#24 ความฟุ้งซ่าน

Hello.

On Saturday, I took the opportunity to "repair" a door handle. It's just a piece of wood into which I drilled two holes, and now it's a new "handle." It's so bad that I won't show you a picture - HA 😁 Jenny was so happy about it for two days (I still don't understand why, it's just a piece of wood with two screws 😁) because she simply didn't have time to fix the door handle. This just shows how the stress keeps increasing and more and more tasks come her way. On Sunday, I thought maybe I should drive to the end of the lake to sit there for more than 1 ½ hours to increase the chance of seeing my first wolves or lynxes in the wild. Equipped with fresh bait, I sped across the lake, laid out the new bait, slipped into my camouflage tent, and then it was time to wait. I knew that nothing would happen in the first hour, after all, a quad is not exactly quiet, and I'm sure I scared away all the animals there. So I sat there and looked at the bait, and then suddenly a branch moved, and it's crazy how it affects my body. It feels like going from 0 to 100 in less than a second. My whole body tenses up, my hands grip the chair, and then... it was just a bird. It was a Gray Jay, also known as a Whiskey Jack. It's not a particularly special bird, and it even sits by our house, so I can watch it from the couch. But if you love these birds, then it was a really good day. But if you, like me, were waiting for other animals, then it was a rather disappointing day because in the whole time, I only saw the Gray Jays. Although three ravens were flying around, and I didn't realize how loud ravens could be, holy cow do they make a noise. Especially since there was really nothing else to hear this time. This area is very popular among loggers, or rather large-scale deforestation, and on Friday, when I sat there for the first time, all you could hear were the big machines. It's not the best situation when customers pay for beautiful moments in nature and then all they hear is machines. By the way, I recommend the Netflix series "Big Timber" (just finished watching it yesterday), there you can see how such clear-cutting operations are carried out. But I don't know if this series is available in Germany because yes, every country has its own Netflix offering. Here, for example, I can watch series that you don't have in Germany, but almost everything here is in English and French - yeah, I love it... not.

But back to the ravens. They are a good sign because they are, so to speak, messengers for the message "There's food here." And where there are ravens, there is also a high probability of larger wild animals. Unfortunately, I didn't see any of them. There was another situation where I was very tense, and that was when a larger animal probably walked by behind my tent, as I heard something running through the snow. It's really crazy how quickly the body can switch to the "Oh shit, a wolf is coming" mode 😁 But after five hours, I started back on the return journey, without any wildlife sightings, but with feet that felt frozen 🥶 .... well, I'll just say, "Good things come to those who wait." But I'm honest, of course, after five hours, I was also a bit frustrated when all I saw were Gray Jays and ravens.

Otherwise, the first few days of the new week were all about cutting wood, cutting wood, and cutting wood. Firewood is always the task when Jenny is not here. She was in Vancouver to pick up David, who finally came back on Wednesday after almost three weeks. By the way, Wednesday felt like Christmas 2.0. Because it was the first time since Christmas Eve that it snowed, and my parents' Christmas package finally arrived, and something else arrived - "My" dartboard. Jenny really bought me a dartboard because I love the sport. I think it's so funny but also so nice of her. She really wants things to go well for me here. I was really happy about all these things: new snow, Christmas present, and a dartboard. On Wednesday, Fatih and I also had to set up a kind of garage or rather a huge tent to park our quads there. It was a pain. Seriously, you open this huge package, and the first thing you see is a note saying that the product is excluded from returns, and then the quality is just bullshit. Oh man, I was so frustrated the whole time. Seriously, if you exclude products from returns, you should at least perform a good quality check so that the pipes used are really round and don't have to be bent into shape by us with a lot of "tenderness and love" *cough cough*. Another point was, if you dropped a nut, it was gone. You just couldn't find it in the snow. I was so frustrated after this crap, really... Today (Friday), I had to finish one last step there.... Let's just say: I listened to very soothing music to calm down a bit because you could hear me swearing very loudly. This "garage" was really exhausting and frustrating for my nerves 😁

On Thursday, David, Fatih, and I then walked to the different spots for the photographers to see if we could find any new tracks, and it's so funny: One person here really looks up to David, and David could ask for anything, and this person would do it without hesitation. Furthermore, this person also always tells things that make me think, "Interesting, to Jenny you said exactly the opposite." 🤥 It's become a real entertaining show for me. He also always tries to be close to David. So you can imagine how happy he was that he had to sit in the back during the ride because I was driving. Brief jump in the timeline: Today (Friday), I was actually supposed to drive to a spot with David to set up a camouflage tent there, but then he was too tired, so I helped with the construction of the house. I always remind myself now that it's not my house and I don't have to live in it. It's just terrible how crooked and uneven everything is, or how the wood is stored. 🥴 If I hadn't covered the wood this week, it would be even more covered in snow now. The problem with that is that eventually, a several millimeter thick layer of ice forms. On the one hand, that's dangerous for me because the wood can easily slide when I saw it (there have been enough situations where I counted to ten to check all my fingers), and on the other hand, Jenny sometimes wonders why, for example, the floor is not flat or the board doesn't fit. Maybe because everything is covered in ice?! Or she stores the wood on the ground for several weeks without boards in between, and well, then everything freezes to it. I could give more examples....but another matter: We installed new support pillars, and then Jenny wanted to attach a kind of auxiliary board. So Fatih and I were on the ladder, and while he was screwing in his screws, I had to hold the board (it's not particularly heavy), and then Jenny actually said: Hurry up, Fatih. Samuel can't hold the board anymore. And I was so bewildered that I had to ask her if she really just claimed that I couldn't hold the board anymore? I must be honest, I hate statements like that. Because, and here we come to a phenomenon that I have known since my childhood, if you're a (young) man and you're not at least 1.80 meters tall, then a lot of people feel like you have no strength. It's really impressive. I always wonder where this way of thinking comes from. By the way, she didn't just say that once today. Then I wanted to screw in my side, and she actually tried to explain to me how to screw a screw into the wood. I was close to telling her that it's not the first screw in my life, and if I look at her screws, maybe she should learn how to screw a screw straight and properly, but then I remembered at the last moment that she's my boss. 😁 But she really made some stupid comments today, and she just doesn't listen to me. The way she chose today to attach the support pillars is so cumbersome and it's just more prone to errors. But I really try to explain to her how it could be done better very rarely because you really always talk to a wall, and then I tell myself again: It's not my house, and I don't have to live in it.

So I'm starting the weekend somewhat frustrated, but overall there have been enough moments of joy this week (joy + frustration = freudation, in case you didn't fully understand why the title is so strange this time). For example, today we had David's pizza for dinner, and it's really delicious....but I also know who will watch a movie in bed later and eat some Kinder Chocolate to improve their mood 😁

And with that, goodbye and see you next week

Samuel ✌🏽