I just went and picked it up. It should be more than enough to complete the project and now that I have it I don't necessarily need to stay here and work on it. I can easily transport the pieces and the finished product in the back seat of my truck. So, this is what I need to decide. Where to go? Now that all the pieces are made, it shouldn't take too long. I might be able to finish it in a few days. Heading south is one option which is a little drastic, but the nice thing is that it doesn't require me tiptoeing around anyone's ego. I've contemplated asking missFlowerchild. She's all about bartering so I could do some projects for her while I'm there and it would be nice to see her. I'm not interested in anything romantic, but I like her as a person, yet I'm reluctant to propose the idea for the same reasons that have prevented me in the past. If she was interested in an actual friendship with me, not just hook-ups, she would've reached out all the times she was here in Montague visiting her sick friend. There's my carpenter cousin in Dedham. He's got a huge heated basement full of tools, a work shop and a weight room. That would be a great place to work on it and he'd probably be interested in what it is. I don't think he's ever heard of a rocket mass heater. A lot of people haven't, but he likes learning about stuff like this. I didn't hear from him or any of my extended family (or immediate) this Christmas so I've been sort of letting go of those relationships. I invited him out to the farm a couple times this summer when we had events, but he never came. My uncle called and left a message inviting me to their house for Thanksgiving, this fall, which was nice. I called him back and thanked him in a message of my own, but declined. Even though my uncle's a carpenter, too, they're all in the union and have a lot more money than I do and I always feel like a failure when I visit them. I still need to give mr.Music the collapsible bed I made him and he texted me before the big snow storm we just got hit with and offered to let me come stay with him if I wanted. He's a city kid and doesn't understand that out in the country is where I prefer to be regardless of the weather. Obviously, it would have saved him the trip of driving 2+hours to pick up the briefcase-bed so delivering it to him is an option. His apartment is pretty small and using loud power tools would probably be frowned upon and I might need to use the grinder when I fit all the pieces together. I think the most practical option is my cousin's. I could mend a few bridges while I'm there. My uncle (his uncle, too) lives right across the street so I could say "hello" to him and my aunt and hear about what's going on with the rest of the family. Sleeping at night would be an issue because I'd feel obligated to stay in one of their big houses and I don't feel comfortable about this. I'd rather stay in my truck. I know I'm ridiculous, but it is what it is. I guess I could lie and tell them I'm staying with friends nearby as dumb as this is. I need to accept that none of my options are ideal so I just have to suck it up and make the most of whichever one I choose. I'm lucky to even have options. Orrrrr, I just stay right where I am and use my darn furnace. Duh. It's twenty bucks to get my little barbecue grill size propane tank filled which when I'm using conscientiously lasts me between a week and two weeks in the wintertime. Just one of those tanks lasts the whole spring, summer and fall in the warmer months. I'd probably go through a tank or two keeping the house warm enough for a couple days straight to allow the cement to cure, but I'd be using even more fosssil fuel just driving to any one of the houses I've been considering. This is why I write about stuff. Sometimes the best option is the one I'm overlooking. February 3, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts I prep grinded the concrete legs of the stove then mortared them to the base, today. Had a quick lunch then fit the batch chamber on top of the base and gently slid it up against the riser, the small column, and cemented them all together. My stove is turning into quite the little sculpture. Actually, it's turning out bigger than I expected so I might end up cutting some of the top off of it and shortening it when it's all said and done, but it'll do for now. Getting it up and running and making my house nice and cozy is priority number one and the bigger the column the more heat it generates. After missLuna's dog sat on the batch chamber and broke it while it was drying in her house last week, I planned on re-cementing it the next day, but when I walked down there to get it, the whole thing was destroyed. I'm assuming it was her dog, again, but she never said a word. Neither have I. What's the point? It was like a punch in the stomach, but I just resorted to plan B and used a ceramic chimney liner in place of the molded batch chamber I made. They happened to be the exact same thickness and diameter something I notice when I was at the masonry supply store a few weeks ago. I spent too much time making the forms and pouring the vermiculite and cement mixture into them to start over. It's the dead of winter. Right now, I need heat. The clay "thimble" which is what they call them in the industry is much heavier than my forms, but I can always make another lighter one down the line. Tomorrow is the big day when I carefully lower the larger column over the smaller one and fit it on top of the batch chamber then cement them all together. It'll basically look like a big boot. I already cut a 3 inch hole into the side of the large column and cemented the metal collar to it that the stove pipe will attach to. Anyways, I figured I should probably write. It's been more than a few days. Things are going well relatively speaking in my little world while the world at large seems to be getting worse which has been weighing heavily on my mind. During the past week, I've teetered back and forth regarding which of these worlds I should focus my efforts on. I've tried to do both. I write at night and work on the projects during the day. The wood stove is almost finished. I always know things are going happily when I can't help but spend a few minutes gazing at what I got done that day which is what I was just doing in the house before retiring to the truck. I moved back into this smaller space when the forecast informed me that the temperature was going to be -17 degrees on Friday night. I just recline the front passenger seat all the way back and pile three comforters, a wool blanket and a sleeping bag on top of me and I'm very warm. I only run the furnace in the house when I'm mixing cement or taking the next step in putting together the pieces of the stove. I'm done leaving anything down at missLuna's. That was a mistake and it slowed up my progress. Live and learn. Doing it this way, the propane has lasted much longer than I expected and I'm on the home stretch, now -fingers crossed. Drove to Worcester on Sunday which is about the halfway point between here and Fall River and met up with mr.Music to give him the collapsible bed. He loved it and has been texting me updates for the last couple days on how it's working out for him. The website is almost done, too. Well, it'll never be completely done. That's not its purpose, but it's at a presentable state to start handing out fliers which I'll print out when I head in to Greenfield, tomorrow. The previous two printers I've bought in recent years haven't lasted very long. The one I have now didn't last one year. I'm sure the way I live isn't easy on them. Hopefully, my living space will be a little more climate controlled very soon then I'll get another one. Of course, the website is far from how I'd like it, but this is not the time to be a perfectionist. This is the time to try to bring people together in a simple straightforward manner. February 3, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts Had a little setback which took the wind out of my sails for the first half of the day, but I pushed through it and still made some decent progress. I discovered a mold infestation in the house and had to pull out the bed, matress and blankets and leave them outside. I was crawling around on the floor yesterday to grab something that had fallen back behind the bed and discovered that the underside was covered in black mold. I sprayed it with a bottle of mold killer which I happen to have because I live in humid New England and scrubbed it hard then wiped it down along with the base of the walls in that area, but some parts of the bed were so thick that a black liquid was dripping onto the floor as I scrubbed. Pretty gross. It's all still sitting outside in the snow and won't be coming back in. The bed was only temporary. I was planning on building something different and getting a new mattress once I finished insulating and paneling the walls. I just wasn't planning on starting that project, today. It must have happened pretty fast because when I put the new floor down in November I had to move the bed out of the way and it was fine then or I would've noticed, but with these crazy cold nights and running the heat during the day the drastic difference in temperatures created a consistent accumulation of moisture in the areas closest to the floor for mold to grow and spread rapidly. Oh well, I'll deal with it. The wood stove is done so once I run the stove pipe and hook it up, which I was hoping to do today, I'll keep it cranking until everything is dried out completely then I'll coat any wood that had signs of mold with a special paint formulated to kill the stuff. Once everything's dried out I shouldn't have anymore issues and the paint will make sure. There's about half of an inch of solid ice along the base of the wall where the bed used to be so I'll have to sponge that up as it melts. I'll, also, get a long gas hose and connect it to my propane furnace so I can move it over to that corner just to dry everything out quicker. Until the lower section of all the walls are insulated, condensation will keep forming every time it's warm in the house and freezing outside so the mold will come back if I don't remedy the problem. I was planning on doing this next anyways. I found a guy in VT who sells hard insulation at a decent price. He's over an hour away so I've been putting off making the trip until I was ready to start. I guess I am, now. I haven't left the property in a couple days and tomorrow's Saturday so I'll have to wait until Monday to go get the insulation, but I've got plenty of other stuff to keep me busy. I should start putting up and handing out the fliers I printed on Wednesday. I was just hoping to enjoy a little lull in the form of a warm fire at the homefront before immediately starting another big project, but it is what it is. Shamboozah texted me this week inviting me to come by the farm and grab some pork that they just got back from the butcher. He said it came out better than they expected. He's very happy that I convinced him to change packing houses. The place they used to use in Athol was pretty sketchy. Even the guys at the new packing house commented on how happy our pigs were and they see a lot of them. I guess all the work we did to give them a good life was well worth it. Fixed missLuna's water pipe in the barn that's been frozen for the last week. She's been complaining about it everytime I see her so I bought some rolled insulation when I was out the other day and cut up a cardboard box she had in the barn to fit around the pipe which stands about 4 feet out of the ground. After I finished the wood stove yesterday and it was drying in my house, I drove down to the barn so I'd have my tools with me in the back of my truck then stuffed the insulation in the box after taping some of that grey foam tube that they sell for water pipes to the 4 foot section. She had some, but it was haphazardly stuck on the pipe offering no protection from the cold. I found some more foam in the barn and taped that around the pipe as well so that no metal was exposed before surrounding it with the box full of insulation. Earlier in the week, I suggested that she buy a water pipe heater cord that most people who have barns or farms use in the wintertime. It's a short flat extension cord that heats up when you plug it in which you lay along a water pipe and tape it to keep the pipe from freezing which she had done, but this is pointless if you don't insulate around it. Even a blow torch can't keep a pipe from freezing in subzero temperatures. Anyways, the water was flowing before I finished putting my tools away and she was very excited. February 9, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts I was pretty excited about being able to have a warm fire in the house, but I ran into another setback. Yay. You're supposed to start using something made with refractory cement gradually at first so the cement can cure completely from the heat. It doesn't take a long time, but you want to start a little fire in it with just paper and small sticks and let it burn for a few minutes then let it go out before starting a roaring fire. Having made this stove from scratch, I had no idea how it would perform so I decided not to cut a hole in the side of the house to run the stove pipe through before completing this last curing procedure so I carefully carried the stove in small little moves outside. It's fairly heavy and though I can pick it up and carry it, I didn't want to jostle all the cement joints that may not be fully cured yet. Last week, I built a small rugged platform for it out of 3/4" plywood, backer board (a nonflammable stone like material) and a thin piece of sheet metal in case I ever wanted to move it. Lifting the whole platform rather than just the stove prevents it's weight from becoming unbalanced. I'm just trying to be safe having put so much time into making it. Anyways, I got it outside and onto the porch and started a little fire. Within a couple minutes, the clay thimble cracked right down the middle. I heard the single distinct sound like someone had tapped it with a small hammer. Chimney liners like this are rated for over 2,000 degrees which a small fire doesn't even come close to, but as I learned yesterday the ceramic does not tolerate sudden changes in temperature. The liners are designed to heat up gradually from smoke passing through a chimney rather than go from freezing cold to a hot fire in the matter of a minute, even a small one with just paper and a few sticks. Live and learn. It wasn't my plan to even use a ceramic chimney liner. I was just trying to move forward after missLuna's dog ruined my batch chamber. Now, the best thing to do is to order more castable cement and repair the chamber or make a new one which will put me at least another week away from completion. As I was prepping things, last night, to run the stove pipe which needs to happen regardless, I thought of how I could make a quick rectangular batch chamber out of firebrick and call it done rather than making another curved one with cardboard forms. The reason this project has taken so long is because I was being creative and wanted to make a round stove which is a lot more challenging. I could have banged out a rectangular one with bricks in a couple of days like the one I already built when I was living in my yurt a few years ago especially now with all the practice I've gotten with mixing and mortaring. It would be a lot heavier than what I planned which was another reason why I created one from forms using heat resistant vermiculite and castable cement. It was a rough one waking up this morning. The grand canyon has been kicking my butt. I'm tired of sleeping in my truck and I'm tired of being alone all the time. Wah. At least, the sun is bright and warming it up in here nicely. It's a cold, but beautiful day surrounded by the snow and trees. I suppose I'll get bundled up, run the pipe and hook up the stove anyways. I carried it back in the house and positioned it where I want it to go, yesterday. I'm just going to start using it. All I can do is hope the ceramic tile doesn't fall apart completely before I can order more castable cement, repair the batch chamber and replace that section. After I carried the stove back in the house, I cut out a small section of the bathroom wall because I want the pipe to run through it before exiting to the outside. This way it gets warm in there quicker. Well, time to get to work. February 10, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts I'll have to head to the lumber box store, tomorrow, and get another sheet of backer board as well as some stove pipe sealant. I had my first fire using my new mini-rmh wood stove in the house, today, so now it's time to focus on the carpentry phase of the project. This is not as exciting as lighting a match and holding it to some crumpled up paper and sticks in the middle of my "living room" which always feels weird the first time you do it, but if I want to start using my new stove, some finish carpentry is necessary. Because I'm running the pipe through a wall and into the bathroom, I need to replace that section of the wall with non-combustible material, hence more backer board. Then I need to seal all the joints where the pieces of stove pipe fit together. I thought I might get lucky and be able to eat lunch by a warm fire in the house, this afternoon, but I had to keep opening the door letting in a lot of cold air because of all the smoke escaping through the joints in the pipe. Oh well, one more day and hopefully I'll be able to move back into the house. Oh wait, I have no bed. Well, maybe I'll, at least, be able to cook up some dinner in a warm house without needing to use the furnace for a change. The sealant will need a few hours to cure so lunch isn't realistic. All the smoke that filled the house wasn't a surprise because my set-up doesn't have a traditional chimney going straight up through the ceiling and outside. Hot air rises. One of the advantages of a rmh, rocket mass heater, in addition to requiring much less wood and being better for the environment by producing less air pollution is that you can pipe heat through different areas of your home rather than just sending it straight up a chimney and outside wasting all that heat like a traditional fireplace, wood stove or pellet stove. Most rmh's have a vertical chimney system, as well, but they also offer the option of running the pipe horizontally from the base of the stove into a bench, bed or other structure made from heat absorbing materials like stone, cob or brick. This is why they're called "rocket mass heaters" (rmh). The smoke is piped parallel to the floor through a large mass heating it up so that even hours later after the fire goes out the object will still be giving off warmth. Mason stoves which have been around for centuries have the same feature, but the mass they heat up is usually a giant over-sized chimney foundation. My friend who owns the farm in Easton where I worked a few years back had a beautiful mason stove built into the center of his house and one day in late fall a few of us from the crew walked over for lunch. He didn't have a fire going, but when I put my hand against the brick chimney in his living room, it was warm. He just smiled and told me that the heat was from the fire he had the day before. So cool. Well, so warm. Either way, I was sold. My little stove is only being piped a foot and a half into my bathroom to warm up that little space before popping through the wall and outside, but if the seams where the pieces of stove pipe connect together aren't sealed the smoke can escape which is what happened, today. I just wanted to give it a test run to see how everything lined up before making it all permanent. I need to seal the lid of the stove, too, another seam where smoke can escape. I designed a lid into the top of the stove so I can open it up and clean it out periodically which is why I'm going to use silicone sealant which can be easily cut and pealed off. February 11, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts It's been a rough few days. No new reason for this. Just the same old deal. At least the weather was mild, this afternoon. It was in the high 30's and only in the 20's last night for the first time in weeks. I embraced this, turned on the furnace in the house and heated up a burrito while I put my tools away and cleaned up the big mess I'd made getting the walls ready for the stove pipe. Once things were reasonably neater, it was so nice to sit down and have a hot meal in a warm house that I didn't want to leave. I've missed it. February 12, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts Taking care of the last few steps of a project are often the slowest part. There always seems to be one little thing or another that comes up just before completion, but ignoring them makes the whole project pointless if not addressed correctly. When I was checking the label of fire proof sealant I bought for its cure time so I could finish installing the stove pipe, I discovered in tiny fine print that it was water soluble. Lovely. Sealant is for sealing out air and moisture. Not sure what the point of using stuff that can't get wet is. The driest wood you can possibly burn in a fireplace or wood stove still has a lot of moisture in it. That's just physics, not to mention the amount of humidity in the air in this part of the country so there's always going to be a little moisture accumulating in the stove pipe especially with it running horizontally so I can't risk having the sealant fail after only a short period of time. It was a little late in the day to drive all the way back into town. It'd be too cold to apply the sealant by the time I got back so I drove in this morning and got the proper kind from a different store. The stove pipe is installed and all sealed up, now. It takes 24hrs to fully cure so I'll have to wait until tomorrow to try having another fire. I have to confess that I don't feel good about it, which is rare. When I finish a project, I usually feel excited, relieved, satisfied, maybe even, proud along with plenty other positive emotions, but not at the moment. I've accepted that I need to build another stove. I'm just praying that this one will be usable until I can. We shall see. I think the other reason that I don't feel great is that I've been putting off handing out fliers and working on the new website until I finished the stove. I seem to have a codependent relationship with my projects. I wanted to feel really good before I did any of this. With the new website and the fliers, I'm trying to invoke and embody positive change, not just complain about how bad things are. Believing that I can get back to the place where I feel really good like I have plenty of times in the last couple months, I wanted to finish the stove first. Being able to take a break from the extremely cold winter we've been having this year seemed like a reasonable objective. February 14, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts It's surprising how my mood can go from low to high by simply getting all cleaned up. Well, first I had to hike 1/4 mile through the woods and deep snow down to the brook to fill my 5 gallon jug. Physical exertion is a great way to get the endorphins going. I should have brought my backpack. Switching the 40lb load back and forth from one shoulder to the other slowed me down quite a bit on the way home, but I need the exercise so I welcomed the workout. When I reached the water's edge, well, where I thought the water's edge might be, it was fun making my way around the brook looking for a spot deep enough to fill the jug without falling in. I could hear the water running, but couldn't see it. The stream was completely covered by a foot of snow with a thick layer of ice under it except for one or two exposed openings where the water ran the fastest and the deepest which made it tricky knowing where to step in order to get close enough to fill up. Luckily, I've spent plenty of time at this brook during the summer so I worked my way over to the swimming hole where I had a general idea of what the banks look like hidden underneath the thick blanket of white. The water was plenty deep there which made filling the jug easy as I perched above on a log. I was prepared to dump it back in the brook if it didn't look clean once I could take a closer look at it, but it was nice and clear. Well, I completely struck out with my mini-rocket mass heater. It's sitting in a big pile of broken pieces on the back of my trailer. Whatever, I took a shot. Only wasted a few months and a couple hundred dollars building it. I ordered a small camping wood stove online this morning. It'll be here in a few days and take me a couple hours to install then I'll have instant heat. I've got to move forward on other projects. I'll take another shot at building the mini-rmh in good time, but I can't hinge it on being warm and productive. I'm stubborn, but not stupid. After my failure, I was pretty bummed. At least, the stove pipe sealed up nicely so much so that the heavy cement sculpture broke completely apart as I tried lifting it to carry it outside leaving the non-ceramic section closest to the wall still attached to the pipe. Got it all outside, swept up my mess, heated up the water, took a bath then cooked up some dinner while the house was still warm. It was nice having the extra floor space back with the stove gone. Tomorrow's another day and it's supposed to be not so cold. I remember many years ago during one of my first stints on the west coast I learned how Native American culture thrived in that area along the warm sunny beaches of what is now called California. The climate and natural surroundings were so favorable to human existence that art and other creative expression thrived there. This helped me understand that resourcefulness which is an asset when trying to simply survive becomes creativity when survival is no longer weighing in the balance. In short, when you don't have a care in the world, you're more likely to get inspired to express yourself artistically simply for the enjoyment of it. When trying to just make it through the day in one piece, it's best to focus on the basics like food, water and shelter. In my case, right now, shelter from the cold is a basic necessity. Once this is achieved consistently then I can get creative, again. It was compelling to observe all the large concave holes melted into the snow grouped around the base of the trees throughout the forest as I made my way to the brook earlier today especially closest to my tiny house at the top of the field only a few yards inside the treeline. There must have been more than ten of them in that one area. They told a story of the deer and how they curl up in a ball at night and sleep directly on the snow. That's hard core. February 15, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts Dug out my lumber pile this morning. I keep it covered so once the snow was removed I peeled back the tarp and rummaged around to find what I needed to build a quick little bunk in the house so I'll have something to sleep on until I'm done insulating all the walls. Once the wood stove gets here and I've dried everything out, I'm going to build a funky bed that I designed a few months ago, but I've been curious whether there would be enough room above it for a temporary bed if I ever have a guest. There is so that's cool. I was tempted to sleep on it tonight, but I'll be able to move back into the house soon enough. February 16, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts Tapped the big maple, today. I guess I should start using up all the syrup the farm gave me if I'm going to harvest more. It's a little girly, but I made some candles, too. Well, I recycled all the ones I used over the last year. Sometimes there's lots of wax leftover when a candle burns out so I consolidated all of them into one jar, melted it down then threw a couple of wicks made out of string in it while it was still liquid then let it cool off. Works great. February 17, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts Took advantage of the mild weather and stained the wooden ladder rack. Much better. Actually, 30 degrees is typical winter weather. It just seems mild because it's been so much colder for weeks. Headed into babylon to get groceries and do some errands. February 18, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts Prepped the house to run a vertical pipe for the new stove. I haven't been eager to cut a hole in my nice roof which was another advantage of building an rmh which wouldn't require me to. I opted to route the pipe up through the sundeck instead of the section with the expensive corrugated roofing. I'm planning on mounting my solar panel on the sundeck as well when I'm in travel mode, but there's plenty of room for a small chimney off to the side. I ordered the wood stove through home depot so I'll have to drive into town to pick it up. I'll open the box when I do and assess if I need to get anymore pipe while I'm there. Walked down to missLuna's. Well, sledded down and rounded up my 5 gallon buckets that I filled up with sand for her earlier in the winter. I'm going to need them when the sap starts running. I brought down some of my garden buckets that have drainage holes in them and transferred the sand into them. The holes aren't very big so the sand didn't spill out. Fired up the motorcycle and let it run for a few minutes just to give the battery a little charge during the winter. Pretty exciting stuff. Just trying to keep busy. Poked around a little online, this afternoon, looking for some side work which I might entertain once the stove is in. We'll see. I'd like to haul my house out of here as soon as possible, but missLuna rented out the spot by the barn to the woman who owns the other tiny house so I'm sort of blocked in. When I started building mine down there, I measured the space from the side of the barn to across the road because I knew I'd need that much room to make the turn out of the field when it's time for me to leave. Now, that lady's house is there and she's never here. I'll have to ask if I can temporarily roll her house out of the way, get my house out of here then roll hers back when the time comes. I was hoping to come and go a little on a few test drives before hitting the road for good, but I'm not going to do all that shuffling every time. I'll cross this bridge when I come to it. Shamboozah texted me, again, so I'm going to head over to the farm tomorrow and grab my pork. It'll be nice to see everyone. They're having a volunteer day so I'll probably stick around and help out. Hopefully, they won't give me a hard time about not coming back. When I was looking online, I saw that they have a couple ads up to hire some more people. I really like them, but I can't do the non-profit thing. I need to work on a real farm. March 5, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts It's easier to keep an area neat when everything has its place and there's a place for everything than when there isn't. I'm not there yet, but I'm gaining ground. The biggest factor in accomplishing this is space and space is limited in a tiny house. That's the challenge which applies to everyone no matter how much space they have. The animals don't have any possesions, yet they live in the woods where there's lots of space. I guess I'm just pleased that my house and desk area are becoming neater as I sit down and type this morning by a warm fire. The weather's not bad, a little overcast, but not super cold so I could be outside cutting more insulation to finish the one wall along the kitchen area, but I haven't written in quite a while. I've just been getting after it everyday since making the trip to VT to get the rigid foam panels and installing the new wood stove. No more condensation on the walls, no more ice in the sink in the morning and no more knee-teepees to type under. Radiant heat rocks. I felt a little silly when I ordered the wood stove and installed it which took all of a few days because I could've done this months ago and had consistent heat all winter long, but I wanted to try making a mini-rocket mass heater smaller than anyone's ever built. I still think I can pull it off, but I have to tweak a few things. Trial and error is how you get there. When I built my last one, I used bricks which I could stack temporarily and try one configuration or another to see which way worked the best before cementing them all together. To build a round stove, I couldn't do this. I had to make each part first before experimenting with it so the trial and error process takes a lot longer. Now's not the time for this. It feels so good to have a warm cozy house not to mention the sweet smell of maple syrup in the air. I've already gotten a mason jar full from the big maple outside one pot at a time simmering on the stove all day long. I've put a lot of wood stoves in a lot of living spaces, cabins, campers, box trucks, trailers, a vanagon, etc. This time rather than just throwing it in, I improved its efficiency by lining it with firebrick, sealing every seam and adding a baffle plate inside the firebox. Last weekend, I tracked down a truck load of firewood and built a wooden sawhorse to buck up the 18" logs into cute little pieces that will fit in my tiny stove. No more relying on a propane furnace either, although I do cheat and kneel down next to it to keep warm when I'm starting my fires in the morning. This is too easy. I was harvesting standing dead wood from the treeline at the top of the hill Dick Proenneke style, but it's pretty much all pine up there which is great for starting a fire, but not good for long term burning. Now, I've got more seasoned maple and oak than I know what to do with and I drove past a business the other day when I was looking for firewood who put a bunch of wooden shipping crates out by the side of the road so I threw them in the back of my truck and cut them up for kindling. I even got a job offer from a man who owns a logging company in Whately when I stopped by his yard to see if they had any for sale. Regarding physical comfort, it's all been a game-changer. Surprisingly, waking up in the morning has been rough lately for some reason. Not sure why. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I'm still flying solo. Ya think? When I drove to Vermont to pick up the insulation a couple weeks ago which saved me $300 compared to buying it at a box store, I got there early so I parked at a gas station mini-mart down the road and waited until it was time to head over to the guy's warehouse. His business is not a store where you can just show up whenever you want so I had to make an appointment. A few minutes before 11am, the time we agreed upon, I decided to drive over, but when I turned the key, my truck wouldn't start. Nothing happened. I haven't had any trouble with this truck since I bought it. It's been running awesome, but the one time someone is waiting for me, it wouldn't start. The fact that I was very far from home only added to the problem. I was perplexed. It was acting like it had a dead battery, but I had just driven for an hour and a half with no issues so that didn't make sense. I grabbed my booster pack and connected it to the battery and tried the key again, but nothing. I left the key on and crawled under the truck to see if I could connect the booster directly to the starter solenoid and jump it that way, but it was buried up too high amongst the engine and the transmission to reach. It began to snow and come down hard. Lovely. I called the guy to let him know that I was going to be a little late, but he didn't answer. Before I left the house in the morning, I cleaned out my truck bed to make room for all the insulation and left my extra bin of miscellaneous tools which was where I keep my jumper cables on the trailer so I couldn't ask anyone for a jump. I still had my regular bin of tools in the back seat of the truck so I got busy trying a few more things, but no luck. It was quarter past 11 now and I tried the guy a couple more times, but he wasn't answering. I left a voicemail and texted him, too. Frig it. I walked there just so he wasn't wondering what happened to me. I know all too well how people you meet online can just flake out and I didn't want him to think that's what I had done or waste my trip. The snow was really coming down now, but it was only about a mile. Long story short and a few hours later, I fixed my truck -it was a rusty ground connection where the negative battery cable connects to the engine block, got the insulation and drove home. Just another incident when life pulls the rug out from under a person and there's no one there to catch them. This is the world that we're all living in. Moral of the story: Stop telling mine and start telling ours. March 9, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts No fire today. First warm day of the year. I'm going to miss having one burning and I've got gallons of sap still to boil, but I'm sure there will be plenty more cold days before spring arrives. I was working in just a shirt this afternoon. Things have been tough mentally and emotionally lately, but I'm getting a lot done. As bad as it's been, at least I can do something about it by working on the house. The inside is coming along nicely. I got the bedroom area paneled, today, so tomorrow I can finally begin building my permanent bed. The bunk I've been sleeping on will get stored away high above against the ceiling and pulled down if I ever have a guest. I've enjoyed using it especially since I rebuilt it a few weeks ago and made it wider. It's nice and warm sleeping that high up, but tonight I'm down at a normal bed height which is more convenient than climbing in and out of the bunk. I played around with different furniture configurations this evening to see which one optimizes the space best along with keeping fluid feng shui. It's supposed to be in the high 50's tomorrow. March 11, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts I thought by now, a day later, things would have subsided a little, but they haven't. I'm sitting here in my house in the dark with just my old fashioned oil lamp burning and I can barely contain myself. It was the same, last night. A few minutes ago, I was up on the roof looking out over the field, up at the big maple and down at the muddy mess that is my yard. The last couple of days have been spring like and the standing two feet of snow that has been covering the ground all winter long is quickly turning into a soupy brown swamp especially where I park my truck, but the field has good drainage so it'll dry out quick. I'll pick up some grass seed and sprinkle it around my little compound and it'll look fine again soon enough, but to help the situation, I might start parking down at the barn just for the next week or so. The woman who commandeered that spot hasn't been here all winter. I can cut a quick path through the woods, too, and come and go on the motorcycle for the time being which would be a fun change. I almost took it today to do a few errands, but I thought I might find some wooden shelves at the Salvation Army in Turners or Greenfield, but the pickings were pretty slim at both. I think because people can easily sell stuff on fb marketplace nowadays, thrift stores don't have the inventory they once did. I'll probably build the shelves myself. I just thought I might get lucky and save a little time so I took the truck just in case I found some. I'm surprised that the familiar eagerness to find work on the next farm when the first glimpse of spring arrives is not as compelling as it normally is. It's usually very strong at this time of year to the point that it can't be ignored or postponed, but I've been able to keep it at bay. I attribute this to the fact that my house is another step closer to affording me the luxury of being completely self-contained and mobile thus giving me a lot more autonomy work-wise. I slept in my new bed, last night. Well, tried to sleep. I was too euphoric to close my eyes. I kept turning on my head lamp to survey the new found space and tidiness that's been created with my latest improvements. I'm not there yet. I've got plenty of cabinets, drawers and shelves to build, but the insulation, paneling and now the new bed are big strides in the right direction. Only took me two grueling years to get here. The idea of taking out a loan back then to build my house and how quickly I could have accomplished this has crossed my mind a few times recently. That's one route I could have taken. I started building it in the early winter of 2023 after returning from Costa Rica. With all the money upfront, I could have banged it out in a few months and had the loan paid off by now. Maybe that would have been easier, I don't know, but if there's a harder way to do something, I usually find it. Whatever, it builds character. Plus, the extra time afforded me the opportunity to be much more creative and efficient with the space. All I know is that I feel so good that I can barely sit still. I've had butterflies in my stomach for two days and one man dance parties are becoming more and more frequent. If I could only eliminate the grand canyon that still hits me hard in the mornings, life would be pretty darn good, right now, but I know there's only one thing that's going to fix this, a sense of belonging, which I'll never experience flying solo no matter how good I feel standing on the roof at dusk feeling like my heart's going to burst from all the beauty around me. March 16, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts My living space has gone from a roof and four walls to a home. By default, it's always been my home like all my other living situations, but this is the first time the space feels like an actual house inside. The many campers I've had over the years despite having all the basic necessities of a small motel room still didn't feel like a home as cozey as I tried to make them. I even installed a nice tile hearth for the wood stove I put in the 5th wheel that I had in '18 complete with stockings hanging from the mantel at Christmastime, but as much as I liked it and as big and spacious as it was for a camper I'm now realizing compared to this new feeling something was missing. Maybe it's because they have too much plastic inside of them and other artificial materials or maybe it's because they all have the same mass-produced cookie-cutter layout, but whatever the reason, this morning I woke up in what actually feels like a house, my house. I worked until 10pm, last night, installing the new kitchen countertop and of course I had difficulty getting to sleep as tired as I was because I was so tickled by my latest home improvement. March 18, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts This morning, I finished tucking everything away onto all the shelves I just built under the kitchen counter then gave the house a good vacuuming. I've been tracking dirt, leaves, sawdust, etc. in for more than a week. It was long overdue. I suppose actually having enough floor space to merit running a vacuum over it is a new development in my daily life and I love it. Cabinet doors are on the to-do list next along with lots of other projects like building a frame for the round window I salvaged from a construction job a few years ago and installing it. I'm looking forward to all of them. The weather got cold again which is fine. Still plenty of firewood. It's nice and sunny today and spring is around the corner which means I need to make a game plan for this year. Heading west is still what I'd like to do. I haven't forgotten about the little town in the Rockies where I spent last winter which is an option, but whether I choose it or someplace else where there's more space and natural beauty than people, I need to decide how and when I'm going to head there. Money is always the determining factor and I'm in decent shape for a person with barely any bills, but I don't want to pinch pennies as I travel. This just makes things stressful. I want to enjoy it and more importantly I want to maintain a positive and outgoing attitude towards the people I meet along the way. Farm pancakes for lunch. I had some batter leftover from yesterday's breakfast. I can't remember the last time I cooked on the kitchen stove. I've almost got another jar of maple syrup made, too. I'll never be able to use it all. I gave one jar to missLuna. I might give the next to my tiny house neighbor when or if I see her. She texted me the other day asking where I get my ice. I was a little surprised to hear from her. We don't really text one another, but she mentioned that she'll be returning to the property soon. I might dig a trench beside the barn to run some pvc conduit to her house. Since I've been parking down there, I have to unplug the extension cords that run from the barn to her place before I can back out because she doesn't want anyone driving over them. I plug them back in before I leave then unplug them, again, when I get home before pulling into my parking spot. Someone told her that it's not good to drive on extension cords. I started working construction in the summers during college and have been driving over them since then. I've got one running across the grass over to my solar panel right now that I drive over everyday I leave here which has never hurt it, but everyone has their opinions and she's very new to tiny house living so I'm letting her learn at her own pace. First, I had to dig her cords out from under the big frozen snow bank beside the barn. Not sure why she needed to keep her house plugged in all winter while she wasn't here. The other night I wanted to run to the store real quick, but her car was here when I walked down which meant I should knock on her door before unplugging the power to her house and then I'd have to knock, again, when I got back. It was after 9pm which meant it'd be even later when I got back so I bagged the idea. I'm all set with doing this every time I want to go somewhere so I figured I'd run the cords underground in some pipe. Schedule 40 pvc conduit isn't cheap so I guess I should mention this to both of them before I buy some. She's gone again now, but I'm sure it'll be fine. I was going to start a new project, this afternoon, but something's been making me anxious and I think I know what it is. I have to call ebay to resolve the situation with this laptop which I'm dreading. I'm closing in on a year since purchasing it and now the touch pad doesn't work sometimes either which means that I'll soon need to buy a cordless mouse in addition to the cordless keyboard I bought this summer. I wrote them an email last week explaining the situation, but like so many big companies these days I couldn't find anywhere to send it. They don't offer a customer service email address. Every attempt to find one gets circumvented around and around through their automated "Help" system. Apparently, once a month goes by after purchasing an item, you can't return it or even notify anyone of a problem. I've tried to let it slide and just deal with it, but the whole thing bothers me too much because it's deliberate. The vendor selling these brand new laptops knows full well that the manufacturer is unreachable and the vendor, themselves, are insulated within the ebay system so they're knowingly and legally screwing people over without any consequences. This I can't abide. There seems to be an option to submit your phone number and ebay will call you which I guess I should try next even though I have my doubts. To do this, I should leave the property so I'll have ample cell reception. I hate dealing with big companies who have already demonstrated that they're less than reputable, but I have to try. I should've done it this summer when the keyboard stopped working, but I was too busy on the farm everyday then I finished the season and got locked out of my laptop by microsoft for over a month. Fun stuff. Anyways, I just have to get it over with. I can't say "Oh well," without even trying. March 29, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts Later, I was surprised at how sore my throat was from yelling. I hadn't really noticed. I tried not to be loud, but it was the least of my concerns at the moment. I guess I should write about it. I can't do much of anything else. When am I going to learn that writing is the only thing that I can count on? Well, it's not the only thing. Far from it. The sun comes up every morning, the trees and the animals go about their business everyday, my body has served me well for my entire life even now after I've damaged it, again, and my truck runs great. It may not be the nicest vehicle on the road, but I'm still smitten with it as pathetic as this is. I was drilling a couple of holes in the pvc caps I bought last night to seal off the ends of the schedule 40 conduit I buried in the dirt under my parking spot down by the barn, the other day. I didn't want chipmunks building a nest inside the pipe and chewing up the extension cords running through it. The holes in the cap were so the cords could still enter and exit the pipe. When I was drilling the first hole, the big drill bit kept spinning the cap as it was almost all the way through. This happens a lot when drilling larger holes because they have more surface area for the bit to get bound up on. I wasn't dumb enough to hold the cap in my hand while drilling. That's a no-no. Instead, I placed it on the end of the trailer which doubles as a work bench for many of my projects so when it started spinning I lifted one leg and held the cap down with my boot to prevent it. The bit went through all the way and the hole was drilled so I assumed any danger had passed. Then like a fool, I picked up the cap and held it in my hand to clean out the hole, but as I pushed the drill through, the bit caught again and because I was holding so firmly instead of spinning the cap, the bit bored itself into the palm of my hand. These rare moments of shock in life aren't fun. I didn't scream, but I yelled pretty loud at first. I'm continually aware of how much noise I make living in close proximity to missLuna so she doesn't hear me if I curse when I make a dumb mistake. This was more than a dumb mistake. I felt the drill go into my hand. I must have said, "Nooooooo! No! No!" a hundred times slipping in plenty of Sh*t!'s as well. It took me a few minutes to look at the wound. I walked around in circles first cursing myself falling to my knees a few times trying to come to terms with what I had just done. It's not the wound or the pain. It's the hospital bill and the inability to work that are the scariest factors in experiencing a serious injury. This is how messed up the world we have created in this country is. Money is our god and it is a remorseless and unforgiving one. I sucked it up, grabbed a bottle of rubbing alcohol from under the sink, rummaged threw my toiletry/medicine bag and dug out what I needed to bandage myself up. Though I still hadn't opened my hand yet to assess the damage, I was a little comforted by the fact that I could still wiggle my fingers normally. That was a good sign. No tendons were severed. When I finally stopped squeezing as if this could somehow minimize the damage and opened my hand to pour the alcohol on it, the sight wasn't pretty. As the alcohol washed away the blood, there were pieces of my hand that were supposed to be under my skin on the outside lying in my palm. Drill bits have a tearing effect as they spin disposing of the material outside the hole they're drilling. I got a little nauseous. I opened and closed my palm a few times while wiggling my fingers hoping some of this material would retreat back into the hole. Some did, but not all of it. I doused the hole and flap of skin that was partially covering it with antibiotic ointment, folded up a piece of tissue, placed it on the wound and taped up my hand. This will have to do. Infections in the hands are common because there's a lot of tendons and bones and not a lot of flesh therefore not a lot of circulation which makes it harder to fight off an infection so I told myself if my hand wasn't a balloon in an hour or two, I'll bypass getting stitches and take care of it myself. I've done this plenty of times. I'm not going to the hospital and getting some huge bill. I can still move my fingers. That's all that matters. What's more of a concern is that I was going to apply for a job driving a truck for a local ice company, today. It's not farming, but it would require delivering and unloading heavy bags of ice all day hence being interested in the position. I'll have to see, tomorrow, how usable my hand will be until it's healed. Hurts a little, right now, but it's manageable. A few hours later after installing the caps on the pipe and finishing a couple other projects as I was picking up my tools, I noticed some chunks of human flesh still on the drill bit. It's probably too late to stuff them back in the hole. #mlr March 31, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts What's been even more of a concern is that I received an email from my brother out of the blue, last week and bought a plane ticket to fly out and see my father in California. My brother informed me that our father is now bed ridden and receiving around the clock nurse care. He said that his condition seems stable, but there appears to be a steady decline unfolding and how much time he has left is uncertain. Of course, my immediate reaction was to get out there as soon as possible, but this type of unquestioning response has always been my attitude regarding family matters. It's why I returned home to take care of my mother along with my father for 11 months before she passed away. It's not even a decision. There's nothing to think about. It's family, but this has not been my father and brother's policy on such matters. They are the reason why I have wandered the planet alone for my entire adult life looking for a place to belong. They've never wanted a relationship. Talking on the phone two or three times a year has been their preference and they were fine with this so I eventually had to accept our differences and let go, but they're still the reason I'm here on the east coast. I moved back in 2017 for my father. My brother lived in Callifornia and hadn't been back east in over ten years and I knew my father wanted to live out his remaining years in Marshfield in the house he and my mother lived in for their entire marriage, but it was clear the last time I visited that he wasn't able to keep up with its maintenance and the yard's so I came back to help. Now, they're gone and I'm still here. My brother sold our parent's house and bought one in the town where he was living in California with the money. It's only a two bedroom. My brother took the master bedroom with a private bath and my father got the smaller guest bedroom with a bathroom across the hall. My brother said I could take the little garage if I wanted which was completely full of stuff after I was done unloading all their furniture and belongings, not to mention it shares a wall with the neighbors. It's a small townhouse in a gated community, not even half the size of my parent's home for the same amount of money. Coastal southern California is very expensive. I didn't live with my father in Marshfield. It was still the house I grew up in, but I wasn't trying to crowd him or get him to change his life. I just wanted to make sure he was ok. I pitched a tent or stayed with friends when I first got back from Alaska then eventually bought a big 5th wheel trailer parked it out of the way on the property and lived in that. My father didn't want to leave Marshfield. I didn't want him to leave either, but the two flights of stairs in the house were becoming too much for him. If we had to get him out of it, I wanted him to pick the place which would have been somewhere a lot closer so he could still visit my mother's grave not 3,000 miles away on the opposite side of the country. I saw this decision coming and brought it up to both of them back in 2017, but neither of them wanted to discuss it. Then I brought it up again before we emptied the house in Marshfield and moved him to California, but still no conversation. I was so beaten down after years of being ignored that I just accepted defeat. I even helped them by loading the moving truck myself and driving it across the country with my brother's car on a trailer towing it behind while they drove across in a rental car a couple days ahead of me. When I got there, I unloaded everything and drove their rental back across the country so my brother wouldn't have to pay extra for returning it in California. I wanted to fly back. I needed to figure out what I was going to do now that I was on my own again so the sooner I got back here the better, but he wanted me to return the rental for him so I did. Who asks someone to do something like this? I haven't talked to either of them since. That was 2023. My brother got what he wanted so he no longer has any use for me and my father barely said two words to me the 5 years I was here helping him so why keep in touch? A person can only take so much rejection. Birthdays, holidays, weddings and funerals came and went and he had no desire to acknowledge let alone participate in any of them though I tried. All he did was watch television and smoke cigarettes. Any outsider could easily see that he was depressed even if he'd never admit it, but I was no match for his denial. He mastered it long before I was born. His father died when he was only ten years old in Boston and the pain and fear of survival was probably so great that he had to learn to shut himself off from that part of himself. Daily alcohol consumption was his form of self-medication. Since receiving my brother's email, the grand canyon has been kicking my ass all day, not just in the mornings. The only morning I didn't feel it was when the night before I entertained the idea of not flying out there. I simply wouldn't use the ticket and instead get on with my life alone like I always have, but I'm not sure I can just give up like this. As much as I hate flying and dealing with big cities especially when I'm going to see the two people who make me feel even more alone, if I don't go out there I'll be adopting their behavior not mine. I'm not like them. In the last couple days, I've started looking at a bunch of different farm jobs. It's spring and I need to make a plan soon. Some of them have been a few hours away seeing as I could use a change of scenery and maybe a little less isolation. MissLuna, the woman in the new tiny house and I went out together the other night which was a first and after a couple beers missLuna admitted to having sexual fantasies about me. Everyone just laughed because she said it half-jokingly, but it was still a little awkward. She's all about women's rights, but if a man said this to a younger woman staying on his land it would not be cool. Women like missLuna would be outraged. It didn't bother me. It was funny, but it does confirm that if I do even the slightest thing that she doesn't like the feelings she's secretly harboring will turn on her and I'll most likely get the boot so I should probably get the heck out of here. When I originally got my brother's email, I considered hauling my whole house out to California because then I could stay out there indefinitely and be by my father's side until the end even though it's not ready for a non-stop cross-country trip like that. Then I looked at rv and camper hauling services which would eliminate having to tow it there. I could drive my truck and have my house transported on a big flatbed trailer. This would be very expensive, but they live in a city and I'd still have no where to park it when I got there. Putting my own needs aside for the sake of family is what got me in this situation in the first place. Having it hauled a few hours to a different area of this part of the country closer to a new farm could be a more reasonable option, but flying out to California is still on the table. The ticket is for the 14th. I think the right decision is easier for someone else to see who has an objective perspective, but when you're in the middle of it, it's not so clear. No one knows what I went through as a kid and a young adult before I started writing. Some of it is not good. I began writing because it helps me see things differently by getting my thoughts and experiences out of my head, but I, also, do it to stay positive. When I re-read most entries even if this underlying tone is subtle, they help me maintain momentum in pushing forward on things I believe in, but lately I've noticed a lack of positivity. I need to improve on this. I've started taking pictures of all the things my father and brother left behind that I couldn't leave like the cabinet door my father made for the downstairs bar, the big sign of our last name that was on the front of our house, even the cement step at the porch door with all our hand prints in it that I dug up before they tore the house down. I'm going to make a card for my father with all these pictures in it. Whether I mail it or deliver it in person, remains to be seen. Yesterday was the first official spring-like day. My hand doesn't feel too bad. I've been using it sparingly and changing the bandage everyday. I took the tarp off the motorcycle and wanted to take if for a ride to do a couple errands, but I probably shouldn't stretch my palm that much to use the clutch, not for a few more days. I took it for a ride last week before hurting my hand. That was fun. I, also, ordered a new solar charge controller last week and it arrived yesterday so I installed it. Works great. No more having to disconnect the panels when it's sunny which is exactly what the charge controller is supposed to be for. The one I just replaced has always flashed a high voltage error code on sunny days cutting off the power to my house every time even though my panel is only 50V and the controller was rated for 100V, but of course there's no way of contacting the manufacturer. I installed a window in the bathroom the other day, too. It lets in lots of light. I love my little house. Well, that's a lot of information and I'm all over the place, but I had to get it out. I still believe in family. I just need to find a version of one with people who believe in it too even if we're not biologically related. I texted my buddy in Morro Bay after buying my ticket to let him know that I'd be on the west coast and I'm going to try and get up to see him. He said he'd be psyched to see me and I heard from another friend up there out of the blue on fb this fall when I was looking for a new truck so I let her know, too, and she's been checking in with me via text so that's been nice. April 3, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts Yesterday wasn't great, but not too bad. Got some stuff done. Processed some more maple syrup, cut and split some firewood, cleaned up the yard and improved the layout of the new website. I'm not a web designer and fully aware of how amateurish it looks not to mention how far-fetched and idealistic it is, but I had to do something. I believe in the values it promotes. Today, I finished cleaning up and taking photos of all the items I retrieved from my parent's house before it was torn down. I didn't get a heck of a lot more done than this which feels like hell. I have an interview with the ice company on Monday. They sent me an email Wednesday saying they'd like to talk to me about the job, but it was listed using an online recruiter so I have to go through an impersonal process created by the website they use in order to schedule a video interview which I did. First, I selected an available time slot for yesterday, Thursday, but the page froze up then I selected a time slot for today and it froze up, again, so now I've got one for Monday. The company's office is about 6 miles from here, but I have to jump through these silly website hoops for a simple truck driving position. I haven't applied for any other jobs yet. I was considering taking a road trip to visit some farms that I'm interested in, but decided to hold off until after I go to California. Today was rough. This morning was even worse. I'm not sure there's anything I can do about it. After writing the previous entry which felt petty and one-sided, at least my predicament is not as hard to accept. How different we are is relevant to more than the last few years. I just didn't see it as clearly as I can, now. One thing I could do is maybe try jogging as random as this sounds. One of the major reasons days like today are hard is because I have so much energy, yet I'm not getting enough exercise so the energy has nothing positive and productive to be channeled into. I end up spending most of the day just trying to keep the loneliness at bay. "Give it something good to do or it'll find something bad" has always been my motto. I don't really like jogging, but I don't like days like today even more. I got a few texts from my friend on the central coast of California last night. We've never been romantically involved. She's just a friend, but she's a good person. She asked me how I was doing, but I didn't know how to answer so I avoided the question and asked her about what's going on with her instead. It's been 15 years since I've seen her when I used to live out there and probably ten since we've spoken on the phone. After answering my question, she reminded me that I didn't answer hers so I told her that I'd get back to her on that one. Not to sound like I'm feeling sorry for myself, but I'm just sort of convinced that I shouldn't tell people when I'm doing poorly. Every time I've ever asked for help it hasn't helped. You don't know what you don't know. How can I explain something to someone intellectually and expect them to understand what it's like emotionally if they've never experienced anything similar? I'm not looking for a gold star and it's not a contest. I just think I've been on this path for too long for anyone to understand so when it gets bad I just try to survive and wait it out until I can take action to improve things. It's not the best solution, but I haven't found a better one. Money-wise I'm ok, but I've stopped buying anything except necessities until after I get back from California and start working again. I haven't bought my return ticket yet so it's going to be more expensive because it'll be short notice. It's almost 3am and I'm wide awake. I believe I'm on track and headed in the right direction, but these holding pattern moments are challenging. I don't like waiting. I like working. The insanity going on with our government and how our moron of a president is affecting the rest of the world isn't helping my mental stability or anyone else's, I'm sure. My new solar charge controller is working awesome. It's so nice to not have to disconnect it every 20 minutes when the sun is out. I bought some new bandages and first aid tape and my hand is healing well. April 5, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts First screen door day of the year. Might even have to buy some ice on Monday. I don't go anywhere near the strip malls in Hadley or the grocery store in Greenfield on Sundays -unless I absolutely have to and I don't. It's been cool enough, until today, that the first bag of ice I bought of the year almost a week ago hasn't melted yet. Built and installed a countertop extension, today. I picked up some drawer slides at home depot last week, but instead of using them for an additional kitchen drawer I attached them to what is basically an oversized cutting board that can be pulled out for additional counter space when I'm cooking and slides under the counter and disappears when I'm not using it. I've been very pleased with the new countertop I built this winter and this little improvement gives me even more space to work with. Came out good. It cooled off enough after dark that I started a fire tonight and processed some more syrup. I'm not sure if I'm going to make it through the last 5 gallon bucket of sap I have left before it goes bad. Sap's more perishable than syrup because syrup gets boiled when it's being made giving it a longer shelf life so unless you plan on refrigerating the sap after you've harvested it, you have to process it before the weather outside warms up. This is what I've learned this year by doing a little at a time over the past two months rather than all at once when it's still winter. No worries. I got four mason jars plus what the farm had already given me which is more than I'll ever use. Maybe I'll try to smuggle a jar onto the plane. Fresh maple syrup is hard to come by in California. April 6, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts I have a second interview with the ice company on Thursday. This one's in person, fortunately. It doesn't sound like they get busy until sometime in May so I'll let them know that I need to fly out to California on Tuesday and hopefully this won't be an issue. I can't say for sure how long I'll be out there. Maybe just a few days. I won't know until I see my father. Ideally, I'd like to be available to him indefinitely, but he and my brother's handling of the situation have seen to that not being a realistic possibility and I have to accept this as hard as it is. My flight's at noon and I'm going to take the bus rather than drive. This way if I need to pass on the job and stay out there I won't have to worry about where my truck is parked. If I knew for a fact that it was only going to be for a few days, there's plenty of places I could leave it temporarily, my cousin's in Dedham, mr.Finance's in Kingston or even missFlowerchild's in Tyngsboro, but I want the option of staying with my father if I feel that I need to. I haven't spoken to any of my "friends or family" in a year so they don't know I'm flying to California to say good-bye to my father next week and I probably won't tell them. What's the point? I'm on my own. Wah. I've thought about telling someone, but who and why? None of them are in my life. At least, I reached out to my oldest cousin on my father's side a couple weeks ago. He's more like an uncle than a cousin. We don't know each other that well, but he reached out to me a few years ago regarding our grandfather because he knew I'd traveled to Italy to find out where our grandfather was from. My cousin was looking into getting European citizenship at the time which is possible if you have a paternal grandparent who was born in Europe. I found the little town in the foothills of southern Italy where he was born and got his birth certificate when I was there so I mailed it to my cousin. I hadn't gone to Italy in order to get dual citizenship. I went for my father because I thought he'd want to know where his father spent his life as a boy. My cousin's mother was my father's older sister and she passed away a number of years ago so I asked my cousin if we could talk on the phone just to get a second perspective on my father's situation. I guess it was helpful. Like I said, we don't really know each other. He lives in Boulder. I spent a good half hour just listening to him tell me about what's going on in his life with his wife, kids, our other cousins, etc. which I felt was the polite thing to do. We eventually talked about my father who he doesn't know very well either, but technically my father is his uncle. Whatever, I guess it helped a little. I tried. There's only two buses from Greenfield to Boston, one arrives in the afternoon and the other at night, so I'll probably take the later one and camp somewhere near the airport. Now, that I think about it. I did the same thing in Rome when I went out there to look for family. #mlr Expressways and overpasses provide lots of little out-of-the-way spots to stay hidden especially after dark. I'm not paying for a hotel. I'll arrive in Boston at night, take the shuttle from South Station to Logan then make myself invisible. It'll be a little tricky. Security's a lot more tight these days, but this isn't my first picnic. April 7, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts I've been researching intentional communities out west, again. I had to do something. Things were getting bad. I'm not sure an intentional community is the answer, but at least I'm being proactive. I don't really fit in with the typical crowd at these places. I'm a little too rough around the edges and not touchy-feely enough which may sound surprising reading everything I write here, but that's why I write here so I don't have to be overly needy in my dealings with the world. Anyways, I found a couple that seemed interesting. One of them uses the term "ground-share" which refers to their idea of basically creating a campground for people where you buy campsite-sized lots and actually live there rather than just rent one for a weekend. I like this idea. The lots are under 10 grand. I could pull up there with my house and be home. I'm not sure that specific place is the one for me. It's in Oregon and I've lived out there before, but they didn't mention much about growing their own food. I still like the concept. My dream has always been to make enough money to buy a big piece of land, around 100 acres, live there and invite other people to live there, too, for free, but those who I've mentioned this plan to over the years, and there haven't been many, would always ask me "What if the people you let live there for free turned out to be slackers and don't do anything to contribute?" I've already considered this possibility and don't need them to help me. I can do everything myself. I'd just like some company, but I realize that I should probably still have to select the type of people I allow to live there carefully. On the flip side, if I were in their position and moved someplace where the owner of the land had the final say on everything, I wouldn't want to live there either. This is another reason intentional communities have been a challenge for me. Most of them have a lot of rules. I'm not interested in answering to anyone, but the idea of people buying there own campsite portion of land, small as it might be, would require them to pull their own weight a little while they could still experience the independence of owning their home. They could always sell it if they didn't want to live there anymore. Anyways, it gave me some new ideas. Lately, I've been re-listening to Sex at Dawn , again, a book I've read countless times, just to keep myself out of my own head. It's a great book. It definitely ruffled a lot of feathers when it came out in 2010, but the title is a little misleading because it delves into many subjects on human history in regards to diet, health, culture and our hunter-gatherer lifestyle before the agricultural revolution 12,000 years ago. Twelve thousand years seems like a very long time, but not when it's compared to the 100,000 years we were anatomically the same as we are now, yet live much much differently and were happier and healthier despite what we've been told by the academic world and the media of today which is one of the major reasons why the book is so controversial. Anyways, the reason I mention the book is because it puts forth the notion that when we lived in tribes, community came before individuals. Being selfish was practically unthinkable back then. The cut-throat competitive world we live in now did not exist. It didn't need to. There was enough food, water, shelter and support to go around so we took care of each other. This is our true nature. Money, land ownership, slavery and poverty are all inventions of modern times. This was a tough pill to swallow for someone who's been working on farms most of his life if the dawn of agriculture created these problems, but if you're a person looking for the truth, you know it when you hear it. Community first. This changes everything. This would be a major mental shift in how we think as a civilization, but it might solve a lot of problems. If this is how humans have always been until recently relative to how long we have existed, it might not be as difficult as we might think. Divide and conquer is the world we're living in, now. It's much easier to conquer individuals than it is an entire living group of humans. The real question is "Why would anyone want to?" Well, I've given a lot more thought to staying with someone in the Boston area rather than camping like a nutjob in a major city, but I can't think of anyone who actually knows me and understands why I've lived the way I have. I don't want to have to be fake, but I would rather sleep indoors than with one eye open as cars, planes and police wiz by all around me. MissFlowerchild was my first choice. She homesteads a little and is into lots of natural ways of thinking and she texted me a couple months ago, but one of her texts included a pic of her naked coming out of the shower. I know she means well and wants to be helpful, but her desires and emotions always get the best of her usually resulting in tears. One thing that a woman who takes that many naked pics of herself doesn't realize is that an intelligent guy knows that he's not the only man she's sending them too and I don't feel like dealing with that kind of drama. I was supposed to head back to Marshfield and get together with mr.Striper and the Green Giant this winter, but their schedules are pretty demanding with their families and work so it didn't happen, this year. I know either one of them wouldn't hesitate to have me crash at their house for the night then I could jump on the commuter train in Scituate, the next morning. Maybe I should run it by them. We all just received this year's stack of scholarship applications that we need to read through and pick a high school student to give it to so we've been texting a little lately about that. I'm such a wuss. Just text somebody, you friggin pussy. None of what I write about matters. It's all just smoke. If I was successful, I wouldn't need to write. I'd be too busy doing better things. Maybe that day will come. Maybe it won't. In the meantime, it's just a matter of will and energy. I could be 100% right about everything, but if I fail, my life won't amount to anything. I guess writing is just a small pathetic way of not giving up until I can channel this energy into something better, something realer, more human and more natural. All I'm doing until then is killing time and hanging on. I suppose the things I write about must have some type of value because I don't believe in wasting my time or energy on anything not worthwhile. I guess we'll see if any of this was. April 9, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts Got the job. I met with the general manager, today, and he said that I can start when I get back. Made the card for my father, too. Had to do a little running around to a couple different print places, but I got it done. It has 8 pages. I'm going to try and visit our old neighborhood before I leave and see if I can get the few remaining families that still live there who we've known forever to sign it. While I'm there, I'll walk down to the dock and fill up a jar of river water to bring with me. That may seem kind of weird, but I bet my father misses the smell of the river. I don't even know how cognizant or receptive he'll be when I get there, but I'm trying to think of things that might mean something to him just in case. I've even thought about driving him back across the country if he wants to see Marshfield and the river, again. What's the worst that can happen? He dies on the way? That's better than dying in a stuffy room where he's been watching television 24hrs a day for the past couple years. If he's bedridden, he probably has a catheter and maybe an IV. I can handle this. Who knows what his spirits will be like, but I'm game if he is. I'm just glad I'm feeling better about the trip. I've been dreading it since I got my brother's email. It's been a while, but giving is still better. Whether any of it's received is out of my control, but at least I'm willing. One dumb observation I made the other day is when a person isn't working and their finances get to a certain point where they shouldn't spend anymore money, this is obviously going to affect the person's mental well-being. I've always said "If you don't have money, you better have family and if you don't have family, you better have money because without either in this world, you're screwed." With all the traveling, transition periods and starting from scratch I've experience over the years, I've never given this fact enough weight. I'm ok money-wise for now, but it's only a matter of time until I'm not if I don't start working, again, but I can't start working until after I visit my father in California. There's nothing I can do about this, but being aware of it helps to weather the storm a little and allows me to understand why I've been a wreck on the inside lately. My hand's almost healed completely. I'm sure it'll hurt for a little while longer if I bump the spot where the drill went in, but the wound is almost fully scabbed over. I've down-sized from a bandage to a large band-aid and won't even need this in a couple days. Still haven't reached out to anyone. April 17, 2026, Los Angeles, California It's around 10pm on a Friday night. This is the first moment since getting on the train to Boston Tuesday morning that I've been able to stop for a minute and take a breath. I'm in my sleeping bag lying on the ground behind a tree next to a big parking garage near LAX. #mlr There are street lights over by the entrance, but it's dark where I am so I can't be seen. People are in too much of a hurry anyways driving in and out of the garage to notice me and there are no other buildings nearby. I've been hit with a lot the last four days and it's a relief to be grounded in nature, tonight, as crazy as sleeping here is. This wasn't my plan. I drove here to return my rental car and get another one because they were going to overcharge me if I kept the vehicle longer than what I had reserved it for. When I picked up the car, I checked the rental agreement and it said that it would be $29/day to extend my reservation which was reasonable, but when I went to do this earlier today they tried to hit me with an additional $50/day on top of this. I'm so sick of businesses and their dishonest tricks and schemes. When I arrived in Los Angeles Tuesday night and went to pick up my rental, the place was closed. I had reserved a car for 7pm because that's when my flight got in and the website said they were open 24hrs a day like a lot of airport car rental companies, but not this one apparently. Why did they take my money and my reservation if they weren't even open during the time when I sceduled to pick up the vehicle? It's insanity. After 4hrs on the phone with expedia, who I made my reservation through, I got a full refund and a new rental with a different company for the same price. Now, this new company was trying their tricks even though the representative who I spoke to on the phone agreed that the website shouldn't have said it's only $29/day when they were going to tack on another $50 for each additional day, but explained that there was nothing he could do about it or he'd lose his job. We were, both, very polite and apologetic towards each other so I decided not to give the guy a hard time, but I wasn't going to condone this company's tactics so I decided to just return it and get another one with yet another company. There's probably a dozen of them at such a big airport. Nope, didn't get a new rental. It's Coachella music festival this weekend and the price for any car now starts at $116/day. All set with that. I'll camp here and take the amtrak back up the coast to Camarillo in the morning for 20 bucks. I can walk from the train station. It's only a few miles. I didn't bother asking my brother for a ride even though he didn't hesitate to ask me to drive his rental 3,000 miles to return it when I moved them out here. Like I said, it's nice to lie on the ground and feel connected to the natural world a little where life makes more sense to me even though I'm surrounded by a giant city. April 16, 2026, Morro Bay, California Before I left the east coast, I was able to catch the early bus to Boston which meant I'd have time to make it down to the south shore before my flight. Stashed my pack in the woods near the train station and walked to my old neighborhood across the river. When I was a kid, my best friend, Adam, and I cut a path through the woods connecting our neighborhood to a dead end road that empties onto rte.3A which winds north and south along the coast. That path is now a shared driveway leading to a bunch of rich people's houses. I still use it to save myself about a mile of walking, but this time instead of heading towards our house I stayed on the other side of the neighborhood because I didn't want to see the monstrosity of a mini-mansion that has been built in its place. I want to remember it how it was. I was planning on walking down to the river, but the tide was out so I figured I'd kill some time until it came back in. I knocked on the McCarthy's front door and Mrs.McCarthy answered. To my relief, she was thrilled to see me and called Mr.McCarthy to come see who it is. They are the parents of three of the kids I grew up with in the neighborhood. They texted the mom of another family across the street who was our next door neighbor and she walked over and joined us for dinner. Sadly, her husband passed away a few years ago, but her son was able to purchase the house on the other side of ours when the older couple who lived there passed away years ago so he and his family are only one driveway down from her. I walked up the street and visited with another family, too, and they signed the card I had brought with me. It was nice to see everyone and reminisce a little. Because they insisted I stay with them for the night, Mr.McCarthy and I took a drive back to the train station so I could grab my backpack which we both laughed about. They know what a free spirit I am. After dinner, I walked down to the dock. It's always brighter down there even at night. It felt a little strange being a visitor to a place where I spent my whole life before hitting the road as a young man, but it will always be part of me. Mrs.McCarthy had to head into Scituate in the morning so she dropped me at the train station and we said our good-byes. After arriving in LA and dealing with the mess the car rental company made, I drove to my father and brother's house early the next morning to find it empty. My heart fell into my stomach as I stood on the patio looking in through the slider. There was no furniture and the walls were bare. The door was locked so I walked around to the other side of the house and found my brother's little mercedes convertible in the driveway and knocked on the door. Where was my father? April 23, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts We all have to pay for denial in the end. There are no exceptions. The only thing that might save me is that the denial I am paying for, right now, isn't mine. I recently discovered a lot of disturbing things about how my father's life has been since he was basically forced to move to California which I had a part in. I am not writing this to rationalize the circumstances that have unfolded so I won't feel bad. I'm writing for the same reason I always write which is to gain perspective so that I can see what the best thing to do is. My father did not want to move to California and I didn't want him to either, but after 5 years of doing all that I did so he could stay in his house while he refused to even acknowledge that this was what I was trying to help him do, I finally had to accept defeat. The situation he is in now is the result. Keeping him in Marshfield could have been salvageable, but I was going to need help because I was burnt out. My brother finally came back during the fifth year, but he had a different idea. He wanted to move my father to California and this is what happened. The only reason I agreed to this was because my brother explained that he was having difficulty finding work in Massachusetts, but had been offered a "dream job" back in the same town on the west coast where he had been living so I consented. Over a week later, I'm still in shock from everything I learned. My brother quit his dream job not long after they moved out there then took a job in Washington state and left my father in the new house alone all week flying back on the weekends, but my father fell a couple times, had a stroke then almost bled to death from ulcers in his intestines. After a week in the hospital, my brother put him in a nursing home and quit his job in Washington. From what I've gathered, my father has a build up of fluid around his brain which is interfering with his balance so he is now bedridden. This all happened almost a year ago, but I was never told. I called my brother when the Los Angeles area was getting hit with all those fires last winter to make sure they were ok and my brother was the first person I called when our father got into a head on collision when I was still in Marshfield, not because I needed my brother to do anything. He was in California and we were back here, but he still had a right to know what was going on with his father. Clearly, my brother doesn't share the same belief. He was on his way to work when I arrived at their house. He's on his third job since bringing my father out there and mentioned that he might have to quit this one soon, too, before the company goes under, but he gave me directions to the nursing home and it wasn't far. I'm not sure which one of us was more shocked to see the other, my father or me. He must've lost 75lbs. Apparently, he's not eating much because he dreads having his diaper changed so the less he eats the less this is needed. I gave him the card that I made for him and the one I had all our neighbors sign. I, also, bought a mason jar after arriving and made a miniature nature scene inside it complete with mud, river water and phragmites marsh grass poking out through the lid from my visit to Marshfield all of which I smuggled with me on the plane in my checked baggage. I drew a little label that reads "the North River" and attached it to the outside of the jar which now sits on his bedside table. His room was a little barren so I found some family photos in one of the boxes my brother had stored in the garage at the house and brought them over. None of this probably made any difference, but at least I tried. I, also, gave my father a warm shave because his face was a mess. He's Irish and can't grow much of a beard so it looked pretty unsightly long hair in some places patchy in others. I sat with him everyday until I left a week later. His short term memory is gone so he asked me many of the same questions over and over which was fine. We even laughed about it a little because he could see the smile appear on my face after he'd repeat one and knew I must have already answered it. His mind and long term memory are still intact so we had some nice conversations about a lot of things, my mother, living on the river, his father, growing up in Boston, etc. During the first days of my visit, my brother mentioned how he was looking at jobs back in Massachusetts. Though I never once let on during the entire time I was there, in my head I was like "What the f*ck is wrong with this person?!" The whole reason we emptied our parent's house and sold it was so he could move to California. Now that they don't have a place to live here, he's considering moving back? My father can't even get out of bed to walk to the bathroom. Transporting him across the country would be extremely difficult. The crazy thing is that I was actually considering it. All my father kept repeating when I first saw him is "What am I doing out here? I can't believe I ended up like this?" I just want the man to be able to die in peace. He wants to be near my mother where they spent their entire life together, not in some strange place. It's going to cost a fortune to have his body shipped across the country after he passes away so he can be buried with her. I'd rather we do it for him while he's alive. It would be a lot cheaper and it's what he wants, but it seemed like once I was onboard with the idea my brother was no longer considering it. He, also, explained that my father has no money left except for his social security. The one thing my father was always good about was money. He was very frugal and never took chances. He kept the same job for 40yrs. Never asked anyone for anything. Paid off his house decades ago and he was living comfortably from his pension. He had plenty of money when he left Marshfield. I used to drive him to the bank so he could get a little to spend before I took him grocery shopping. Now, he's broke? I have no idea what my brother has done and no way of finding out because he has power of attorney. When we discussed selling my father's house before all this happened, I suggested that we buy him something simple for half the price someplace quiet in the New England area so he'd be close to my mother and would never have to worry about money. Instead, my brother bought something half the size for the same amount in the most expensive place to live in the country 3,000 miles away. He, also, mentioned that he took out some type of loan against the new house so I'm guessing that's what he's been living on especially if he's going to quit another job. What an effing mess. Like I said, I think I'm still in shock. I've been dreading recapping all this. We've all heard stories about adult children feuding over how to handle their parent's living situation and money so I've vowed to never behave like this, but it's such a shame, even tragic, how things have turned out. Yesterday was my first day back and all I've been doing is trying to make sense of it all. I'd like to believe my brother is not a bad person. The facility where my father is seems like a nice place and he's receiving proper care. My brother visits him everyday after work and on the weekends. At this point, I don't know if there's anything else I can do to improve things which kills me, but we might be too different as people and it's out of my hands. This has been their choice. My father is a complainer not a doer even when he was back in Marshfield because he had every chance to prevent this years ago and did nothing. After the first couple days of small talk and reminiscing when I first got there, he had nothing else to say to me. A family that talks together stays together and mine never has. All my father's done for the last twenty years since my mother passed away is sit in a chair or lie in a bed and watch television along with a daily trip to the bar before his accident and couldn't drive anymore. I know I failed to keep him in his house, but neither of them helped me with this, especially him. He just ignored me, the neighbors and the world everyday uninterested in talking to anyone about anything. Plenty of people have offered their opinion that he's depressed and misses my mother which I don't argue, but they don't know my parents like I do. They weren't exactly happy and joyous when she was alive. He left her alone at our house for years while he hung out in bars, but now distance and time make the heart grow fonder. The question for me is: Am I supposed to finally stop thinking along the lines of what I know in my heart is right and instead just let things take their course? The sad part is that it all could've been avoided, but no one wanted to talk about it. I suggested we sit down with a family counselor a few years ago so we could discuss our options and make a plan for the day when we have to make these types of decisions because we all eventually get there, but no one wanted to. I even remember as a kid my mother suggesting it for other reasons back then, but my father never agreed. My grandmother raised four kids by herself in Boston after my father's dad died when he was only 10. My aunts and father stuck her in a nursing home at the end of her life. I didn't really know her, but I still offered to let her come live with me. I was in college, at the time, but had broken away from the party scene and was living alone on a wooded pond in one of my aunt's cottage not far from my school which she only used in the summer. My father told me that it was a nice gesture, but not necessary. As far as I know, he never reached out to his own nephews after his younger brother suddenly passed away from a heart attack in his forties when they were even younger than my father was when he lost his dad and they only lived in the next town over from us. I was just a kid and never saw them much, but reached out to them as a young man and we spent some time together. Their lives didn't turn out so great and they're both on a lot of medication now. I'm no match for other people's denial. I just don't want to adopt my own in order to come to terms with all this. That's not who I am nor how I want to live. In fact, how I've lived all these years is starting to make a lot more sense now. Am I finally free or am I going to be haunted about this for the rest of my life if I don't do something? I drove up the coast a couple hours to Morro Bay, a small town where I used to live, and saw two of my friends who still live up there. It was good to see them. The drive gave me some time to think about whether I could pull off trying to move back out there to be closer to my father. I returned the same night and sat with him til late. I have to be careful though because this type of thinking is why I moved back to Marshfield in the first place in 2017 which didn't seem to help. He was always thankful in the moment when I was there to do something for him, but a minute later I didn't exist anymore. My friends and neighbors have all told me that I'm a good son, but I don't feel like one. After five days of being out there with no progress gained from the limited conversations I had with my brother, I bought a return flight. Once I decided that I was going to come back here and regroup, not to mention the guy who hired me had checked in a couple times to see if I still wanted the job, I told my father I'd be leaving. I have no idea how he felt about this. I know how I felt and how I think most people would feel, but I wouldn't be surprised if he was relieved. Maybe me sitting there with him all day made him uneasy. I don't know. Regardless, I told him that I needed to ask him one thing. I asked him what he wants me to do knowing me well enough that I'll do it whatever it is. If he wants me to bring him back to Massachusetts, I'll do it immediately. He thought for a few moments then told me that it's probably best that he stay where he is. The last night I was there, I kissed him on the forehead, shook his hand and told him that I was sorry for being hard on him when I was younger. I didn't get much of a response and that was it. We exchanged "Love you"'s and I looked back as I was walking out the door. He lifted one hand and gave me a little wave. My flight arrived in Boston at 7:15pm, but there were no buses returning to Greenfield until the next day so I had to get creative. I considered many options, but settled on at least getting closer and took a bus to Springfield at 10pm which is only about 45 minutes from Greenfield and has a lot of local buses that run during the day. Camped under a bridge (#mlr) when I arrived around midnight, caught the first bus north at 6am the next morning to Northampton then the Greenfield bus from there, grabbed some breakfast at a diner to kill time til the Montague bus left at 8:45 and walked the rest of the way. Texted my new boss when I got here in case he wanted me to come in and get all my paperwork done. He's been very understanding, but they're still running a business and it became clear that he wasn't interested in hearing from me again until I was back here and ready to work which is understandable. I hadn't gotten much sleep all week, but I didn't want to make him wait any longer. Luckily, he told me to come in on Monday so I've got a couple days to decompress. It's good to be back here. I've built a pretty cool life for myself and I'm finally seeing why I've felt so lonely all these years. It still kills me that I'm not with my father to keep him company, but maybe that's just me. I don't know. I suppose if I wanted to be a hard case, I'd say "Hey, if it was up to me, you'd still be back here where you want to be, but neither of you would listen to me so I don't know what to tell you. This is your mess not mine," which is absolutely true, but I can't bring myself to be this way. It's not about who's right or wrong. It's about caring for one another. I'm no angel. I was always the person trying to force every one else to communicate in our family, but when I was younger I went about it in a very angry and confrontational way. Where do you think I learned justified unhappiness , but I now know this wasn't healthy behavior. Looking back, part of the reason I felt so strongly was because I believed my parents, especially my father, were deliberately deciding to ignore a lot of issues. Because it was so obvious to me, I thought I was challenging everyone else's conscious choice to pretend like everything was fine, but maybe those issues weren't obvious to them. I've learned a lot since then and I'm not like that anymore which is why I haven't just gone off on my brother, but if other people haven't grown themselves they can't recognize this kind of change in others especially if they're still refusing to talk about things. Dude, when are you going to get it? They don't want you in their lives. They never have. How clear does it have to be? No, they've never come right out and said it, but look at their behavior! I've been wanting us to be more of a family my whole life. I remember one year when my brother and I were both living on the west coast, I drove an hour and a half to spend Christmas with him because it was the first time in decades we were living close enough to spend the holidays together. I brought a bunch of food with me. He wasn't really interested. He just stayed in his room and then ended up heading out to meet up with some friends and left me at his place. I didn't get upset. I just sat there feeling pretty stupid and left the next day. Their unwillingness to participate in anything is pretty friggin clear. It kind of sucks, but I can handle it. What's hard to accept is that my father is going to die and I'm not going to be there with him. No one probably will. My brother will most likely be at work so my father will be all by himself. This is what I'm having the most difficulty with. He fed me, clothed me and kept a roof over my head, but never really had my back. You can't truly love something if you're afraid of it, but he's still my father. I'm not interested in evening the score or saying "The heck with them." I want to be there to comfort him. I hate flying, but the way I left it with them is that I will head back out in a month for a few more days. I've got to work and make some money first. This whole situation has held me up since the middle of March. Maybe I'll call my brother this weekend just to see how they are even though I don't really see the point after learning about everything he didn't tell me. May 2, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts Spoke to my brother, this afternoon. It wasn't very productive, but I still felt it was necessary. I had reached out to Queen Bee while I was still in California asking her for information regarding the old farmer who lived next door to us last season and she finally got back to me earlier this week. He was very healthy and active for 88yrs old regularly stopping by the farm or bringing his little tractor over to pull rocks out of our fields. Some of them were pretty big. But, he decided that he'd lived long enough. His wife had passed away years ago so he enlisted the services of a death doula last winter and now he's gone. I spoke with the doula two days ago to learn more about the logistics and legalities of assisting someone in carrying out this type of wish. She was very helpful and open about the process and it's surprisingly simple. Being so far away from my father, I just wanted to learn and do as much as I can to contribute to improving his situation whether my brother decides to keep him out there or bring him back and it doesn't sound like my brother is going to do anything other than keep him where he is. I reached out to and spoke with mr.Finance while I was in California as well. His mother passed away a few years ago. She had been living with him and his family until she finally needed more medical care than they could give her so I helped him and his brothers move her to a nice facility not far from his house which he visited regularly. Eventually, he had to make the decision to adhere to her wishes which she had clearly explained what these were ahead of time. Doing this or what the old farmer did takes a lot of conviction and I'm finally realizing this is not how my father is. He complained a lot about being stuck out there and my brother even mentioned hearing my father say that he just wants to die and get it over with, but neither one of them will actually discuss these matters or do anything about them. Sometimes we believe people are more like us than they really are because we need to. Technically, I am my father's health care proxy which is something my brother has yet to acknowledge, but this isn't about me or my ego even if his is what's created this whole predicament. If it was my mother who was in this situation, no one could stop me and no one did. I was her protector. No one got to her without going through me first because that's how she wanted it. Even when she lost the ability to speak, I still knew what she wanted simply by looking into her eyes. This is because she knew how to be honest and I could read this. My father doesn't know how to be honest. I still know what would be best for him. Everyone I've talked to knows what this is. It doesn't take a fortune teller, but I don't have a leg to stand on in this situation. If I tried to force it, I'd only be making things more difficult than they already are. They are not like me or my mother and don't trust my judgment so I have to respect this even if I don't agree with it. This is very hard to accept. On an opposite note, it's sad because if I'm being honest, I've been surprised at the slight sense of relief I've felt a few times over the past couple weeks. As unorthodox as my lifestyle has been, I'm now realizing that my perfectionism, for lack of a better word, stems from feeling like I've had to go above and beyond anything resembling a normal life and if I succeeded at all I've wanted to accomplish I could finally fix his unhappiness. I truly believe that I could have done this, but I haven't succeeded and this is because it was an unhealthy and codependent goal. You can't make someone else happy. I am a happy person and always have been. The only thing that has brought me down is carrying his unhappiness with me my whole life and trying to overcompensate for it. Soon I won't have to do this anymore. That's pretty messed up and heartbreaking because I truly wanted to do this for him, but the paradoxical nature of this goal is clearer to me now. It's too late to do anything about it. I still have all the same goals, but a weight is being lifted which both sucks and is a relief at the same time. May 2, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts When I called the death doula on Thursday, I parked down by the river so I'd have better reception making my truck visible to people driving by on North Leverett Road which is when a grey jetta pulled up and parked in front of me. MissButterfly got out and walked over to my window right as I was getting off the phone. We talked. She has a new car, a diesel that runs on veggie oil. Pretty cool. In light of everything I've been learning recently about why I've lived the way I have, my tendency to isolate or behave like an overly idealistic snob is encouraging me to lighten up a little and reconsider my own behavior. My strong reactions when people don't treat me the way I feel I should be treated stem from how my father and brother have behaved towards me my whole life. For over a year, she has done everything she can to try to repair our relationship and I haven't budged. When I say "relationship", I don't mean romantically. I mean in the general sense of the word like a friendship which is something I definitely could use. No offense, but I don't want to turn out like my father eliminating people from my life the way he has. It goes against my social nature and this has really bothered me knowing she's only a few miles down the road living her life and I'm living mine with no interaction between us. It's pretty absurd actually. She's felt the same way this whole time and even confessed to parking at the end of the road and taking the path through the woods to visit the brook that runs behind my house where we used to swim because she missed me so much. She made some mistakes, knows this and has admitted them. She's not my brother or my father. She's wanted me in her life, but I wouldn't risk it again because how she behaved triggered the pain caused by them. Anyways, the funny thing is I mailed her a card last weekend because I felt my refusal to bend a little has lasted long enough, but before she got it she emailed me on Tuesday to say "hi" seeing as it had been close to six months since we'd talked and then received the card on Wednesday so when she walked up to my window on Thursday we had something to laugh about. We decided to meet up yesterday at the little co-op down the road where we first met, talked for a little while and went for a walk along the river. I'm a little apprehensive because she says she wants to be friends, but there seems to be other indications that she would like more than this. Romantically, she's just not what I'm looking for and if she can accept this then maybe we can build a friendship that will benefit both of us. I think I have the tact and communication skills to get us to a healthy place where I can be there for her as a friend without playing with fire in other areas. A big part of pulling this off depends on my ability to be strong and not give into her physical advances if they occur as lonely as I am. The system has isolated all of us to some extent and it's awful that we all don't help one another more. I think this is a worthwhile area of life to improve on. The truck driving job I just started is a sh*t show. My boss gave me a start time of 7:30am for the week so I usually get there around 7:20 and hang out in my truck until he arrives around 7:25 to open the place up. He's the general manager which means he's in charge of overseeing everything from making the ice, packaging it, delivering it and dealing with customers, but I have a suspicion he's never done this type of work. He's a friend of the owner's and only been with the company a few years. When he puts together the routes, we end up passing by a lot of places we're supposed to deliver to only to have to return to them later in the day which is not a very efficient way to make deliveries and he keeps calling the fleet of trucks they have 26 footers and none of them are. I even asked him, "Are you sure they're 26?" and he assured me that they are. They aren't. I've been driving big straight body trucks for years and what they have are 18 and 20 foot long. It's not confidence inspiring and the owner doesn't sound like he's involved in the running of the company. The guy who trained me on Monday and Tuesday whose b.o. was tough to breathe in while being stuck in a truck with him for two days has been with the company for almost ten years, the longest of anyone else, but has only met the owner on a few occasions. For a small operation of only 5 or 6 year-round employees, this is not a good sign. The two guys who make and bag the ice seem to be in a passive aggressive battle with the two full-time drivers regarding how the walk-in freezer is organized, where empty pallets should be stacked or bags getting ripped when they're being filled. Making and delivering ice is not rocket science especially when they have no competition. There are no other ice companies in this part of the state. With the right people in charge, this business could really excel. I was drawn to the job because of it's physical nature and the simplicity of the work. I thought it would be a fun straightforward gig for the summer, but instead no one seems to give a darn about anything. I won't even mention what the owners of all the gas stations and liquor stores are like to deal with. My takeaway is that a person has to care about vegetables and livestock if they want to produce a quality item. Freezing water and putting it in a bag, selling gas or alcohol allows a person to care a lot less about what they do. If I like to care, maybe I should pick jobs that require people to care. Needless to say, I've started poking around for farm work, again. May 9, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts Looks like I got myself a new farm job. I met with the owners this morning. It's a family business with three generations working there. They seem pretty excited to have me join the team. To finalize it, they'd like me to head over bright and early on Tuesday morning and work with everyone to make sure it's a good fit. Their just down the road which is a huge plus. No more long commutes. It's a little surprising that no one I've met since moving here has mentioned them to me. The farm's been around since the 1930's. I've heard their name a few times over the past three years, but didn't realize how close they are, or how big. Their 200 acres are tucked away off the beaten path near Millers Falls. Because it's a little late in the spring to be lining up work, instead of just looking online for job postings, I made a list of all the farms in the area and checked out each of them regardless if they were looking for help or not. When I found this farm's website, I got lucky because it turned out that they were. Since a place like theirs has been around so long they usually don't need to bother with posting jobs online anywhere other than their own website or the old fashioned way by word of mouth so I'm glad I took the time to look for something better than the ice company which I've already left. They were going to pay for my D.O.T. card (a medical card to drive big commercial trucks) which is usually around a 100 bucks because mine's expired and I would've felt bad if I let them do this knowing I was going to move on. I'm hoping this will work out. They're more of a traditional farm compared to places like where I worked last season and this has its pros and cons. They definitely keep a tight ship so my work ethic and experience will be more appreciated, but their older farm practices are a little less humane regarding livestock. There's a trend in smaller more touchy-feely farms these days to really focus on animal care which is very good within reason. I'm in favor of a practical balance between the old and the new, but after my tour this morning I could see that their chickens and turkeys are cage free which is progress because they're not stuck in small pens their whole lives. I could never work at a place like that, but they're not free range so they still spend their entire lives indoors in big barns which is a bummer. I honestly believe happier animals produce healthier, not to mention better tasting, food like in the case of free range eggs which have a harder shell and a darker richer yoke. It's tough being an idealist in the real world. I still prefer a working farm to the non-profit la la land. It's only for one season then I'll be in good shape financially, and physically, to get the heck out of here and head west which will allow me to pick and choose where I work with more discretion. Regardless, I'm happy to be back on a farm. They've got a commercial kitchen and a nice little store full of prepared meals and other farm fixin's so I'll be eating good, again. Hung out with missButterfly a second time on Thursday. We went for another walk. It was nice, but at one point she asked if she could hold my hand which I appreciated for a change. She used to just reach over and take hold of it, but even though I felt bad I told her that I'd prefer not to. To me, holding hands is something that couples do, not friends. We had some good talks, but unfortunately before we left she brought up some past drama that's still playing out in her life and I had to accept that it's still not a healthy situation to become involved in. We parted ways nicely, but it was pretty sad for both of us. I'm not even going to bother with the details. I won't waste my energy on that nonsense. It's disappointing that we can't salvage a platonic relationship. I admire when people who were once romantically involved can form meaningful friendships, but these need to be based on common values and hers and mine are just too different which is something people should establish before getting involved with one another in the first place, duh. I told her I'd still try to be her friend from a distance, but there's no way I'm getting sucked back into her world. It's a shame, but I tried. I've thought plenty more about my father, but nothing new has been gained. Once I have a couple paychecks under my belt, I'm sure I'll be able to take a fresher look at things and decide if there's anything else I can do. I'd still like to leave here and might look around for another spot to park my house, but for the time being it will do. Hopefully, this new farm will work out. Since winter has ended, I've been loving all this free time I've had with the nicer weather arriving and was seriously considering putting up my fliers again and working for myself this year maybe even banging out a few yurts to sell, but I'd like to have a little more savings if I was going to try this and the trip to California this spring was an expense I hadn't accounted for so signing my life away for another season to get a steady paycheck is a smarter safer option. Oh well, six more months and I'll be in a very good position. I've been using my motorcycle a lot rather than the big truck which has been fun. Got my first biker wave the other day then a few more by the time I made it home. It's a cool informal way of feeling like you're part of a club. May 10, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts My cucumbers are almost ready to transfer into bigger containers and the tomatoes, basil, cilantro and mint are beginning to grow. My carrots and potatoes are all planted, too. I'm going to wait until it warms up a little more before planting the squash. The winter's definitely over, but I've still fired up the wood stove a few times in the past week so I'm glad I have plenty of firewood left over. I should be getting more done on the house, but I'm holding off before buying anymore building materials. When you're weathering a storm, it's best to wait until it's over before climbing up on your roof to fix things and that's how life is sometimes. I'm still completely on my own and the grand canyon takes its toll so I'm choosing my battles until I can build some momentum. I haven't put up any fliers for the new website because I'm such a wuss so I need to push through this and do it. Things gradually got worse throughout the day so by this evening I was really in rough shape so I decided I'd better write which I suppose is an opportunity for growth -I hate that friggin expression. Whatever. So why do I feel so bad? It's the same ol' story that has played out over and over my whole life. A woman wants to be with me, she's not really what I'm looking for, but it's been years since I had any company so I justify letting her into my life then it becomes clear that it's not going to work, I end it as nicely as I can, she leaves me alone then I start to feel worse and worse. What the eff is my problem? I'm such a jerk. It's pretty simple actually. For a short period of time, I mattered to someone and then in the blink of an eye I don't anymore. Orbitless , again. That's it. Maybe it could be called social or emotional withdrawal. I don't know, but understanding it a little better is definitely helping. Actually, writing about it is probably what's helping the most because I'm getting it out of my system in a clearer way than I ever have before. I've always relied on my stoicism which I adopted from my family life more as a survival tactic than a positive attribute. Even missButterfly as we were saying good-bye the other day commented on how strong I am compared to other men she's been involved with which only reinforces this bad habit of mine. We had a little falling out, but still tried to be caring and understanding towards one another despite realizing that things might not work out the way we hoped. That evening I emailed her just to tell her how sorry I was that we both ended up feeling awful, but there was no hard feelings on my part and thanked her for the majority of the day we had that was nice. She called the next morning, but my phone was off as usual so she left a message. There was nothing really nice in it. She just said that she had some thoughts that she wanted to share, but she'd only be available until 1pm. I had to go check out another job so I didn't have time to call her back. This was on Friday before I met with the farm who wants to hire me. Anyways, I emailed her again later in the day when I got home to thank her for calling, but never heard back. That was three days ago and still nothing which is exactly how she's always operated. I wouldn't hear from her for weeks then out of the blue she'd want to see me or just show up at my house unanounced and I never once complained. I know she's a single mom so I could never put any demands on her which is why I let her come and go as she pleased. This is why she thinks I'm so strong. What I'm seeing now is that when she wanted something from me, I'd hear from her a lot. I never asked for her time or her undivided attention, never asked her for anything, but it only takes a few minutes to send someone an email (because she doesn't text) saying "Thanks for your message. I'm sorry, too" or "When's a good time to call?" just to show them that they matter to you, but I'm realizing that I only mattered when there was something in it for her. It sounds harsh, but it's true. Even having me in her life is based on her wants. She's very established here with a lot of support, but she could really use a guy like me someone who can do many things and doesn't ask for anything in return so why not try to land me, again. Now that she's realizing this isn't going to happen, there's no reason to get back to me. Even though she has a large support system, it's still a tremendous amount of work and responsibility raising two children by herself while living off the grid. She has a right to want some help. Every night she goes to bed alone in that house with the kids down the hall. This really bothers me and I don't agree with it, not for any woman. I'm not being chauvinistic. My protective nature just kicks in when it comes to women. It's this damn system and how it keeps us all separated so then couples are put into an all-or-nothing scenario where they're forced to pick one person to meet all their emotional and physical needs. We all fail each other in this way. It's not possible. We're highly social creatures. It takes a village. At this stage in our development as a society, I still believe monogamy within a village is the best version of a human relationship, but it has to be built on trust and common values . Otherwise, you're just going to cause one another pain. Oh well, like I said, at least I understand things better now which surprisingly is diffusing those bad feelings that were building up all day. That's progress. One more day then maybe I'll make some friends on the new farm. At the bare minimum, at least, I'll matter to someone for 8 to 10 hours a day. Wah. Better than nothing. May 14, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts I'm off for the next two days which I'm pretty psyched about. The farm job has been quite the experience, but I think it's going to work out. We didn't finalize pay until after I worked with everyone on Tuesday to make sure they wanted to hire me which went well so I sat down in the office with one of the owners at the end of the day. There seems to be three people in charge which can be a little tricky for employees when there's that many bosses to answer to especially when they all have different opinions. These kinds of situations are prevalent in corporate America with countless supervisors and managers which is one reason of many why I've avoided pursuing those types of positions, but it's also common in long standing family businesses. I've always preferred working for owners rather than managers because it's better to have a direct relationship with the person in charge. They get to know you and you get to know them. I've had many examples where this has worked out great and despite there seeming to be three owners to contend with on this farm I still think it will. The husband and wife who bought the land and started the farm have passed away, but they had 12 children and some of them kept the farm going and then a few of their kids took it over and still work there. At present, one of the grand-daughters seems to play the most active role in running the place. Although, her mother, also, took part in the interview when they hired me. One of her uncles who used to run the farm is still very involved in working the land, but it seems he's backed off from the business side of things and is slowly transitioning into retirement which I'd imagine is very difficult to let go of a place when you've grown up and worked there your whole life. Anyways, I get along with all of them, but it is a challenge. The grand-daughter, who I think is about my age offered me $17.50/hr. I was a little stunned, but tried to handle it graciously. She was definitely aware of my internal reaction and told me, yesterday when we talked again, how bad she felt worried that she had insulted me especially when I shared later in our conversation what I typically make. Like I said, I didn't overreact when we spoke the previous day. Just took it in stride with a smile, but told her regrettably that this wouldn't work for me. Had I known this is what they pay (it wasn't posted with the job description), I never would have reached out to them, but I was still glad that I did and suggested that we give it another day or two to get to know each other a little better. At the end of the second, her mother asked to speak with me as I was about to hop in my truck. In that short period of time, their impression of me improved a lot and they didn't want to lose me so the three of us sat down again. One thing I learned in those two days is that they feed their staff breakfast and lunch, even dinner if it's a long day. That's a first on any farm I've ever worked on. I've had some fun shared meals over the years which were great, but not like this. The day starts at 7, we stop for breakfast at 9, head back to work then come in from the fields at noon for lunch straight off the grill from a commercial kitchen and we all sit down and eat together. I'll try not to cry while I type this. #ias Next I learned is that their turkeys are free range. They only house them when they're young this time of year until the weather warms up then they get to go out into the pasture so that was a relief. Still not sure about the chickens unfortunately. Tuesdays are the hardest days physically which is my kind of work so I'm glad I'll get plenty of exercise and be able to bulk up a little for the summer like I love. I don't work again until Saturday which is when I was going to offer them a part-time schedule explaining that I couldn't give them a full week at that wage, but they beat me to it and proposed a similar arrangement. After realizing that what they offered wasn't appropriate for someone like me, but being fully aware of what they could afford to pay as a business, they didn't want to take advantage of me and would be happy if I'd be willing to work two days a week and they'd pay me a little more. I said I'd be willing to give them three which made them even happier. Grabbed some tupperware from the cupboard and filled it with a baked potato and chicken au gratin, had a nice hot meal for dinner last night and hit the hay. I won't make a lot of money at $7/hr less than what I made last year -yikes, but because the farm is so close, even closer than the ice company, I won't be using a lot of gas and money like driving to Orange everyday last season required. The simple way I've lived all my life allows a steady paycheck even a small one to go a lot farther for me than it does for most people. I almost think God finally took pity on me and gave me the type of schedule that I used to insist on years ago, but haven't been able to get myself back to. I've missed those days, but when you're on your own, work has to come first and most jobs require a 5 day commitment. I can always put up fliers to pick up some side jobs on my days off or I might actually get the chance to throw the kayak in the water or hop on the motorcycle this summer and have some fun. Most of all, I'll have plenty of time to put all the finishing touches on the house and work on my truck without feeling like I have to rush ever second of my days off. If anything changes with my father like my brother grows a conscience, I'm confident that the folks at the farm will completely understand if I need to fly out and drive my father back here. I could easily do it in four days. Queen Bee texted me this morning because she wanted to let me know that one of the native elders, Aspen's father, who I got to know last summer has offered to play for my father if I manage to bring him home. He makes and sells his own wooden flutes and I've heard him perform at Native gatherings. It stops you in your tracks and time stands still. As impermeable as my father is, I think something like this might actually reach him and be a comfort if only my brother would let it happen. I'll call them, again, and convey the offer. I might even ask missLuna if she'd be willing to let us use the bottom bedroom in her house which she has reserved for boarders, but it's been empty for the past two years if we needed a place for my father to stay for a couple days. We wouldn't need it any longer than that. He's ready. I think if he was back here and we took him by the cemetery to be close to my mother that's all he'd need to let go and say good-bye. With the new job, I've got another leg under my table so I decided to reach out to missButterfly, again. I didn't like how things ended the other day and I know that I can do better. I was just caught off guard when she sprung some of her old drama on me which I moved on from along time ago because it's beneath me. I'm not trying to sound self-righteous. I just don't want to be pulled off the path of living a healthy life. I don't like associating with other people's negative behavior, but she was pretty upset and was trying to get a hug from me before I left and I didn't acquiesce like I usually do. I couldn't. I was upset, too. I felt deceived, once again. She should have been upfront with me, but regardless I still felt bad so I wrote her a long sincere email this week taking full responsibility for my reaction and offered to meet with her with the promise that I will put forth more of an effort towards a positive result. The major reason I've always agreed to meet up is because I have a hard time disappointing her knowing everything she's been through, not because I had any interest in a relationship with her, and sadly still don't. I'm not proud of it, but the only times I've ever considered it on a couple rare occasions was because she was coming on so strong and it felt good to be wanted by someone. Not a healthy reason to get involved, for either of us. However, no one made me send her a card this spring. That was my decision so I should man up and use what I bring to the table rather than settling for simply giving her my time while not actively participating in a mutually beneficial outcome for both of us. I'm not really sure a mutually beneficial outcome exists aside from a gentler more supportive parting of ways, but even this is better than the other day. Anyways, sent the email, got a brief response, compared to no response at all last week because now there's something in it for her, but she's busy the rest of the week and all weekend so she said she's going to mail me a letter then let me know about when she'd like to meet sometime next week. Interesting. Whatever, I did the right thing and giving is still better. After I work Saturday, I'll start my new schedule on the farm, Tuesday-Thursday, which means I'll have a four day weekend every week from now on -so awesome. I called my carpenter cousin the other day who I haven't spoken to since last summer to wish him a happy birthday and he asked if I wanted to go out on his boat this weekend. I've gotta work, but after that I'll actually have time to do stuff like this. It's been raining all day so I'm going to keep working on the computer to make some new fliers for the other website (never posted the old ones) and see if I can get my dumb ass to start putting them up around Greenfield and Amherst. This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are the product of the author's imagination and are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.