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Three and a half more. I have chopped more wood than I initially realized. Might have found a bit of a groove, such as it were.

So now I have a dilemma. With all four bins filled up, and split wood left over still on the ground waiting for a place to go, what do I do now? Do I keep on splitting and try to stack it up against the barn to get it out of everybody’s way, or do I stop splitting wood entirely. It’s not exactly fun, but I was enjoying myself a great deal. I like being outdoors on my own volition, and it gives me time to think about random shit whilst I mindlessly swing an axe. I’m getting exercise, fresh air, and kinda helping out a little bit, if you can call it that.

I did misplace my wedge today though. I cannot find it in the car, so when I used it yesterday I must have left it in the wood pile. Hopefully 8 find it tomorrow morning, or later today. It’s bright orange and about 55 cm in length. Not quite six inches long. It’s pretty beat up by now, so it might match the wood pile debris.

I don’t really have plans for anything else to do to kill time, get exercise, help out, and is mostly already paid for. I bought the axe(s), and the wedge, replaced my boots, and insoles, and have a pair of comfortable work pants, a decent belt, and a light jacket for the cold mornings. I’m all set, ready to go. Seems a shame to give up now that I’m on a roll with it.

I think I will take the holiday weekend to think about it. My eldest has a cross country meet on Tuesday which I want to go and see, so by next Wednesday morning I should have some sense of what I want to do. I’m so close to completing what I could in pile Two, I might just do it, and stack the wood by hand in the corner so that I can at least say I finished all that I could there. Tidy up the space a little bit too. Make it not such an eye sore. That seals it. Done. Made up my mind. That was easy.

It’s Friday today, so I need to cut the grass. I might surprise the girls by putting out our Halloween inflatables today too. See if that makes it feel more like spooky season! I’m going to finish my breakfast, then back outside I’ll go to get that done. Ciao Bella.

**WARNING GRAPHIC TMI ABOUT TO OCCUR IN YOUR FIELD OF VISION.

Taking NyQuil is like giving myself a colonic. Just vile stuff making its way out of me. Like dirty radiator water. Puddles of farm stall mud dribbling away like some mad man’s disease ridden hour glass. If it didn’t work so well at getting me to sleep through the night it would be several steps too far as far as medicine is concerned. I’m leaking like a Taco Bell meat gun dispenser over here. Feels like a gas bubble & a pebble have lodged themselves on top of the Push button for the garbage shoot of the human body, but I ain’t got no trash to go out anymore capiche? It’s all gone. Leave me alone. You’re flogging a dead horse here baby! Golly gee whiz mister IBS/Crohn’s Disease sure don’t sound like fun. No siree bob. Add in some tenderness from bloating, and a nose that’s running like a faucet and you’ve got yourself a case of Con-Crud, or public event illness where sick kids passed you by sneezing, coughing and being biological weapons of intestinal destruction. In a round about sort of way that is. No biggy. Just down four pounds today as a result… Yikes!

Oh boy! Was it ever tense, but the boys in blue have secured for themselves a trip to the ALCS! This hasn’t happened since 2015, and I was very sick with EB, and stuck in the isolation wing of our local hospital for eight days. I think they thought I had SARS, or MERS or some sort of COVID-19 type thing from out of China. The CDC people asked me about 100 times if I’d traveled to China, or had been with anybody who had. I had a sinus infection that depleted my immune system and I picked up EB from a walk in clinic visit. It was an ugly nine weeks, plus recovery time. But… He gets around to saying finally, on my last night in the hospital I was allowed to wander into the third floor patient lounge (alone) to watch the final game where we lost to the Kansas City Royals in game five. A tragedy. Perhaps we can remedy that this year with a trip to the World series! We haven’t won since the 92-93 back to backs. Could have done a three-peat but the league had a lock out, and the team disbanded several key components of the winning group. Shame that.

While I do currently have a sore throat, and the early sneezing stages of a cold, I am healthy enough to enjoy the ALCS from the comfort of my own home. The Blues get a couple of days rest as the deciding game for their opponent runs on Friday evening. Next week is going to be a tense one! I had such a tough time falling asleep after the win last night, even with the NyQuil coursing through my veins like a ten tonne truck. The adrenaline was counter acting the cold meds mightily.

Cold morning, with frost on the ground and only 3°C here. I wasn’t convinced I was going to split any wood today, but I eventually came around to it. I did another 90 minutes though I started later after fixing my wife’s tire, and taking a longer walking route through the pumpkin patch with the dog. Now that the bean portion of the field is done I don’t feel bad with the dog & I traipsing through the field standing on stuff. Tell you the truth, now I feel as though I want to take a nap. I’m exhausted. And hungry. But mainly tired. These ball games go so late into the night. Bye-bye Yankee Doodle dandies.

The stack of rounds is slowly but surely turning into a pile of split wood, fit for the pit. Fire pit that is. This pile is much nicer than the first one which has very stinky diseased wood in it, which you can smell from about 40-50 feet away, down wind of course. I put in a full 90 minutes today. Found a good number of chunks that did not want to come apart — at all. I eventually relented from swinging my axes, and resorted to using the wedge. Whacked it so much I broke a piece of the shock absorbing cap off the mini sledge 4 lbs mallet I use. Still in working order, I do believe the cap is a cosmetic piece. At least I hope it is.

So that has been my Wednesday morning. One early morning drop off for the second last cross-country practice, then another drop off thirty minutes later for the actual start of school. A quick pit stop back at the house to grab a jacket because right degrees Celsius in indirect sunlight is actually pretty chilly. Wandered down to the farm for a breezy dog walk, and then 90+ minutes spent on the wood pile. Now I’m home, and I can turn my attention back to the house, lawn, leaves etc…

Speaking of the lawn, I need to cut the grass before the kids and I can put all of our Halloween decorations up. I bought a new light timer so I don’t have to mess with the cords by hand once it’s set (until we have a power cut that is) and we can start to gear up for spooky season once Thanksgiving is done this weekend.

Oh my! My hand is sore, I really gave the wedge what for today, and my hand is aching because of it. We had climbing last night, my youngest & I, so that usually adds to my hand/forearm tenderness, and general tiredness. Came home feeling a bit off, couldn’t stay awake through the whole Jays game, but they were down 9-6 in the middle of the eighth so I went to sleep. Slept poorly, and today I have the early stages of a sore throat, so that is where I’m at. I gave myself two good friction burns up on the climbing walls yesterday. A teenie tiny one on my left hand, and a bigger one on the inside of my left knee that I seem to bang off of everything, and it woke me up whenever I rolled over in bed and touched it. I may be cranky! Definitely not the best mood.

I don’t see myself being able to work on pile too beyond Friday. Two more days should just about finish up all the rounds that I am capable of doing manually, and without a splitter. If I had a sizeable ram I could crush the shit out of all of the available wood (excepting logs, and too long/heavy chunks). But I do not have the money to buy one, and no real need for it. If we depended on this wood for all three family units to survive each winter, then yeah! Of course, shell out the dough don’t be stupid, but this is exercise, and modest site clean up while I’m at it. A splitter might help build lifting muscles, and grip strength, but I want my arms, shoulders, core, and back, and my legs to be involved. I can’t remain pear shaped for too much longer or I’ll develope additional health issues as I age.

I’m all over the place today. The lack of sleep really does have some serious knock-on effects for me. I just can’t function with little, or no sleep. Interrupted sleep is just as bad. I put new sheets on the bed, thought that they’d be a welcome change. Nope. No better for sleeping than my raggedy old worn through sheets set. Fodder for my shop rag bag now though. The old sheets that is. I toss & turn a lot, and wear through my sheets semi regularly. The more you know!

Being physically drained from splitting wood, climbing, and dog walking isn’t giving me any better of a night’s sleep. I had high hopes that I would just crash once the lights go out, but nope. Maybe the Jays game has me on edge? We get to relive it again tonight, so there’s that to look forward to.

So I got to splitting wood at the farm, after school drop off, and the dog walk, then realized (only as the sweat was streaming into my eyes that is) that I failed to bring a drink for myself or the dog, and I packed myself no breakfast either. Still did 45 minutes, but had to call it off early because I don’t do dehydration. I’m getting too old to beat my body up that badly and expect no ill effects. Shame because the rains had held off and it was just a warm drizzle. But I’ll get’em next time I’m sure. Still lots to split so going lighter for a day won’t ruin anybody’s plans.

Plus I had paid work to submit this morning, so I started it last night and completed it this morning before I normally would. Good vibes all around. Speaking of good vibes let us pray that the third Jays game in the ALDS goes off without a hitch tonight. I sure would love to see a clean sweep of the Yankees if they can swing it. I sure would love that.

Today is garbage day so my head was in the recycling, garbage can delivery mode, instead of thinking about chopping wood. I thought the rains would be heavier this morning, so I really didn’t think I could do any splitting today. I still should have brought food & water because now I have to wait until tomorrow to go back down there to do more. I have it on good authority that the temperature is to drop about ten degrees or more, so it’ll be chillier mornings from here on out.

It’s Tuesday today, so act accordingly. Ciao Bella!

What a wonderful weekend it was, but oh boy! Does the fair leave us all feeling fatigued afterwards. My goodness. All that extra walking, talking, and standing around waiting on our kids to ride the midway in the hot, hot sun for hours on end. It’s a fantastic time of year, but I’m glad we only do it once per year! Holy-moly.

The splitting is moving along at a halfway decent pace. I feel lucky when I find several rounds that want to come apart easily, because when I have to spend twenty plus minutes hacking away at one round just to resort to my wedges it can feel like I’m not getting anywhere with the wood pile. The growing length and height of the pile tells me otherwise, but you know how it feels when things just aren’t flowing like you know they can be. Irritating, frustrating, and straight up maddening to be hung up on a single piece of wood for the better part of an hour. I’d much prefer they come apart with each whack so I can visibly see progress being made. But, I sorted through the pile and located some new bits to wait on when I head over tomorrow morning. Unless it’s raining too hard, then I guess I’ll focus on laundry, the floors, and cleaning the kitchen, because fair weekend produces a lot of additional required clean up.

Today I managed about 75 minutes of splitting before the sweat was pouring down my face, and stinging my eyes. We are expecting yet another October day to reach up into the high twenties Celsius. 26°C to be more precise. It was 28°C yesterday, and was slightly higher than that in Markham. Made for a warm walk at the farm with the dog at 11:00 am, after I had gone to do some grocery shopping earlier in the morning. I do like the sunshine, we need it to be dry in order for my father in law to get the beans up out of the various fields. The combine heads were acting up,cso they’ve been delayed — again, not just in getting to the beans, but my FIL has been sick too. Both an eye & ear infection all at the same time. He sounds rough.

I will say that I don’t particularly care for logs with loads of knots, and or limb bases on them, because they are so fibrous, and tightly packed that it feels like hammering on concrete. My elbows and wrists complain a lot when I come across those kinds of pieces.

I have suitable boots, gloves, jacket, socks, and goggles for the task. I might think about buying myself a reasonable pair of work pants because the 36’s are falling off me while I work, and the belt isn’t doing much to keep them in place. I should have gone with the 34’s when I bought these pants two or so years ago now. But it looked like my weight was trending upwards fast at that point. I didn’t want to outgrow the waistline while I wasn’t being very active. Now that I climb twice per week, and walk the dog every day, and try to split wood at least three times per week I’m not trending upwards, but I’m also not really losing weight, or inches off my waist, or anything of that sort. I eat like shit, is my problem. But good tasting food is better than being thin feels, so here we are. I suppose suspenders might keep the pants from falling down, whilst simultaneously making me look twenty years older than an I am. So there is that option. Lean into the grey haired look. Ha.

Second load of laundry is in the wash. I have forwarded all of last week’s projects to the appropriate people, and I am building out a rendering as we speak. I might just break for lunch, and see what else the day brings me. Ciao Bella!

As I am totally wiped out from standing at the fair while my daughter and her friend rode rides on the midway for seven or so hours yesterday. I caught the sun a little too, so my face was a bit red after my shower last night. Felt great to get the dust off my skin though. This morning I am sleeping in, and have the dog as company while I do so. My wife is working the Photography section this morning, and I believe the kids went with her to help out, and spent some quality fair time alone with their mum. This is the first year in my memory that I can think of where my wife did not spend all Friday evening, and all day Saturday at the fair. I think she was a little out out about missing it because of our kids programming, and a birthday party, and my youngest general apathy towards the fair in general. The kids are too little to leave home alone in order for us to go on a date night to the fair without them. Won’t be long now though. Another year and my oldest will be nearing twelve, and she can take her babysitters course, and watch her little sister for a couple hours during the day without worry. It will be glorious! I shout FREEDOM!

Besides a dog walk, and some groceries I’m keeping this day as relaxed as possible. I am exhausted. Missed the Jays ALDS series opener last night too. But they won 10-1 against New York, so w00t-w00t! The Leafs lost 6-5 in overtime to Detroit, so not everything sports related was roses last night.

I need breakfast. Have a day.

Means today is going to be a long one folks. We start off the day with some dog walking, and then the three of us will go climb for 90 minutes deep in Markham, then the youngest is off to a swimming birthday party at the community centre pool, and my eldest and I will then go spend ten or so hours at the fair with different groups of friends. It’s going to be an awful lot of standing, walking, and sunshine for us today. I might even head over to the Agri tent to check on my butter carving that won me first place in the adult division, and best in show for the whole event. I’m still riding high off of my win(s). I have my ribbons and rosette proudly displayed by my computer in my studio/office space here at home. Oh what a feeling!

We did not go last night, for the first time in two decades. The kids had volleyball for two hours so we decided against rushing around to try to do too much in one evening. We have a fair few hours today to go and enjoy it, and we can go tomorrow too, unless we want to go to Wonderland for larger coasters, and Halloween themed fun.

Happy Saturday to you all, we made it through another week of work. Speaking of which, mine has started to pick up a little, which is really great. I am thankful for that. It’s good to know I have double digit hours under my belt after just four days of the month. And at some point in the next three months I will have three more reports to do too. Not going to lie, this year had some pretty major slow spots where things ground to a halt, for weeks on end, likely 11 or 12 weeks at that. Budgeting is king when it gets that quiet.

I did buy myself new boots in the end, you knew I would. Found a comfortable pair with good soles, toe caps, and for under $200.00. I replaced the insoles for something with more cushion, and now I can go back to chopping wood for fun feeling a little safer about my toes, and the axes I’m swinging about. Mornings are getting chilly, so I’m working up a sweat as I break down pile number two. I will not be able to do the whole pile because some of the wood there is just too oddly shaped for me to safely split with an axe. I have more than 10 hours into both piles now. Building up a solid mound of fire wood. Free exercise and a longer dog walk each morning seems like a win-win to me.

I will head back to Pike one to do the last portions there that I walked away from. I might have to wait on pile three until next year, because work has picked up a bit now, and I need those hours to be spent at the computer, and not in a field wielding an axe. We will see if the increased work load continues on at a steady pace. I might be able to split on just two or three mornings each week, leaving the other days for fuller office hours instead. I’ll figure it out.

The Markham Fair Second Annual Butter Carving Competition Sponsored by Gay Lea was held Thursday evening at 7:00 pm, in the Agricultural tent near the Livestock Arena.

Both my eldest daughter and I entered this year. She entered the very first year it was held, which was 2024, and had had a great time. So this year I came prepared with a handful of tools of my own that I favour when working in clay at home.

To our surprise we both placed within our respective divisions. My daughter achieved a second place finish in the children’s category, behind last year’s winner, and the oldest in the bunch.

I achieved a first place finish in the adult category, and also took home the best in show rosette, the first I have ever won, and I will proudly display it in my office studio space for all to see should they like to. We were both pleased as punch with our results. My piece was a fair diorama consisting of two hay bales with a jack-o’-lantern pitched on top, with leaves and a stem on top. Several skulls littered around the pumpkin, a set of vines with flowers/leaves, a Markham Fair billboard sign, a 181 years tombstone, and a field mouse poking out from behind the pumpkin & tombstone. I had some grasses, and faux flowers scattered about too. Butter is a tough medium to work in, so I have to give credit to all of the other sculptors whom entered, and brought their A games to the tables.

Part of my winnings was a gift bag that contained a hat, gloves, socks, two hockey pucks, two pens, a deck of playing cards, a tape measure, gift certificates for dairy products (fancy cheeses from closer inspection) and a lovely plaid fleece heavy pile throw blanket all in a carrier bag.

The children’s category was for twenty minutes (20 mins), the teen category had thirty minutes (30 mins), and the adults allowed forty five minutes (45 mins) to create something that was themed as either: Farm, Fair or animal. My daughter produced a lovely pumpkin in her allotted time.

All three first place finishers, and I think also the second, and third place finishers will have their butter carvings on display in the agri tent for the remainder of the fair, so until Sunday October 5th, 2025 if you’d care to head over and see them in person.

To all those whom asked me to enter the Royal Winter Fair butter carving contest I say… You know I just might have to think about it! Ha-ha.

Other than they do not owe me anything, it’s been a great run, and now I have to release you in to your eternal rest period. I am sad to see them go after they have been a part of more than 50% of my life. Through thick and thin they covered my feet, and kept my ankles sturdy as well. I will reclaim the laces, and send them off to their final resting place soon enough. It saddens me to see them go. They merely hold sentimental value, and are not a high enough quality items to send to a cobbler to breathe new life into. For that I shall mourn. Boo-hoo.

So today instead of chopping wood I will try on various pairs of new boots, mid tier or lower, in an attempt to replace those I have just lost to an exploding sole, shed stitching, weakened adhesive bonding, and old age. My WorkPro’s have come to the end of the road. I need steel toed boots so I don’t lop off a toe when swinging my axes around like a fool on the farm, and elsewhere. I don’t require top of the line boots because I only need to wear the new ones for 60-90 minutes 3-5 days a week (when paid work is slow, and it’s not winter, raining, storming out, or too hot!). That’s a long list of conditions I won’t work outdoors in, so these new boots don’t have to be the envy of every working joe who sees me in them, right?. Exactly. Comfortable and safe, offers protection, but no other bells and whistles. Sounds about right.

It’s Thursday today, so that means opening night of the fair, volunteer ride night, and our butter carving competition. I look forward to all of it. The radar says we are in for several more great sunny days, so that should be a boon for the Markham Fair 2025. See you all there! There’s something for everyone.