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Pile number two is proving to be a real challenge, but luckily I found more rounds that would split, rather than not. It’s a real unpleasant bang when the maul bounces off the top of a log when you find one that doesn’t want to come apart because it’s not ready yet. That will make the old elbow joint sing for sure. DOING! Right off the top. It starts at the wrists, and ends in the elbows and shoulders. Not my favourite part.

But, when you get on a streak of logs that simply fly apart with a stern look it makes it so easy to just keep motoring on for the full 90-120 minutes. Today I’ve got the kids at home for the PA Day, so I had to cut it short because my kids were both over heating, and bored of picking raspberries while I focused on not permanently injuring myself with an axe. After the three plus inches of rain we had over the last two days it was really hot and sunny early today.

Pile two is in the full sun, no large walnut trees to block out the sunshine. Which means that once I got going I really started to sweat profusely. Oh! And so far my boot repair seems to be holding up. I didn’t notice any new issues so that makes me happy. Now 8 know that should the other boot sole come free I have the materials, and the learned experience to fix it competently. That’s a win in my book. Also no nails used as a last resort so that was a bonus too.

I got three big projects off & away, so as far as paid work is concerned we are all caught up, ready for Monday to begin anew. I have it on good authority that I have three more reports coming before the end of the year, which is great news. Would I like it to be six to ten of them? Yeah-sure. I like getting paid. But only if all my other clients pull back and do very little work of their own. I like a good mix of paid work. Keeps things interesting you know? Trying to do double digit reports as well as multiple piece advertising projects is really stressful. A true test of my time management skills. Prioritize and push through! Then crash in a heap come Winter Break! Ha. This is the way.

From the looks of it I can continue to split wood a few days a week for the next several weeks. Probably right up until the rains settle in for November. Because at that point it’ll turn to freezing rain or flurries, and out right snow accumulation. I’m not splitting in the snow by axe. I’d like to think that by then the hydraulic splitter will have surfaced and I can rock through all the too tough to split rounds, and scream & curse maniacally at them as they creak, crack, and twist under the rams pressure. Fuck you twisty wood knots!

So it’s Friday, and another week deeper into the school year. Most of the kids programming has started up, and we are neck deep & upside down in extracurriculars for both girls. Madness I say, complete and utter lunacy. Love it. Gotta fill up that belt display somehow!!!

What a rain it is. Likely to get several inches of rain this week alone. Going to refill the water table at this rate unless it all runs off because the soil was so hard packed, and unable to soak in the moisture. We lucked out with a much nicer Tuesday mid day, and Wednesday, so it’s hard to complain. I know my father in law had hoped of harvesting the soya beans this week, but it would have suited them better to try last week while it was hot, and dry as a bone. Perks of being a farmer is hindsight of twenty twenty.

So I’m all dressed up with no wood to safely split. I took the time to run a prescription over to the pharmacy, so I will grab that tomorrow. I have a stockpile for overlapping days because sometimes it’s good to have 7-10 days of medicine in your back pocket for unexpected delays or mishaps. I never want to run out and hope they have more on hand to refill my needs. That’s a risk not worth taking.

Sure has been humid the last four days. My dehumidifier has needed to be emptied at least twice per day. If I wake up and it’s full, it probably could go three times a day. I need a rain barrel to store it for the dryer weeks of the summer for watering the flowers, and keeping the pumpkins going. Bad year for pumpkins, at least for me. I got one viable orange pumpkin, and two early growth blobs, and one which got a reasonable size on the vine, then withered into a smelly puddle. In previous years I’ve had 8-10 with no major issues beyond the vines strangling out everything else around them. The vines were big, and strong, with lots of flowers, but hardly any fruit! So weird.

Works been busy this week for the first time in quite a while. Happy to have the work! Worked hours means invoices going out, and money coming in!

Not much to do but wait on feedback, and sit to listen to the rain. Making me sleepy.

**Edit: just been informed that we’ve had more than three inches of rain over the last thirty six hours, with still more yet to come. The kids Terry Fox run has been rescheduled for next week, so don’t pack up the running shoes and calorie gel packs just yet.

While at the farm splitting wood my heel came apart almost instantly, so that put a damper on both my mobility, and my mood. But fear not intrepid user, I do some modest leather working (yet another hobby) so I have Barge contact cement on hand, and at the ready. Luckily I had some old screws laying around to keep the two faces apart while the glue sets up. I don’t have a form to hammer on, so once the glue sets up and I apply the pieces together I will just have to stand still with the one boot on, to get it to adhere properly. I only need to do this for a minute or two, then I will take it off and allow the glue to continue curing over night. Otherwise I might have to resort to finishing nails, and duct tape! How fine!

I will be pleased as punch if this works. Besides how scuffed they are, the boots are in terrific condition as far as I’m concerned. I’m on my second set of laces, but the steel toes are great, the soles are intact, even if the one side came apart like the glue just fainted and evaporated this morning. “Oh dear, I have the vapours!” Poof! …and gone.

Well it’s Wednesday, hump day. I have some paid work to go take care of, and some volunteer artwork to submit for the fair APPR department, so I best get on it. Random hobbies are cool. Otherwise I would not have the best in class industrial contact cement on hand. Lucky me!

Not the best full figure, free standing sculpt I have ever done, but I’m happy enough with it to A.) paint it fully, and B.) display it in public for all to see. I have a few back up pieces I could have submitted if this one fell completely flat, but I think it has some redeeming qualities at least. If I had to do it over again, I would definitely make some adjustments, and different choices, but here we are. Beside my photography entries I am just about done. I might have some brownies to enter too, but we’ll see just how busy the lead up to the fair actually is.

As far as my usual sculpting goes this turtle is fairly plain. No major embellishments like detailed armor, or knick-knacks and pouches on the belt. No weapons even. I’m not totally comfortable working in epoxy, so I put it to rest once I’d had enough of working on it to make it at least feel somewhat complete as a thing. My paint job leaves much to be desired, but whatever. I don’t flog myself off in public as a painter. I like to paint, same as I like to sing, doesn’t make me much of either in the public eye.

It is Tuesday. I am moving ahead at a decent pace on my report, so that’s great. I had a heck of a day yesterday, getting through twenty of the thirty five pages I have left. Still a long row to hoe today, but at least I can see the end in sight! That’s gotta be worth something. Small early wins makes it easier to focus and stay on task. If it fights me every step of the way I am more likely to drag my feet and slow walk the entire project out of frustration. I could still need tomorrow morning, but that remains to be seen.

Tonight is climbing with my youngest, so I have until about 6:20 pm to work on it this afternoon. A long day, but potentially worth it to finish a first draft early in the week.

That’s a great way to start the week off feeling tired, drained, and under rested. It was a poor life choice, but I did get out and swim, walk the dog around the farm, do some paid work, and take my older daughter to the driving range yesterday. I did sit down to read at one point but had to stop just as it was getting really interesting, so picking up where I left off was top of mind all last evening. I had meant to just finish the chapter I was on, but ultimately I got carried away and read for a few extra hours beyond my bedtime. Rookie mistake. Poor choice for a Sunday night. You can get away with that on a Thursday through Saturday, but to be so early in the week and all ready tired is dumb. I regret it immensely.

So here we are back to Monday. I completed maybe just less than half of my report. Enough to feel like I got something done, but not enough to breeze through today, that’s for certain. Good news is no wood splitting until Wednesday (weather permitting). I can split in a drizzle, but not a down pour or electrical storm. So I will have to take a wait and see approach to my exercise plans, above & beyond the indoor rock climbing.

Luckily we did all of our laundry on Sunday afternoon, so I can finish my breakfast and drop full force into my latest report. It’s a little different from other ones we’ve done, so it’s taking a little longer to pull itself together, but I’ll get there. Slowly but surely it will start to coalesce into a cohesive document.

In other news I have confirmation that my passport documents made it to their destination late last week. I am hoping that five/six weeks lead time is enough for it to get produced without going over the expiry date. I’m under the gun if we want to do anything in late October this year.

Downloads of the book are leveling off, which is fine. I have no grand vision of being a late in life best selling author. The fact that more than one hundred and twenty plus people have downloaded both the first or second book is pretty awesome in my esteem. I hope they enjoyed parts, if not the entire thing. It was a labour of love over a few hard Covid years getting it all out together.

The kids are getting their 2025 Markham Fair entries out together. Those have to go in on Saturday or next Tuesday. The photos should be made ready in the next twenty four hours. I need to complete my painting project, otherwise all I will have this year are my photography pieces. I’d like to get my Ninja Turtle sculpt into the mix if I could.

I need to get working if I want the time to paint this week. Best of luck to you all.

Our main weekend plans were cancelled, so we kept our climbing session as scheduled, and my eldest had her pre-planned play date with friends that went forward, so we still did some things, just not a cottage run, and no Wonderland today. My body is tired from both climbing, and splitting wood for four or five hours this past week. My feet hurt and walking on concrete all day can be a bit much. Plus next week the Halloween Haunt begins so we will go enjoy that for some themed fun.

I have a large project on the books as of Friday afternoon, so that is my main focus for now. I also had some work come in via my second largest client which was a rush, so I needed to rearrange my day, to push their project up to the top of my priority list. Luckily I have seventeen pages of the report done as of last night, plus five or six pages of comments too, so now I can drill down into the body of the data sheets and plug along nicely. I’m trying to get myself to complete even more today so I’m not under the gun come Monday morning. Whatever I get done now, is something I don’t have to do during the week. I should put the fact we aren’t at Wonderland to good use by actually working. I’m just working up the drive to go and do it. Ha.

I saw a bunch of new furniture build videos dropped on YouTube so perhaps I’ll eat lunch, watch a video or two then work for a few hours this afternoon. Seems like a fair trade to me! Relaxing morning, with a family dog walk, and then a few dedicated hours of work to utilize my day properly now that nobody else wanted to go ride coasters in the sunshine.

Maybe we will hit the driving range later this evening as a reward for working so diligently! Best be kind to ourselves! Have a Funday Sunday.

Whether it’s your fingernails or toenails it doesn’t much matter. If you want a comfortable climbing experience, trim down your nails. Your fingers need to be done so that if you are pressing down really hard while you dangle from an extremely narrow ledge you don’t pull your finger nails off under the pressure of your body pressing down on the cuticle. It hurts. Don’t do that.

Also if you would like your soul crushingly tight climbing shoes to not leave you hobbling around, you need to cut your toenails otherwise the pressure of the near constant squeezing will make the inner most portion of your cuticle separate from the toe nail bed, and you’ll end up with bloody socks, and red blood filled lines across your toes.

Just a handy-dandy guide to having a much better time up on the walls, or while bouldering. You’ll know super duper fast if you have forgotten this rule of thumb. So, now I’m going to go inspect my fingers and toes, and get those lined up nice and tidy. Then it’ll water bottle filling time, and eating a halfway decent breakfast.

Have a great Saturday!

My right elbow is not very happy with me right as of this second, but I just about finished all I can do here at pile one. Next week we move on to pile two, the “we” being the dog and myself. Though next week we’ll be out in the open and not shielded from the sun by a gigantic walnut tree. Let us hope the temperature drops just a little. Not too much, but to hover between 18°C and 23°C is perfect for physical exercise outdoors. Perhaps a slight cross breeze might be of service. A boy can dream, can’t he?

My chopped pile doesn’t seem to grow much at all. I guess it’s spilling over to be a wider, but lower pile. I have to throw the pieces somewhere and lobbing them up over a taller pile seems like a waste of arm strength. I’m here building up shoulder, arm and grip strength, not trying to improve my shit out skills.

I’m starting to figure out what I need in order to continue on. More drinks was a big one, not just for me, but for the dog too. A plastic bowl for his water was a must. I did it out of a bark boat, but that seemed unnecessarily cruel. And at least one snack since I haven’t been having breakfast until 11:00 am. Or maybe the snack itself is breakfast. Either way — definitely need some food stuffs on hand to keep my attention on wood splitting, and not a growling stomach. The dog has his treats from our walk so he’s all sorted.

Now I’m going to stop until Monday because rushing through all of this wood isn’t going to do me any good. Then I’ll just have to sort out another physical chore to keep me occupied until work picks up in the fall. I’d turn my eyes back towards golf, but that requires spending money on tee times, golf carts, balls, tees, and beverages on the courses. Not that I’d turn down an offer to go whack a few for a morning, but it’s belt cinching time.

I’m going to go ice my elbow and have a shower. Take care out there. Ciao Bella!

And boy are my arms tired.

Took a moment to stage a tidy little photo sesh right by the pile there, looking sharp. Found a number of rounds that 8 just could not crack at all. My pile for the hydraulic splitting is growing rather fast. Or, now hear me out here, I might just be tired, and weak in the shoulders and back, and thus — cannot split some of the tougher, wetter rounds that haven’t developed much by way of internal cracks I could exploit for splitting. I do not doubt for a second that a stronger person wielding a heavier and sharper maul could waltz on by and split these without a second thought. I’m not there yet, so my take on it is, yeah! Ok, fine I’ll set you aside for now. Maybe by October I will have the power, or desire to split them myself in a second attempt.

My current pile is getting bigger, and bigger, and bigger still. If I make the effort tomorrow I might just exhaust the supply around pile one. Which isn’t really a problem per se. I had hoped that more of it was ready to go, but half of it is too long. I can’t be arsed to split logs that are over thirty inches long. I can barely roll them, and have zero chance to get them up on the block myself. Then the chopping angle is way off, practically cutting off my entire swing. So those will get left to be cut down further for another day. There are full four or five foot limbs in the pile, I’m not touching those, and the rest is too new. Very wet, and has no signs of checking or cracking that I need to map out my plan of attack on each round encountered.

At 60-90 minutes a session I don’t really need to go all that hard each time I stop by to split wood.  I’m trying desperately to do two things at once, be helpful, not get hurt, and exercise so I can be proactive with my weight loss. If I can inhibit my evening snacking, and stop pounding multiple cans of pop every single day, I should slowly start to come out on top of this thing. I’m still walking the dog, and working my day job. We’re back into the swing of climbing twice a week, so with any luck, and common sense, I should start to see the numbers on the scale drop slightly over the next few weeks. I do not know if I plan to keep splitting into November. Depends on the piles, and how slow I move through the rest of September and all of October.

I recently had John Scalzi’s new book delivered by Amazon (forgot I saw it and ordered it months ago) as a very pleasant surprise. I have given it a few minutes even though I am technically reading a Jason Pargin book right now (I’m beginning to worry about this black box of doom), but this is thinner, with larger text, and is pretty snappy. I can interrupt one book to read another. I’m doing that with Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn, with the Jason Pargin book as we speak. Triple split, it’s like book inception over here. The sooner I finish one, I can finish the other and get back to Mistborn and it’s deeper world building. Which sometimes I love, and other times I just want a story to get rolling without pages upon pages explaining a new world or magic system to me. But I digress.

So that’s my Thursday as of eleven am. Take care out there. Enjoy yourselves. Ciao Bella!

I started with about an hour on Friday morning, and I did get a number of rounds split, so I felt that was a success. I said I was going to start, and I made a pile large enough to be seen from the lane. Then my bicep began to ache and I had climbing 24 hours later so I stopped.

Today I managed a full 90 minutes of splitting, and my bicep is once again singing in pain for my troubles. But less so. I thought after climbing last night without it hurting I was going to be able to get through today’s chunk of splitting without any problems. Not so! But I gave it a rest before I aggravated it too much, so let us hope that when I go back tomorrow (weather/work permitting) I can keep my arm from wanting to fall off.

I think I tore some of my bicep a few summers ago when I pruned the top 8 feet off of the back hedge row. I did two inch plus main trunks with a cheap pair of loppers meant to do inch, inch and a half limbs. My god did my one arm hurt for weeks after that. Now with vigorous exercise that bicep gives me a wee bit of trouble. I just didn’t want to have to hold two different cutters, and a hand saw, and my hedge trimmers while balancing on a 2ft by 2ft platform. Now my arm aches after I use my bicep muscle too hard. Gotta love aging!

I do not believe that I will get through all of the wood, but it gives me something to aim towards, and I’m getting exercise, and the dog is having the time of his life chasing whatever he can find. Plus this stuff will get burned at the cottage for maple syruping, so it’s a win for everybody. I have encountered a handful of rounds that I just couldn’t split by hand. So those I am setting aside in case a hydraulic splitter ever makes an appearance at the farm. There aren’t many, but after 8-10 whacks with no split, or dents or nothing I am not too proud to just set it aside. They win this round! But I’ll best you yet believe you me. Ha! Fuckers.

The next step will be retrieving bins to load all of this into so that it can be transported north to the woodshed for further drying. Once I move to the next pile over in front of the barn I’ll need to be more strategic because stuff needs to be able to come & go from the ground floor of the barn without being impeded by myself or the split wood. I might just work partially out on the grass to make way for vehicles and the like. I have a few days before I need to worry about that anyway. I’ll give it some thought closer to then. For now I’m shaded under a gigantic walnut tree, and out on open grass. With room to park and work without restriction. It’s quite lovely really. Doing it for free means I can come & go as I please and move at my own pace. Love it!