Yesterday I was trimming a Bougainvillea which was creeping up a tree. I couldn't reach the highest branches, so I looked at the tools I had at hand. Nothing adequate, but in my naiveness I taped a saw to an extensible pole and it worked surprisingly well. I went through the rest of the garden clearing dead or awkward branches from trees.
The turn came for the avocado trees. I wanted to remove as much foliage as I could, since this helps trees produce a yield (these trees are almost sterile). When I was done I brought the axe that I had bought the same day, but I saw it was completely dull.
Fortunately some weeks ago, while clearing the front yard, I found a wet stone buried into the ground, so I fetched it to sharpen the axe. Soon enough I realized I had no idea what I was doing, so I watched a video on youtube and got myself at it with better knowledge.
As I was there sharpening the axe I looked up and saw my image reflected on the window: a bald, bearded muscular guy without a shirt polishing an axe. "I do not recognize myself", I thought, "but I actually like the guy I'm seeing". I decided the scene was worth a memento, I wanted to take a picture of myself.
I set up a chair and brought an old prosumer camera that a friend inherited me, but since I never use it I couldn't find the timer option, so instead I just chose to record myself polishing the axe. When I was done I thought: "Since I have nearly zero experience chopping wood, I might as well record myself doing it, so that I can improve my stroke". And so my first hits were hesitant, but as I gained confidence I had fun, I'll surely analyze the technique of the Basque lumberjacks.
Then I saw that I had tons of avocado leaves on the floor. These are used in Mexican cuisine because they're slightly fragrant. "Hmmm, I could cover the floor of the garden with them" and I put myself to work, removing the twigs so that they wouldn't be bothersome to walk on. But then I realized these surely trap moisture into the ground, so I watered everything throughly, and then had it covered in avocado leaves.
These activities took me the entire day, but were throughly satisfying. When the sun came down I went inside the house and sat down to think about my financial situation. A client recently ghosted early into the project (which is not a big deal in itself) but it leaves me with a two month runaway. I understood it was time to seek new clients and my heart sunk: I'm doing exactly what I want to be doing, I get up every day at 6am without an alarm clock because I look forward to my day.
Is there any way I can monetize my current passion? Well, if those avocado trees at least gave avocados I could sell them. But they don't. And I don't want to deal with logistics. But I have digital assets. I see: I ought to begin experimenting with documenting my garden activities. It's that or seeking new freelance projects, and I very much prefer the garden.
So today my task will be to finish documenting my garden activities. This is meant to be an experiment, to improve my documentation abilities so that when the runaway ends I can actually lift-off. Let's get started.