KW-13 When the universe wants you to do a good job

To be enraged with a dumb thing, Captain Ahab, seems blasphemous.

To the casual viewer, it might appear that progress on the tomato house went backwards this week. I’m not sure if progress can go backwards in any linear or non-paradoxical sense, but it is early in the morning and my logical fallacy detection skills have not quite woken up. Here is a photo:

I can see why this does not look like forwards motion. A scattering of the leviathan’s toothpicks its not immediately redolent of sun-warmed scarlet tomatoes basking in a home of their own, and you are not wrong in this thought, dear reader. Even here at The Barracks, where we exist to question societal norms, we do like our tomatoes to be round and fleshy and good to get your teeth into. Not flat-packed.

Here’s the thing.

Motivation. I don’t have any. I never have had. I quite like the satisfaction of seeing a job well done, and I certainly have a hard work ethic. But really the only appeal that can be made to encourage is that I like to be doing things. I certainly can’t particularly well gee myself up - I either have all that I need, or I have to provide it for myself anyway. I’m not very good with deferred pleasures. I don’t live in the future. And as far as the stick end of the carrot goes, what am I going to do? Send myself to bed without any supper? That sounds great - an early night and I don’t have to cook!

Sometimes things needs to be done, and so they get done. When they are done, there is something else to do, and the cycle cycles.

And how does this relate to the tomato house?

I was supposed to be doing a test putting together of the pieces. To see if they fitted together, to get an idea of dimensions, to place the remaining back-wall foundations, and to get an idea of if it would work or not.

And it worked. The whole thing supported itself, and did not fall over or rock. But it was also clear in a three dimensional way how many things could and should be improved. And if the enormous storm that we had that night had not blown it over, I am not sure that I would have definitely disassembled it and made those improvements. It was standing, wasn’t it? So, the universe took over. It knew that I wouldn’t be really proud of the tomato house in the future if I hadn’t taken it apart and made it the best tomato house that I could, and it also knew that I am a lazy and unmotivated pirate.

So, for the next day or two, I will be carrying quite a lot of wood from the store to the tomato house assembly. I am going to make frames to embed between the uprights, onto which will be affixed the wall pieces. I cannot make the wall pieces until I have a circular saw. Because I have a really beautiful, architectural idea for what I want to do, and it requires a circular saw, and once I have an idea of exactly how I want it to look, that is what is is going to have to look like. Urghh.

Then, when I feel the need to do something else, I shall sow more stuff. And at some point, I want to start clearing the soft fruit beds. I shall commit to the rhubarb at least.

We had the first rain of the year. I wanted to write something beautiful and poetic about it, but got sidetracked with all this that I just made you read. Sorry.

Oh, and I really wanted to mention the 30 Day Vegan Self Sufficiency Challenge that I have been working on, but I guess that has to wait as well.

My back is killing me.

Hugs all round

Your loving Pirate Ben

xoxo