Food ordered for lunch, drinks are cold, of which we have a wide variety. Kids are running through the tub as we speak. Party favours did NOT arrive from the border so those will have to get distributed at school once they arrive, and we have the time to divvy them up among the expected guests. The cake, and the cupcakes were made, and iced last night so I could strike them from our list. We just need to transport the chips, cupcakes, drinks, and children to the venue, and just before one I can mosey on over to the Pizzeria to grab our lunch. Bob’s your uncle.
Party was a success, I think the birthday girl has a good time with fourteen of her school friends, and a sibling, and a couple cousins. A couple of parents hung around to chat, and help out which was nice. The day glow mini putt was fun. I think the arcade portion went over well too. I used my credits on the punching bag machine. I enjoyed myself a good deal.
I am not ready to sleep for a couple hours to recuperate from all those Uber chatty preteen girls yakking it up nonstop for the better part of three hours. I’m exhausted! Signing off for the day. Ciao Bella!
Seems like not that long ago my oldest was an 8 lbs, 3 oz football I could hold with one forearm and hand to bathe in the sink. Now she’s getting older, taller, smarter, and more resourceful and I’m nostalgic for the tiny lump of our first child that she was. Time is not sensitive to my discomfort. How rude.
We went climbing just the two of us today, which was very pleasant. We tackled a bunch of climbs today, but they weren’t too crazy hard. I need to bake cupcakes, and a cake today, plus wrap Christmas gifts, so I need the use of both hands, and super difficult climbs would wreck my dexterity. You gotta save some for the sequel! Don’cha know!?!
It’s a cold, blowy Saturday. I fully intend to stay home, and indoors for as much of the day as possible. Let me enter my hermit era unbothered.
Oh yeah, we sat down to watch the Hannah Waddingham Christmas special and it was lovely. Very theater kid friendly. Holiday spirit rather than holy Spirit of you catch my drift. Not so churchy. Bright, colourful, and high energy. Liked it a good deal. It was maybe 35 minutes long I think? Short and Sweet. No bloat. Also not at all saccharine, or syrupy. Crisp British taste through and through. Nicely executed.
I have some gift certificates to send out to extended family, and then I am done! I put the last physical items on order, all set to show up by Monday-Tuesday of next week at the latest. I feel good about it. My spouse will cover off her niece and nephew, while I figure out mine. And that should be that. Unless I am struck by a last minute excellent idea for my spouse, I can start to focus on wrapping gifts now, instead of lines, full parking lots, and spending more money.
We have opted for one bigger gift per child, something that they really, really wanted, instead of a flood of filler presents. If I had my way both kids would get musical instruments to pull them away from heavy device usage. I’d much rather see them learn to play a guitar, bass, drums, piano, violin, or brass instrument, then go on, and on and nauseum about “brain rot” this, and “brain rot” that. Ugh! Then we could jam together and make some fun musical memories as a family.
Speaking of which, I intend to go to Long and McQuade today to find some new guitar picks with texture on them, as mine are too slippery, and fall out of my hands while playing with any sort of vigour. Either that or I need to find Pine tar, or hair spray to add some tackiness to them, so I don’t drop them mid rhythm. Smooth soft finger tips aren’t all that helpful. I guess climbing hasn’t roughened them up enough yet. We did take a full month off, so some calluses have reverted back to healthy skin again.
I’m also looking for a noise gate pedal to cut down on feedback from my amp while playing. I could do without the run away Eeeéeeeeeeeee that becomes deafening the second I stop playing, and want to tune a string for a different song. We will see what options there are in the price range I’m willing to pay, which is not much. Ha.
The household purge gas moved along smoothly. Each day this week I have scoured a new location, and cleaned up as well as I could. Now if we had a big bin out front I might get a little more adventurous, but the clear out has to conform to our current three bag maximum, so I need to save space for regular day to day garbage that we produce from eating, and living regularly. I can’t use all three bags on purged materials. This is where strategy comes into the mix. Luckily the blue bins can house some of this junk too. A life saver!
I think getting right to ten boxes of crackers, and such out of the pantry was an added bonus. The green bin will be full this next pick-up day. Rancid oil smells so bad. White powdery chocolate is gone. Four year old Smarties — gone too! Cereal that was opened in September has gone as well. The kids opened it, ate it for two breakfasts, then promptly forgot all about it, and have zero interest in eating the remaining 95% of the box. Out it goes then! Bye-bye. See ya!
Problem is I am fast approaching the limit of what I can get rid of. Not necessarily a bad thing. But the tiny house, she’s a still a very, very tiny you see. No amount of junk clearing can make the walls longer, or the square footage expand. Try as I might, it hasn’t worked yet! Ha! Even if I got rid of the doll houses, art station, toy boxes, and racks of toy filled bins, the house is still small. But then it would be empty. I don’t want an empty minimalist wet dream of a home, I just want it tidy, and not completely cluttered with junk.
Besides a new refrigerator, and probably a new AC unit, we need to think about a new couch / seating situation. I think our current sectional is too large for our home. It takes up a lot of space. It’s faux leather, and both the dogs, and children have torn this thing to shreds. To shreds you say!?! Ripped, and worn through seams, with a couple springs showing. We have the Loud House couch in our home. Busted up heifer of a thing.
I think we need a love seat, and an arm chair because all five of us (including the dog) rarely all sit here together all at one time. Not that we will replace any of those three items any time soon unless forced to do so. It is something to consider. Until next time. Onwards & upwards.
Did not stray too far from the path this morning when walking the dog. That wind kicked up snow, and ice crystals just to ram them straight into my face, and down my neck! Yikes. I can do with only a handful of these sorts of days. Sad part is we are still in late autumn, and winter hasn’t even officially started yet. And won’t start for another two weeks, and a few days extra on top of that.
I think it best we swap out the rain coats for proper full on winter wear at this point. Even with a warm spell the temperature it is unlikely to climb much above 7°C even if we get a weeks worth of extra sun shine. I need to find my regular walking around boots, and my good winter gloves. I have been wearing my cool weather wood splitting jacket this whole time, but I’m going to need to switch to my real winter coat sooner rather than later.
I have to make sure I have my long johns handy because I’m not much for long walks if my legs are numb, or itching like crazy. That’s all I will say about that.
The birthday parties start this weekend, and once those are done I can turn my attention to Christmas as my primary focus. My attention is being pulled in multiple directions right now, what with the birthdays, parties, taekwondo belt promotion & testing, purging the house prior to Christmas, trying to start shopping, cleaning the house regularly, grocery shopping, and life in general. Those two weeks where we have no after school programming, no school, no work. And no major obligations are lovely. Add in the bitter cold outside, and hibernating with a drink in one hand, and snacks in the other while we watch television & movies, sounds incredible.
I totally forgot to ask my spouse about the couch long shelves and table I thought about building. It totally slipped my mind. I could work on the joinery right away, but my uninsulated garage is too cold for a proper glue up at this point. Even with my 18,000 BTU propane heater, I don’t think I could get the glue to set up properly. So I could plane, joint, and hand cut mortise & tenons, but any glue would have to wait until a warm spell in March, or April to attempt. Or… A big “or” here, I bring it all inside the house just to glue it up in situ. Which I’m not a fan of. I want it sanded, and finish applied, and all the smelly bits off gassed for a few weeks before I put it in place. Oils and finishes stink to high heaven, and with this piece going directly behind the couch it will make watching tv kinda stinky for days on end, until we go nose blind to it. I just wish I had thought of it back in September, then I could have gotten it done before the snow set in. Live and learn.
I was on a real cleaning run yesterday, and once it kicks in I find it hard to stop. So I did the next best thing and searched the pantry for crackers, and boxed items that were out of date. Not like Nov 2025 out of date, but stuff from more than six months ago. Found a handful with 2024 best before dates, and several with 2023’s. Good lord does the rancid oil smell bad on those things. Crackers especially! I hate to see food wasted, but it’s inedible. I used to put that sort of thing in our compost heap, but then it attracts raccoons, skunks, and rodents too. Not cool. Going to a landfill sucks, but I can’t donate it. The rancid oil would put people in the hospital. No thanks.
Which reminds me, I was going to pull a lower cabinet apart to see what else was hidden back there that could get thrown away. I’ve seen these Millenial Inheritance videos on IG or YouTube, and all it makes me think about is clearing out our own house of junk so that my children aren’t stuck having to do it after I pass. Not that we collect glass, or ceramic figurines, or wicker baskets etc… but do we need to keep ten or more novelty drink containers from Busch Gardens, SeaWorld Orlando, Disney World, and the Metro Toronto Zoo, and Canada’s Wonderland? No I think not. One from each place seems like a reasonable compromise to me. Keep some memorable items, but we don’t need double digit multiples. That’s insane.
That’s my goal, from now until the new year. Search random drawers, closets, cabinets etc… and declutter what ever is held inside. I could do with running the vacuum around again too. I’m seeing lots of crumbs on the floor in this early morning sunlight. Onwards & upwards as they say!
And we are off to a terrific start with one 135L garbage bag full of crap getting tossed to the curb. Plastic wrappers, broken bits, old forms/letters, junk mail, busted up drawings, broken crafting supplies, loads & loads of dried up paints, and cracked paint pots. Scraps of fabric, knotted lengths of string, twine, thread you name it. Gone, gone, gone! I also took this time to organize the bins a little better as I emptied them of junk. I have even tackled two dining room drawers that have been housing junk since 2014! What a find. I guess because I don’t store stuff in there I never felt the need to look. Glad I did, as it was a treasure trove of toss-able items. No 8 don’t need a packing pass from 2016. No I don’t need tickets to a work event from 2015. Bye-bye!
There are only a few select places in the house that I have not yet ventured in order to purge us of hoarded garbage. I am here to manage only my own things, and the common areas of the house. Ever so slowly I am recovering floor space, shelf space, cupboard space, and drawer spaces for new, or less commonly used items. If we have a flat spot you can rest assured it will find itself covered in three layers of clutter and junk before you even know what’s happened.
I love having “living room” children, but it does mean that their belongings migrate out from their bedrooms and into the common areas of the house where it inevitably gets left. My kids love to set up sprawling dioramas and tableau for their toys, right in the middle of the floor of a room, and then walk away. Fully expecting it to remain intact for weeks until they can deign to play with it again. Woe be tide the adult that clears it away before they had their second go at playing with their layout! Namely me. I get the abuse for cleaning up their toy dioramas from the floor. It me!
I have one more bin under the side board in the dining room to search, and tidy up before the whole row is finished. It’s the fullest of the five bins in that location. We have more fabric bins in the basement all loaded up with whatever you can imagine. Plus several in the adjoining living room full of various toys. I sorted the dolls, and associated accessories last year (I think?) so those I’m not going to bother with just yet. I’m not here to throw away toys, just junk, wrappers, bags, flyers, pamphlets, scribbles on pages, and broken bits of whatever I can find.
Both girls are almost to the point where they are growing out of the toys they have. My goal would be to sort them, and store them nearly by brand, or category, and save the good stuff for the future grand kids (should we get any, and be alive still to enjoy watching them). LOL Dolls of varying sizes made a huge splash at this house, so I’m not looking to get rid of them. But I do want them cleaned up, sorted, and kept neatly stored away if they are no longer being played with. Clear storage bins are our friends! Use them to their full extent. It’s glorious.
It’s times like this when I need a paper shredder for old documents. Or an open burn barrel to dispose of sensitive financial materials. That might be an office expense for next year.
Funnily enough once Christmas break is done the house will feel emptier almost immediately once I take down the tree, and put all the decorations away. That makes this place feel less full, cramped, and encroaching in one simple action. I like that. Don’t get me wrong, I love the tree, the lights, and the festive atmosphere, but this wee little house can feel cramped right quick with very little effort.
To ease the congestion at the front door I plan to remove the dog cage, in favour of a raised bed, with a pull out drawer. Maybe a shelf/mock head board at one end so I can still put some items on top. Or better yet, a table that runs the length of the sectional couch, that has at least three shelves for stuff. That would actually help out far more. I should talk to my wife about that option. She might actually take to that because we are always at a loss for storage around here. It’s open concept, so no walks to place an armoire or a group of cupboards. I’ll save that idea for later.
I have some 1 L beer Stein’s in my possession that I’m going to offer to some friends after they move, because I was gifted them from an old job, and I don’t drink beer all that much, and certainly not in 1 litre quantities at a time. My younger friends might actually put them to use, where for myself they are just eating up cupboard space that I could use for our kettle, or coffee maker, or silver bullet. I have items waiting to get put someplace more useful than the counter tops.
Four offending beer steins. (Fig 1.)
Small houses show as cluttered so easily. Lived in is one thing, but cluttered bordering on hoarding is another. Oh well, onwards and upwards.
I haven’t done all that much sculpting this year, just wasn’t feeling it. I made a ninja turtle bust along with my daughter, but it came out looking like a Jim Henson knock-off type abomination, so I don’t much care for that particular item. I had plans to make some new monsters from scratch for the fair, but then the summer got away from me so I resorted to painting an old epoxy sculpt from the pandemic era. So here we are with what was to be an enormously fat goblin King that is also wasting away in random spots due to some unknown illness. It has stalled out and been in the early stages for months, plural. Maybe five or more now that we are into December. Also it’s being made in clay so I won’t be painting it, nor can I use it in next year’s fair either. So ha!
I suspect much of what I have currently done will be hidden by chain mail, armour playing, fabrics & furs. So I really shouldn’t labour over the physique all that much. I just want it to be good, so I move slowly at first. Eventually (like always) I will reach a tipping point and then sprint to the end just to have it done, and off my mind. Once I get to that point I never, ever go back to fix errors of any sort. It’s a bad habit.
Not much going down at the farm today. No sawing or random clean up to do today. I don’t even know where the front end loader went. I did not see it while walking the dog. Plus I forgot my work gloves at home, so 8 couldn’t have done much bare handed in the snow covered wood piles when it’s minus five or colder depending on wind direction. A slow moving morning when compared to how productive yesterday morning was. I ebb, and I flow.
Tonight (should there be no more active snow fall) my youngest and I should make our way over to the climbing gym for a quick walk scaling session. I enjoy it a great deal. I know the kids like it, I do not know if they like it as much as I do. But we’ve done it for more than a year now (mostly — a few gaps with summer break, and taking November off) and we continue to challenge ourselves, and get stronger. Won’t be long before they leave me in the dust and hit the 5.10’s or above consistently while I putter away on the 5.8’s, and 5.9’s, trying to slim down enough weight wise so that my grip strength is maximized for the climbs I aspire to do. Right now I am too puffy for what my grip strength can hold for any amount of time. If I can get closer to 175 lbs. Then I’d be in better shape, both physically, and in regards to my climbing holds. Working towards it.
Honestly though, without hitting up a real weight room, and totally reworking what I eat on a regular basis, it’s all just wishes, and dreams at this point. The dog walking, wood splitting, chainsawing is helping, but not enough to drop more than 1 or 2 pounds total. I’m a pear. I see it. My waist line is that of a spare tire. Climbing is helping to curb the worst of my middle aged spread. Might need to bump it up to three times per week before I start to see any noticeable improvement of skill, or weight reduction.
In other news I did make a couple items in the wood shop this year. And not just tidying up the garage, and erecting my shelves! I made a stand for my APC battery pack that regulates current for both computers, router, and my guitar amp(s). Plus I made a display for my eldest daughter’s Taekwondo belts. She is due to get another promotion soon. Another year or two and the whole display will be totally full. On her way to a black belt! Once she reaches her Red belt she can attempt the hardcore mode of sparring at tournaments. I do not think she wants to do that, but the option is there. I also made a utensil organizer/holder for the kitchen because the glass stein we were using was too small. We got some additional items for Christmas last year that wouldn’t fit. Now we have a nice Walnut item to hold everything.
Which reminds me, I never did find the meat thermometer I had bought last year, or the year before. A black fold up digital thermometer for steaks, and meats, and such. Poof! Gone. Into the wind. I have searched high and low for it. Not even a whiff of where it might have gotten to. Oh well. I only BBQ here at home once or twice per year. I run the grill at the cottage, or my inlaws home far more often.
I have some quick work items to do, and then I need to think about Christmas shopping some more. Do I want to head over to a mall, or order a few items from on-line and be done with it? Choices, choices…
Even though we have many birthdays to celebrate this month, including my eldest brother, my eldest daughter, my other brother in law, and my sister in law (different couples of opposite sides of the family), and my best friend, I have decided to get a jump on Christmas. Today I got my inlaws, and BIL completed. Plus I picked up some sparkling wine for Christmas breakfast mixed drinks. I just need some Welches grape juice and that treat is all set to go off for the holidays! BAM!
I picked up stocking stuffers for the whole family and blew my budget completely out of the water. I think their climbing passes/memberships might have to be Christmas gifts at this point. But all four of us have lots for our stockings, nobody’s left out. “Santa” brings the daily things we need, like tooth brushes, tooth paste, hair ties, bubble bath, shampoos & conditioners, lip chap sticks, vitamins, detangler sprays. Occasionally a family board game for us all to play (of which I bought two). So that stuff is purchased and awaiting a wrapping session. Which 8 might do on Saturday when the girls go see Shrek as a live performance downtown. I can fire up Scrooged, or Elf on the tv, and wrap gifts like a champ. Drinks in hand, and get those items out of my hair.
I will need to send something to my parents, and my brothers kids, and then figure out what to do about my own children. I have twenty three days to sort it all out! Nice.
So at the farm we cleaned up Pile Two completely. All of the waste wood that I could not split got thrown into the bucket of the front end loader, and dumped in the garden wood lot. So now the fence line is clear, and the yard is open again. There are a few bits of split wood left over, but I guess I could try to stack it all on a pallet to get it off the ground, and away from the side doors of the barn. I forgot my boots so no chainsawing today. Just heaving waste wood onto the loader as exercise this morning. Luckily the sun was out and it didn’t feel much like the minus eight the car said that it was. Not windy. So that helps a great deal.
I brought almost all of my chainsaw gear, all except the boots. Kind of important with how the log rounds fall and land on, or near my feet. I do not fancy any more broken toes. I’ve broken two over the course of my life, in quick succession, and I’d rather not break anything else if I can help it. Oh well. There is lots there to do, and waiting a few days in-between won’t kill me. Or send the piles to waste. I’m doing more in these three piles over the last three months than anybody else has done in a number of years. I’m good.
But I did go to Home Depot for bar oil, and a new smaller bladed shovel. I went to the LCBO for booze for gifts. I went to Walmart for stocking stuffers too. Busy, and productive day. Shall I also tackle the LOL Doll piles, and you box today!?! No idea. Maybe tomorrow.
I’ve just learned my October invoice for one company was never logged, so no payment for that coming until mid to late December now. Maybe it’ll get paid along with my November invoice for an added bonus! One can hope. I should start to see invoices get paid for jobs from this year this month. I have had to chase another company to pay stuff from August. I hate chasing money, it is far less enjoyable than doing the design work. But getting paid is very, very important. I can’t keep working with no funds to support my business expenses for all these product subscriptions we have now!
The very last day of November is here, and I am not certain of how much new work I am going to have moving into December. I was fortunate enough to pick up some last minute projects that carried over Wednesday, Thursday & Friday of last week, but budgets are thin, and I don’t know if any of my clients will put anything else together before the new year starts. If they don’t have any work for me, then I’m going to spend more of my time using my chainsaws to clean up at the farm, and I am going to use the time to purge our house before Christmas dumps a bunch of new “stuff & things“into our midst. With any luck all outstanding invoices will get paid in December, and I won’t have to wait until January to get my funds.
So those are my options if no more work is forthcoming. Clean, clean, clean inside the house. Tackling closets, toy boxes, drawers and junk piles. Washing windows, blinds, ceiling fans, and light fixtures. Dusting hard to reach spots, and vacuuming out the air vents. Doing another ruthless purge of all of our collected junk, broken items, busted toys, and whatnot.
I feel as though I have tried to do a good job of that sort of thing over the last year or two, so there really shouldn’t be too much of it left. Except the kids rooms which hoard stuff and it gets kinda crazy every four to six months in their bedrooms. If we could limit the stuffies to just 10-15, instead of the 200 or so each, that might go a long way towards tidying things up. Neither kid plays with dolls much any more, so we could move the dolly oriented mess into the basement. Get rid of some bean bag chairs that don’t get used by anybody, and those can sit in the basement. See both kids are afraid to be in the basement by themselves, so they don’t play down here much at all. But I’d prefer the doll houses, and toys be down here and out of the living room. Just to free up space, and declutter the main living room. Even when clean it’s a visual cacophony, and still a mess.
I don’t want the girls to grow up too fast, I just don’t want every toy directly underfoot 24/7. Maybe I can convince them to let me move it down here today!?! Make a real kids zone downstairs for them to enjoy, more so than the Lego city they have set up, and don’t really touch anymore. We will see.
Purge, clean, rearrange, and farm chores will try to keep me occupied. Once the birthday party is done I can focus on Christmas itself. Lots to do on that front still. All three stockings need stuffers. A thoughtful gift each. Niece’s & nephews, inlaws, and my parents. Ugh! It never seems to end.
Well I started with good intentions, and got side tracked by laundry, and the grocery order that came in. Did get the ok to relocate one doll house to the basement. It’s not much, but it’s a start. Positive thinking! When they go back to school tomorrow I will just move more things because they haven’t touched the lol doll cars in months, and the display case can go downstairs too. Perhaps the toy box could go downstairs too. Open up the living room floor a little bit. Since they’ve glued themselves to their tablets the physical toys have grown dusty cobwebs from disuse. They are growing up. It’s not dolly houses, it 99 nights in the first, and killing each other in Roblox mini games. Oh how sad the passage of time is.
Which means we can in fact climb as a family later today! W00t-w00t! Although my right hand is still kinda numb from yesterday’s chainsaw pull cord incident. Not to mention the ache in my right shoulder, bicep, and pectoral muscle. Very lopsided with the effort to get that cold engine started in the early morning chilled air. But I digress.
It’s a sunny, if bitterly cold Saturday morning, with weather that feels like minus eleven degrees Celsius. That’s one way to wake yourself up, just head out of doors in your pajamas, and breathe for a few moments. Brrrr. I will definitely need to warm the car up before we drive anywhere. I’m sure the windshield and all other windows are coated in frost. And so begins the season of earlier starts due to having to scrape every window surface prior to driving, for visibilities sake. Ice is a real problem, but frost is much easier to clear with a quality scraper on hand.
The pesky part of winter, is not just the bad driving conditions, reduced visibility, and snow encroaching on the roads width. But the black ice, and doors that freeze shut so you can’t even get into your vehicle in the first place. When I get out of a car at night I have to remember to turn the heat up, and place all the jets, and cents on full blast, so the remote starter can have some chance at cleaning off the glass in the mornings.
Sliding passenger doors in our part of Ontario live to freeze shut. Kids have to get into the car via the trunk, or drivers side door and climb over the console, and other chairs to get to their seats. It can become a real hassle once we consistently have temperatures down near minus twenty or beyond.
I for one am glad I did not wake up to a foot of snow (so far) that needed to be shovelled out of the way. I will say this, I do not mind snow in the month of December because it makes all the lights look that much better, and it feels very festive for the holidays. But! Come January first I am altogether tired of it all, and would like nothing more than no more snow at all until the following December.
I have not skied in decades, I don’t snow shoe, I don’t do cross country skiing, I don’t snowmobile, and I rarely skate. Winter makes me itch uncontrollably regardless of moisturizer use, and a fully functioning humidifier on the furnace. I hate the cold so, so much. Snow pants, long johns, Balaclavas, insulated boots & gloves, you name it I still feel the cold right through to my bones, and I detest it. Ugh! I understand snowbirds more and more as I get older.
If I had the money, and the mobility* (*read that as both children, and pet commitments) I’d go away from January first through March 31st and avoid the worst of it all. Maybe I can convince my wife once both kids are off to college, or trade schools, or are working full time living their own best lives.
I do hope those of you in Singapore are having a good time looking through this blog. I’ve seen recent spikes in viewers from your region this week. Slowly trying to catch Germany, and the US viewer numbers I see. I will most definitely reach 4K views this year. Back when I had to do like 250 views to reach it in one month I was thinking it might not happen, but now I need 5 more views, with a month to go, I’m positive I will see 4,000. An all time high. One I won’t soon top. A blessing, and a curse. I remember when 43 views in a single day was enough to keep me wired for a month. Then I randomly hit 1,500+ in a single day in July from Germany, and now my elation response is skewed. It really shouldn’t be, because 33 in a day is still above average, so I should be happy when I see that or anything above it really if I’m being honest. Just doesn’t hit quite like a 1,500 does! Still no ad sales ha! This is the way.
The new 68 CC Proyama just did not want to start in the sub zero temperatures this morning. So I picked up my handy-dandy Stihl MS170 and got to work with that instead. Burned a whole tank of gas clearing myself a spot in which to begin stacking the full logs I’m bucking up under the barn. It was fairly fast moving as a lot of those logs are four years old or more. I believe a good few of them are from the wind storm/Jericho that blew across southern Ontario during the pandemic.
It took me about sixty pulls to finally get the Proyama to start, and I immediately needed to lie down, and dry heave because it make me so sick to have to yank that hard, so many times, while in a crouch. My hand is fried from the pull cord. But! It did finally start, and I got into a good number of cuts before I was overcome by burrs, and the icy winds. I have made a terrific start to the pile.
I can see myself cutting there for another several days if the temperatures are mild. I’ll need to pre warm the saws in the car with the heater blasting on high if 8 don’t want to keep over vomiting trying to get the damn thing started. It was a process. One I’m not keen on repeating all that many times. I can’t wait for my arm and one side of my chest to ache starting tomorrow.
If the snow storm comes down from the lake this far then we won’t be going climbing tomorrow, so I can suffer my aches & pains without exacerbating them. Otherwise I’m sure I will add sore hips, forearms, shoulders, and abdominal into the mix with an hour or more of climbing with my kids.
It’s Friday, hey yeah! Nice. Work got busy right near the end so that’s cool and all. I can’t get over how numb my hand is from yanking on that cord. It’s fried. Just gone man, solid gone! Not going to lie, it made me sick to my stomach reefing on that damn cord. Pull after pull, after gods be damned pull. If I pulled it sixty times, I damn near pulled it eighty I’d wager. I got kinda dizzy, my guts churned, I drooled a fair bit, and my guts quakes and I reached on the road beside my car. I even had to lay down inside the back of my vehicle for several minutes. I am out of shape. I was sucking air, and cramping up in the thighs. I was a sight to behold I imagine.
The next big thing to do if pick all of those burrs off of my new chainsaw gloves, my chaps, and my coat. It took me a good fifteen minutes to do the cuffs of my sweater, so it’s going to be time consuming, and suck the whole time. I will say this, the gloves were functional, and warm. I was very comfortable cutting once I got over the bodily harm I did myself getting the new saw to start in this blasted cold. Didn’t know saws needed a block heater! Ha.
If I don’t cut again until spring both saws are filled up ready to be stored away should they need to be. Premium fuel, and a rich oil mixture. I have to think about getting more chains for the big saw though. More money spent! Silly man that I am.
Didn’t take any pictures of the progress because I am wiped out. My hands are tired. And by the end of two tanks of gas I was ready to go home, and be done with Pile Three for the day. Ciao Bella!
On a side note, something has kicked off in Singapore because my views there have picked up considerably. Don’t know why. I might just hit 4K views on this here blog this year. Wild. Check out my books while you here, they’re free! Read ’em too if you would be so kind.
Greatwall Studios Graphic Design 
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