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Now that I have sent off the five items needed, and rushed a sixth project out the door on the Friday of a long weekend, I can tell you about a minor purchase I made to help me out with the wood splitting. I bought a fourteen inch handled hookaroon/pikaroon depending on where you come from, the names ever so slightly different, but it means the same took. A hook nosed beak made of metal, on a handle of varying lengths, that you use to pick up, and move around fire wood logs, and wood rounds. The point is to hook them and move them around without needing to bend down, bend over to pick them up off the ground. It does in fact work. What it doesn’t do is decrease the weight of the wood you are moving. So if you work heavy, shits still heavy bruh! You just don’t have to lean over for it now.

I picked mine up off of Amazon. I do not recall the name. I didn’t notice a logo burned into the wood, or stamped into the metal hook end, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one there. It has escaped my notice. But, my only gripe might be the handle length I chose, I feel it’s about six inches short. But I have access to wood, and tools, and can easily fashion myself a new longer handle. I’m not there yet, but I can if I choose to do so. Awesome.

I spent about an hour with it today. I added the rope to it so that I can hang it nearby when splitting, and so far so good. It feels solid in my hands. It digs in pretty well, but not too far. I do need to master how to pull it out in one smooth motion, because it sticks pretty well as it stands. That’s a “me” error, not a product issue. With extended use will come a sure hand to utilizing it properly. I’m happy. We will have to wait and see if the metal holds up over time, or if it will randomly shatter/snap off at some point this season. I hope it lasts for multiple years at peak performance, but we don’t design stuff like that anymore. Can’t get paid if they don’t keep on buying it over and over again. Again — have to wait and see.

The gnats were really trying to get at my eyes today, so instead of glasses I’ll need to switch over to goggles to stop them from bothering me mid swing. I don’t like the idea of being inattentive with an eight pound mail heading down to my legs/feet if I miss the rounds I’m swinging for the fences at. Not a smart move. They were gunning for my eyeballs like nobody’s business. Yuck.

I wasn’t prepared to put in more than an hour today testing out the new tool, but next week (provided it doesn’t shoot up into the 30’s Celsius out of nowhere) I can take some more time to get to know the hookaroon/pikaroon. I know people use them, so it makes sense to get into the habit of wielding it. If it saves my back a bunch of aggravation from leaning over, and bending then I’m all for it. Work smarter not harder right? Sounds like a plan.

Ok folks, have a fantastic Friday. Ciao Bella! Stay safe out there. Feel free to download my books for free. Also available on Kindle Unlimited if you wanna spend two bucks. Up to you. I’m just happy when I know folks are enjoying my own brand of nonsense.

Could do without all the gnats trying to fly directly into my eyeballs though, that wasn’t cool. Where was all this sun & warmth yesterday? They couldn’t spare just an additional four degrees for all day yesterday? Yikes.

I need to send a whole slew of art files off today, so I’ll keep this short. Wood splitting fun! Weather for today – lovely. Gnats, a pain in the ass. Grass to be mowed before the holiday weekend. Yesterday was cold. Work is good. Paid work is better. That is all.

A mild drizzle is falling off and on. Breezy with temperatures hovering around 3-5°C. A tad cool out here today. We’ve got chairs, blankets, sweaters, coats, and boots and it’s still sleeping into the bones. Eldest has done well so far with a 1st & 2nd place finish in her 100m, and 200 m heats. Finals are coming up soon, so then we will go get some hot food nearby.

The grass is wet, it has very briefly stopped raining, and we are looking around the place thinking of things to do once it warms up a little, and dries out a whole bunch.

I stumbled upon the squirrel the dogs killed the other evening, so I made an effort to launch the wee body into the deeper grasses away from where we normally walk. I’m sure one, or both dogs will find it once it starts to stink, but with any luck a fox or gaggle of geese will haul it away, or munch on it before we walk again. Lots of birds at the farm with the Rouge River running through the middle of it. Herons, turkeys, turkey vultures, ravens, crows, hawks of all sorts, cardinals, blue jays, finches, you name it they flit about the place in search of food incessantly. Surely one or more will take the squirrel corpse for a meal?

It’s a touch foggy today, so I’m sure my wife’s drive to work was all fun & games because of it. My youngest has her first of three government mandated “Swim to Survive” classes today at the local pool. I think that’s great. She can swim already, has had lessons almost every summer since birth just about. But why pass up the chance to get more life skills plopped on top? Doesn’t cost us anything. She’s looking forward to swimming with all her friends from class. I bet it will be a chaotic mess. Fun to watch, but awful to be apart of type thing. Ha!

I could do with it being slightly warmer, these single digits aren’t much fun. I’m not asking for much, but several weeks of sixteen, seventeen degree weather would be much appreciated. Mild sweater weather when not being active. Windows open to enjoy the breeze type weather. Still better than snow, but I could do with a handful of degrees more (right now).

No new major changes for the fruit trees as of yet. They look to be holding on, even though we’ve had a number of cold nights that got near frosty. It’s been pretty wet since I planted them, so they haven’t dried out, which is good. My goal for now, and June is to keep them alive, and not to expect any fruit. I want leaves, and growth for right now. Something that tells me the roots have found purchase, and that the trees will continue to grow if I leave them alone where they are.

I ordered a hookaroon to help me move bucked firewood rounds around at the farm. That showed up the other day. I am anxiously waiting to try it out. If it turns out I need a longer handle then I will make myself one. I think 14 inches should be enough to stop me having to lean over, bend down quite so much. We will have to see how well it works, and if it can take all of the wear & tear that chopping exacts on things. I am pessimistically optimistic. Ha.

Here we are — again, at the dentist’s office for a cleaning with my eldest child. We definitely need to get the youngest in here for a look see because she’s had a wiggly tooth for ages, and the adult tooth has come in underneath it, and chaos has ensued. It’s not pretty. Been trying to get her to wiggle & pull out the tooth herself, but I think we’ve exhausted that Avenue, and clinical professional help is what’s needed now. She will hate it, but it’s what is needed at this point.

It’s Tuesday today. Sun is out, and we had yet another low single digital night with frost. I got splattered in the eye with snowflakes yesterday while walking the dog at the farm, which was weird. Caught me by surprise. I thought I had been targeted by a bird with an air drop. Nope! Just flurries in double digit May days.

We have swim to survive this week, and tutoring, and volley ball, and Guides, and Climbing, and Taekwondo, and Track & Field day, and and and… It just goes on. By this point in the year I am so tired. Luckily by the first week of June almost everything will end, and we can recapture our evenings at home. I love that the kids get to try lots of things, but I do sit and yawn through most of it by 6:00 pm. I don’t drink coffee or tea, so I just have to live through it without help.

Depending on my inbox once this dentist visit is done I might take the dog to the farm for his morning walk. We had to curb it earlier today for the dentist. He will be pleased to get out and run around chasing squirrels. He’s currently moping on the couch like a sad little lump of puppy dog.

Took the whole family to Canada’s Wonderland for Mother’s Day, at my wife’s request. It was sunny, and bright, if a little on the cool side. The giga coasters take on a whole new level when traveling at 143Km in 12°C weather. Feels more like below zero whipping around on the tracks screaming out in joy! Brrrr. Very chilly. Thankfully the park wasn’t all that full, and the longest we waited for a ride was about fifteen minutes. I say that, but Alone Fury was still over two hours, so we skipped it this time around. It was windy out yesterday, so several rides would randomly close down for a bit, then open back up again later. Not a big deal, we have passes so we don’t have to make the utmost of every single second we’re inside the park. Thankfully.

It was a busy weekend. A birthday party on Saturday mid day, bleed into a group lunch across the way at Grillies in Newmarket which was excellent. I left a glowing review. My burger, onion rings, fries, and mixed meat tacos were delicious. 9 out of 10 stars. Do recommend it. Made to order so expect a ten minute wait, but brother, it’s good shit. Well worth it.

After that I took my eldest daughter to Golf Town to get her a new glove, replace my wife’s tees, get my daughter some tees, training soft balls for the back yard, and matching shirts because they were thirty bucks, and blue! So…yeah.

After that I went to move patio furniture for my inlaws, and move brush from the piles all over their property. Then dinner, and then I was up late because I couldn’t fall asleep. Woke up at 7:00 am on Sunday to order my wife her favourite breakfast for Mother’s Day, then we did five hours walking at Wonderland, followed by ordered in dinner from the China Garden place across town on main Street. Somewhere in there the girls had tubs, got their hair braided, watched movies, played on their VR headset, and spent time on their tablets too. The dog got a number of walks as well. It was a jam packed weekend. I’m tired from the weekend, and now I have to get back to paid work!

Domestic Duties Monday might have to wait another hour, until after I send some designs off for approval.

In keeping with the trend as of late, I picked up even more rocks. Here is the pile guarded by the one and only.

It’s Mother’s Day so I’ve gone ahead and ordered food that my wife likes for breakfast because I’m sure my kids are up, and awake playing on the VR headset. I haven’t heard any shouting, or stomping yet, but I get a sense there is movement upstairs. The dogs ears are moving around like antennas so something’s up. Food should be here soonish, if all goes well. I’m too tired to go out and grab it myself. I just could not fall asleep.

Today’s planned outing is very weather dependent. I need to get a sense of if the sun will come up, and stay out, and that any potential rain won’t fall until much later in the day. Doing an outdoorsy adventure if it’s too cold, or raining will ruin the experience. If that’s the case, I will just pack up the kids and leave my wife unbothered by us, so she can read, watch a movie, eat, or interact with her hobby free from our interruptions. We can walk the dog or go wander around a mall where there is food, and entertainment aplenty.

I’m coming up on my sixteenth wedding anniversary soon, so I should have a good idea of how many hours of freedom she’ll want before she feels either guilty, or abandoned. Three to four hours of self care time is kinda the sweet spot. Five hours isn’t bad either, but if I tell her upfront how long we will be she’s happier than expecting one amount, and acting accordingly, only to get a different one entirely. I don’t want her to say “If I’d known you were going to be gone for X amount of time, I would have done Z instead/as well“. We want to avoid that. At least I find if I know upfront how long I have, I can plan to make the most of it.

Foods here! Gotta jet.

I’ve been busy pulling up field stones this past week looking for a fossil to give to my kids. And, also to pull potentially damaging Lumos out of the corn fields to keep the farm equipment just a little bit safer. They’re put under a lot of stress, so I feel as though taking some giant honking rocks out of the way would only be beneficial to the process. But fear not! The next time they till the land it will appear as though I have not done a thing about the rocks, and I can start all over again. The ground will continue to heave up the rocks until well after we’re all dead, and buried.

Good exercise for the quads, as every time I lean down it’s to add more weight to getting up. Working on grip strength to pull up the lodged stones, and hold only the rocks as I walk back to my lone pile at the far end of the field. My ankles care not for the uneven ruts from the fall tilling.

It’s not rare to come across some broken pottery, my daughter’s find that sort of thing all the time. Usually not too dangerous, as it’s well weathered, and those sharp edges have been softened by time, and exposure to the elements.

I’m hoping to stumble across a crisp fossil embedded in a neat looking rock so that we can split it open and display it at the house. Bones would be cool too, but besides deer carcasses, or dead former pets, I don’t know if we’d come across anything too special in southern Ontario. These fields have been worked since the early 1,800’s so much has come out of them over the last two hundred years. You never know. Could discover something cool at some point.

We’re off to a birthday party soon, and then likely back to the farm to cut up some logs if the weather holds up. Seems as though rain is looming on many of the days in our two week forecast. A little drizzle helps to loosen the field stones from the mud. Dry hard packed soil feels a lot like cement if you can only get your finger tips on the bigger, more deeply set rocks. I’ll take all the help I can get from mother nature on this front. I’m not picky.

Mother’s Day plans are weather dependent, so that’s up in the air until we see what exactly tomorrow brings. But for now, the sun is up, the sky is blue, and it’s above zero degrees celsius. Actually it’s slightly above ten degrees celsius, almost tropical conditions considering the lows we had this winter!

Hope you have a glorious Saturday. Take care out there. Ciao Bella!

How it started versus how it’s going with the gathering of field stones. I’m still only working in one portion of one field, and I have amassed a decent little pile of stone. If I knew how to I would fabricate a sturdy little trolley or wagon with big puffy wheels that I could manoeuvre through the fields, and dump into my designated pile, instead of walking around with armfuls of stone, seeing all the rocks I have yet to gather in random spots around the field that I am not entirely likely to locate once more. A mechanized dump cart would be awesome for this task. Like those ride on mini dumps people use for backyard landscaping and pool digging. Out of my price range, but fun to imagine rolling through the fields gathering stones for a few minutes each morning, in the weeks leading up to planting, and the weeks after final tilling for fall/winter. It would be handy.  It would have to be a robust machine because once you start to fill it up that field mud would be very challenging to drive through once leaden down. Probably best I do it by the armful. Certainly getting some extra steps in each day that I do it.

All I can think of besides the rocks is getting my chainsaws down there to process the last logs, and then start splitting again before it gets too hot. Time is running out. According to my weather apps it should start to reach to low 20°C range by the end of next week. Soon after the humidity will come a knocking! Sweat city! Yuck. Only one pile is in the shade, and it’s not the bigger of the two remaining wood piles. Going to ruin a bunch of shirts, socks, and underpants by sweating through them after only an hour or two of hard physical labour.

I find as I get older I am more prone to heavier sweating than I have ever done in my life. Giant isosceles sweat triangle down my back. Huge put stains. Even a boob sweat, belly sweat combo to boot. It’s a ghastly sight to behold. Not my best look! But it means the work is getting done, and that’s ultimately what matters. Not how I appear while doing the labour.

Oh yeah that Home Depot Influenster Seed Program was mostly a bust. They sent me two defective codes, and the support was pretty awful. So don’t expect anything from me beyond that which I usually do. I still write my Canadian Tire, Amazon, and Home Depot reviews after purchases I’ve made, for the things I use, but I do not believe there will be anything for FREE products I would be sent for testing. I don’t believe it will happen anymore. I was well chuffed to be chosen, but it disappeared before it really ever began. No hard feelings. No love lost.

It’s Friday once again, and we are in May now. There’s a whole lot of new green outside which I am very thankful for. All that grey and brown over the winter just sucks the vibrancy out of every day life. Truly depressing. Not anymore! We have colour, and blooming flowers. A good portion of the tulips look to be alive and well. They may not bloom this year, but they lived through the winter, and didn’t get eaten by squirrels — yet.

I surpassed 750 days with my current writing streak, not only that but I have also got the second best viewership numbers here, and we are five months into the year. Which is pretty wild. Thank you all for that. I do not imagine I will have another 2,000 view month like last July when something of mine from the archives kicked off in Germany, but that was a rush to behold. I’ll remember that for the rest of my life! I never did figure out what got people so engaged with my older blog posts. It wasn’t negative because I find people are more easily persuaded to write hate mail than anything complimentary. No hate mail, so it must have been something silly, quirky, or informational (like a book review or movie/game review). Best to not know, that way I can’t be accused of pandering! Ha.

My trusty pooch watching the tree line vigilantly while I work to warn me of approaching coyotes or bears, or an angry big buck deer. I don’t typically see those until the fall, but times are weird out here. It threatened to snow this morning, in May!?! Can you believe it. I haven’t even put our Dahlias in the ground, nor the corn seeds, because of the threat of frost, and potential flurries. Nonsense! Hog wash. Crazy ass mother nature needs to simmer down. I fear we’ve tread too far, and nothing will act as it should, or used to do. But I digress. I’m no ecologist.

Hope you all have a fantastic Friday, and a refreshing weekend. Think about swapping out your winter tires soon!

Running all over the show today, picking rocks, walking dogs, fetching dog food & treats, hitting up the bank, working, getting a hair cut, mowing the lawn, and possibly delivering turtle boxes to someone in the Town Offices. Lots to do, best be off about my business.

The sun won’t last forever today, so I have an exploding clock on my hands, and a deadline that is looming several miles overhead. Can’t stay long. Hope your Thursday is both productive, and somewhat restful!

Got it all done, just waiting on my hair. If the weather can hold on for another hour I might even attempt the driving range! Whoo boy! What a full day. Had to eat lunch at 11:30 am because of all this running around. But you know what? Worth it. A bunch of things ticked off my list this morning, and I’m still ready to keep going. Throw it to me, I’m open, I’m open!!