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Stairs

Well, it is 11 days since my previous post, and it has been pretty much the way I thought. A lot of this and that, nice days each full of different activities. On the other hand, it also means that I haven't been quite able to complete nor finish anything bigger, but that there has been some progress on many areas.

Already last summer I thought that I'll need new stairs, now when I have my front door relocated. For the materials I disassembled my big garden table and benches - the ones I made for my birthday party. Even though the table has been very nice when I happen to have more people visiting, I reasoned that I need stairs every day, but most of the time the table and benches are unused. Disassembling the table and the benches yielded four planks of aspen, two inches thick and about ten inches wide. Aspen timber is pretty resistant to moisture, it won't rot easily, so it is good for outdoor structures. Well, but when the winter hit my stairs were still in the 'to-be-done-later' phase. And so it was until now.

I trimmed the irregular sides of the planks, and made a supporting structure. To see how it will be, I just placed all the pieces on top of each other without securing anything with screws. And that far I got - then I got busy with other things, and the stairs have been half-finished for days. This is all so very typical for me =) But, I don't complain, since I have greatly enjoyed all the other things I've spent my time with. I've been visiting Tampere meeting friends, I've been working both with massage and coding, writing for UrW, and visiting the Takalahti bay to scout if pike spawn season has already begun.

Today while enjoying my morning coffee - sitting on the new stairs, wrapped in blanket as the morning temperature was only slightly above freezing - I thought that a year ago I was a lot more exhausted. Now it was only one day - Sunday - when I had no pre-planned time-tables, and I had wished to do some creative writing, but found myself all too exhausted to face the world. So I just did the minimum and spent most of the day either sleeping of drifting in a mild trance-like state where I felt echoes of childhood traumas trembling and moving in my mind and body, a lot like the ice on the lake does when it is melting rapidly. I remember that last year there were a lot of days like that, and most of my free time I didn't get that much done with the tangible present-day world, as I was just carried back to all the unresolved traumatic memories. So, maybe all that inner work has been slow but steady progress =)

Well, today I have only one customer later in the evening - time to post this and go to set fish traps at the Takalahti bay.

Before : temporary stairs
Before : temporary stairs
After : Half-finished new stairs
After : Half-finished new stairs
tags: 
depression
diary
homesteading
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Comments

Nice stairs. I'd call it a porch! Hehe.

Good luck with your fishing! I need to gather up my things and go catch some soon, too.

Haa! There were four pikes in the fish traps =)

Yum!

... Actually, I've never eaten pike. How is it?

Hehe, well, honestly, one hardly can't say a lot about the taste of pike. It is plain simple, or rather neutral. A typical pike is very low on fat, so one has to be careful when cooking pike - frying with too much heat runs the risk of making it tasteless pulp =) But smoking seldom fails, and with the rich aroma of smoke it actually is yummy. Perch is usually more tasty, but pike is the most common catch of the bigger fish in Finland. So for me it is food - nutrition to keep me fed. I don't care that much if each and every meal isn't super tasty =)

I've heard that big river pikes are not particulary healthy due to them containing hihg amount of iron. Don't really know how true that is and if there are any differences between different rivers on that. But it was an interesting thing my friend told me one time we were fishing and I managed to catch my first pike.

I've also heard different fishermen rumours about big pikes. Some say that they taste like wood. And some say that they have non-healthy concentrations of substances like mercury. But, that doesn't concern me, because I never manage to catch the big ones, for years it has always been the younger ones =)

Back in the 1970's or so the local water used to be heavily polluted. Foamy, stinky, and so much mercury in the fish that they actually tasted bad. I've heard the local people telling a lot of stories of those times. But, luckily enough, nowadays the waters here are cleaner and clearer!

Should someday research about that pikes to see if that is actually true. Could be very interesting indeed. :P
I have a feeling this summer will be very pleasant. Up here in Lapland there was already first heatwave. It was sort of weird to go outside and pet my cat for her successful mice catch and not feel cold at all even though I was half-naked.

Good read. I hope, this year is going to be warmer than previous.
Would like to take a small retreat to Vuoksa for fishing, too :)

Да! Summer is almost here, and I wish it will come with a good dose of good vibes =) A fishing retreat at Vuoksa sounds just good, so good!

Been watching some youtubes(Martin Dodge - an old happy coot) on a fellow who builds very well with a chainsaw. Do you use them much? I use for firewood myself. I'd rather use the quieter tools, but with the speed of chainsaw production it is hard to say no. There is another guy who uses the name - Wranglerstar - and has good homesteading videos on youtube.
I have some goat milking platforms I'm going to build soon. I have the small trees cut and drying right now. As long as we keep moving toward our goals - overcoming - we'll get snippets of happiness here and there.

While I like to learn all the basic crafting skills with manual tools, yes, I do use a chainsaw for heavier work, like cutting logs. Hehe, I remember one winter when I was younger, we spent several days working with a group of friends (Sami included). We fell down fir trees for logs, using traditional axes and bowsaws. It was an interesting session to learn how it happens with manual tools.

But for firewood, I collect mostly smaller trees, like diameter of my arm or leg. They are small enough to conveniently cut with a bowsaw. I like it as a meditative work, although a chainsaw would be a lot quicker.

Ah, hehe, once again I'm just lagging behind and wanting to follow the video blog of Mr. Polecat, which I find very interesting. But somehow, now matter how interesting I consider something to be, I still end up spending my days doing other things instead of watching a video or two at youtube :/

Anyway, snippets of happiness - yes =)

Ah, you are not missing anything. I have been really busy with the farm work lately, so I have been really scraping the bottom of the barrel for video content, lol.

So cool! Very good keeping yourself busy all the time. And those stars, serves brilliantly as a bench, where your guests can sit and eat with plates in their hands too!

Hehe =) But tell me, micholes, what is with that half-broken link to a car servicing blog site?

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