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.
Don’t let the grey hair fool you, my knees don’t click when I kneel down. They just buckle.
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.
Guard dog on duty while I hump rocks out of the fields by hand. (Fig 5.)
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.
Updated rock pile with today’s additions! (Fig 1.)
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!!
Bright morning for a dog walk with my wife’s aunt, and Gracie-Mae! (Fig 2.)
While it might not look like much, I am happy to report that all four trees have begun to display new leaves that have opened up from formerly sealed buds. It has taken nine days but I think the rains, sporadic sunshine, and the moist soil has given the trees a helping hand in becoming established in our yard. I for one am excited to see what becomes of them late next summer. Will they bear fruit after one full year here? I hope to find out. I have enough fertilizer sticks left over after planting to give them all one more next April in hopes of the trees producing for us.
I know my spouse isn’t too keen on how many trees I have here on the property, but now the majority of them should be fruit bearing, so that’s gotta count for something! I can just as easily remove the two trees I transplanted a year or two ago because our yard is very exposed from some angles, and I had plans for giving ourselves more privacy. Which, now that we have the new fruit trees seems like a bit much, but I hemmed and hawed over these trees for so long I didn’t know I would go get them all one year later (or there abouts).
I may still prune the front maple trees to open up some space for us to play catch, or try some badminton out on the lawn. The lower branches hang way too low once leaden down with a full complement of leaves. Gets in the way. Especially since my kids are getting taller, throw harder, and want to lob the ball up higher into the air. Can’t do that with a low canopy of leaves brushing our faces!
Plus it would allow ever so slightly more light through for the hostas and the tulips, and peonies. I think our tiny Daylilies would appreciate some more sunshine, and directly falling rain. The variegated maple does too good of a job shielding the ground from both the sun and rain. The drop line is too far out from the centre for the little plants to get fresh rain water. It has to pour for days on end for it to actually reach them. And for us, in our summers, that’s a rare occurrence.
If I cared half as much about the lawn as I do the fruit trees we’d have a golf course looking green lawn. But as it stands out grass is made up of grab grass, dandelions, creeping Charlie, thistles, and any other number of ugly, non grass related vegetation. I’m still not going to do anything about it. I care about trees, not the grass. The only reason I keep it short is because I hate ticks.
In another couple of weeks the Apples and Cherry trees should start to bloom, and look lovely as ever. Then the scented Lilacs will come out just in time for my wife’s birthday, and my niece’s birthday too.
The kids asked for the swing and the slack line to go up again this year, so we’ll see how much they actually bother to use each one this spring, summer, and fall. Doesn’t take long to assemble, or to pack it away so it’s not a hassle. I’m just interested to see how much they will use it when they have friends over. My guess is not as much as I would like, but off and on they’ll both dangle, and do flips off of it. Kids! Gotta love’em.
I have only stopped to pick up rocks on three occasions now, but my pile at the end of one garden continues to grow steadily. Just five minutes on our morning walks (when there isn’t a storm or downpour) and I can usually come out with at least one, if not two armfuls of stone, rocks, and small boulders that can weigh up to about twenty five to thirty pounds. Before too much longer I will need to have a small pry bar with me because I can only do so much with my finger tips. The soil is drying out and these stones are stuck hard. Lots are scratched up pretty good from the farm equipment grazing over top of them. Besides keeping busy on a small, and repetitive task, I hope to save said farm equipment from damage, even just a little bit less wear and tear can help out. They’ll be out there prepping for seeding soon, and a whole lot more rocks and stones will be churned up in the wake of their preparations.
It was sixteen degrees and sunny this morning, so much warmer than I was expecting. I had on my hoodie and a jacket, but I was starting to sweat! Although now the rain looks to be coming this afternoon instead of this morning. I wonder if my daughters run club will still operate if it’s absolutely soaking wet outside. It’s the last class so maybe it will still run? Just not if we have any lightning.
Good news on the fruit tree front, at least one week onwards. The trees look to have taken to their new homes. Green leaves and fresh buds are awakening. I have watered them using my rain barrel, so that’s proving to be a worthwhile addition to the house too. I might have misjudged the hose length I needed by about a full foot, but I can make do. It works well enough. If they’d had a thirty food inexpensive hose I would have opted for that over the twenty five footer I bought. Still works, and the trees are getting water every other day if it doesn’t rain. Trying not to drown them, but keep the soil & roots moist so that they can establish themselves properly. I wait with baited breath.
I recently took this children’s play set down, transported it to Grandma’s side yard, and set it up there. Now my four year old nephew can use it, and so can the neighbours grand daughter. It was not getting any use in our yard. I kept various sports balls inside it up off the grass for ease when mowing. But the dogs chewed them all up, so now I no longer care about saving those balls from the lawn mower. Speaking of which, I should have cut the grass yesterday, but I worked outside, and took my wife to brunch instead.
The thing about picking up rocks is, you never really know how many you will get, and every time somebody tills the land you will likely discover more. So while I may fill a few buckets now, there will still be more in the fall, and next year, and the year after that. On and on it goes. We could rebuild walls with this stuff, instead we line the walls of the drainage ditch with our found field stones, or fill holes on the tractor path across the creek. Keep it passable but not interrupt the flow of water, or the passage of fish.
Soon enough I’d like to head back with my saws and get the last several logs processed. Then I can spend an hour each morning splitting wood before we get those hot, humid summer temperatures again. I’ll then have to park it until September/October, and maybe November (unless it starts to snow immediately as of November 1st, like it did last year. Stopped me cold in my tracks)
Wood and rocks. Simple, repetitive chores that you can take as seriously, or as lightly as you’d like. Just the right kind of thing I enjoy. The longer I’m around the wood piles the clearer it is to me that I could be at it for years plural. I guess if you were doing eight hour days you could probably get to it this year, but I’m not looking for a second full time, but more importantly, unpaid job. No thanks. Hard pass. Hobby is just fine.
I did not sleep well last night. The dog crept off of his blanket and rammed himself right up against the back of my legs. So I was both hot, and stuck in one spot. I move this dog several times and he always winds up right against me. One of these days he’s going to have to sleep in his crate so that he doesn’t bother me, my spouse, or my kids in their beds in retaliation for being removed from snuggle privileges. I love the wee bastard.
Had to pop out for both gas and engine oil for my wife’s car. It’s getting to the point where we seriously have to consider a newer car. This one has broken down several times in the last six months alone. To the tune of a couple of thousand bucks. Not ideal. Buying a new car in this economy isn’t all that good for us either. We’re committed to traveling to see family, so yet another hit to the wallet is less than ideal. Yay!
This weekend flew by so fast. Yesterday was a bit of a blur. I was still exhausted from Saturday night’s festivities down the road. Luckily the house party was only ten doors down, if that. Gotta love having friends so nearby. Saw a bunch of old friends from the kids school. Had a great time catching up with everybody.
Now it’s back to work, school, and our regularly scheduled programming. Speaking of programs, I located SAS Rogue Heroes on Amazon Prime and have enjoyed watching the first season. I’m still not done yet. Alfie Allen has only just died, so I’m not too far into the series. It’s good though. I recommend it highly.
Oof. I am tired. I rarely stay up that late, and it’s been two years since I last hit the dance floor. Feeling it today. Legs and abdomen are feeling all of that extra flailing about, whilst I cut a rug! Went climbing early yesterday too, so my shoulders and forearms are a touch on the tired side too. A good time had by all.
Oh! Yes, we determined that the sixth fish, our only yellow gippy was most like eaten by our Plecostomus after it died spontaneously earlier in the week. Mr P is the largest fish in the tank now, so unlike when we first got gish, and some didn’t acclimate to our tank conditions, we no longer get bodies floating, or sunk to the bottom of the tank. Mr P now has all of that covered. I just hope he doesn’t decide to hunt down the rest of the tanks inhabitants.
I did Infact get out to Golf Town yesterday to grab my recently repaired golf club. It feels slightly heavier than I remember, but the length to the club head is still the same, and I opted for the same rigidity, because it felt good with the original stiffness. I did buy a slightly fatter grip so I can hold it a little looser, I’d like to take it to the driving range this month and see if it’s still the best feeling club in my bag. I hope I get years of use out of it, and that I don’t snap the head off again knocking balls around at the range.
It’s oddly cold these last few days. I had to keep the large bonfire at the farm going to add some heat to the big Apple orchard. My wife’s uncle and I carried several logs over to the pit to get the coals reignited. Left it going so they could try s’mores later on that night. I bet it’ll be smouldering when we take the dog for his walk.
I didn’t drink, but being up late still makes my body feel hung over. I don’t miss that! Luckily my no drinking means no hang over, bubble guts, or nausea. That’s a big old win in my book. Fun time at a party and no take home spinning bedroom or ill effects. It’s the tits! I just need to sneak in one extra 8 hours of sleep to overcome the exhaustion of the dancefloor. No biggie.
In an ideal world you still get paid, but have no customers, no boss interactions, and could have the run of the open vacant space to kill the hours of every single shift. I had fond memories of working in food service throughout college, and university, but those only had down periods, not total emptiness. Clean a little, cook a little, stock the counter a little, and then talk between yourselves for the rest of the shift. Play a little baseball, or soccer, mini sticks, run around like fools. Oh it’d be great. In this scenario there’s no cameras and the bosses run it as a front. So it stays open for years after it should have closed because they need to funnel money through the books. Can’t do that if you shut it down. The best bosses to have in my opinion. Hands off, and uninterested in your day to day. A teenage dream.
Do teenagers still go to hang out in malls anymore? Or are they nostalgia porn for those of us in our forties or late thirties? I love going to a mall to just wander around aimlessly, grabbing food or snacks and looking at stuff I won’t buy. It was a legit pastime back in my youth. Waste hours walking in a temperature controlled environment. Look, eat, go to a movie, chat up girls of the same age range.
I have come to understand that today’s youth don’t dance. That’s a shame. You gotta go cut a rug! It’s so freeing. It’s great for the soul. Good for the heart and waistband too. Oh our teen years weren’t perfect, but they were pretty damn good. Not that I have much of a frame of reference outside of my own lived experience. To me, it was The Tits! I had time, energy, friends in nearby proximity, I liked school, I didn’t completely hate my job, I had a group of friends, and a girlfriend, sports, cards, dancing and parties were a thing most weekends. No major responsibilities. It was a blast. Hours to read or play guitar.
Now that stuff sits empty and abandoned in favour of online shopping through Amazon, Alibaba, Shein and all of those drop shipped outlets. It’s weird. Isolating. Not my jam.
Hey! It’s Saturday today, and now we are in the month of May. Going to go climbing, then pick up my golf club that I had repaired. Maybe go attack some logs with my chainsaws, and get ready for the big party tonight. Yeah-buddy!
The beginnings of a serious pile of rocks (Fig 1.)
It’s amazing just how much the ground can, and will heave to bring up rocks of all shapes and sizes. I went over the one big field beside the workshops for weeks last September, and October, and I pulled out eleven sixteen litre pails of rocks that 8 dumped along the roadway down to the river. And now you’d think the field had never been touched because I can see first sized rocks or larger poking up out of the soil everywhere I look. This is the time when having access to a side by side with a dump bed would really hit the spot, because you could spend hours out there with a pry bar, and some gloves, and pull up a metric fuck tonne of rock. I bet if you took all I pulled last year, and what we’ll get out of the ground this year you could make yourself a mighty fine chimney, or outdoor BBQ from all that rock. All you’d need is the right mortar, and the skill to build it all. Free rocks, right up out of the ground. And next year it’ll be the same all over again I’d wager!
It’s good to keep busy. Once we stop having single digit mornings I will go back to bucking logs, and maybe swinging the axe one or two mornings a week. Possibly more if we move into a lull with work. I know the dog loves to spend more time at the farm exploring, or curling up in the van for a snooze while I work. The point is to stay active, and not go shopping for random shit.
The fruit trees are in, an interesting fact I wasn’t aware of until after I had planted them was that on that very same day fourteen years earlier was when I first planted the Cherry tree, and both Apple trees along the back fence. How very random, and yet poetic. Same day! Fourteen years apart. Now the Cherry is a giant presence in the yard, with the two smaller apples not that far behind. Hopefully the next four will do just as well! One can hope.
Besides picking up rocks out of the fields at the farm I’d like to see some more cleaning up around the pig pen, and outbuildings. I would love to see more of the older rusted equipment sent off to the scrap yard instead of moulding in place like an eyesore. Take all the old wood and burn it or bury it. Return that carbon back to the soil instead of having piles of it all over the property. It’s unsightly.
Lots of rims off of old wheels, bikes, frames, tubing, and angle iron strewn about as well. I’d like to see all that crap loaded up and hauled away. Alas, that’s not up to me, but what Ican do is continue to process the logs, and split all of it into firewood. So I need to find my sharp chains, helmet, gloves, chaps, and boots and get to bucking. Then get to splitting a couple of rounds every chance I get. That is something I can accomplish. If no new logs turn up, I could likely have it all done by the end of 2027. There’s a whole lotta wood there, believe you me.
However, picking rocks is something I do in 5-10 minute spurts in the middle of my dog walks. So that’s a quick little fun option too. Great workout for the legs, with all that repeated bending, and lifting. Fun, fun, fun.
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