6/24

[fish]

Stretch

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garden&grounds

rebuilt the guts of the gas grill that had rusted out.

when cooking, like to put a couple of briquettes in there for flavor.

[fish]

stretch

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mat

ball

cane

making the hanging flower pots.

tomatoes look good for this time of year.

[fish]

stretch

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mat

ball

cane

crunches on the ball seem effective.

one rep = center, left, center, right

and the repeated lay back across the ball really stretches the belly muscles

also used three power tools in the yard.

mower

whacker

blower

wish i was more steady on my feet.

sigh!

[Fish]

Stretch

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clubs

cane

tomorrow a stress echocardiogram.

i have had a nuclear stress echo in 2022. not pleasant, but not too bad.

heart was acting up more back then.

i wish i knew what's going on.

maybe, is it possible,

am i getting old?

nah,

i am old.

[fish]

Stress test with report of results.

I've had a fair few of these, and the bottom line is that the values are very variable.

Some beyond belief.

VEF from 50% to 70% from 2/22 to 6/24 ?

So the reports, line by line (there are a lot of lines ) and the numbers and the images bounce up and down within what the Doc thinks are acceptable limits.

And you have no idea what the limits are.

Very unsatisfying, but i'm not a cardiologist.

I suppose that Laymen can not possibly expect to understand the significance of such variations.

But I don't think the Docs really do, either.

They only know when it has gone too far.

And then it may be too late.

I'm having a couple of drinks.

[fish]

that tumble i took when trimming the trees got my lower back all fired up.

stretch

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it seems like a particularly fine spring.

all our plants are flourishing.

actually bought dirt for the first time yesterday.

yeah, it's got fertilizer and extra stuff, and yeah, i'm supposed to mix it in, or top dress with it, or ...

but i feel silly paying for a bag of dirt.

i guess when it costs money they call it "soil".

[fish]

stretch

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mat

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clubs

gardening.

the push mower acting up, got it going, though.

choke problem seems resolved short of complete carb overhaul.

or maybe just a new spring.

speaking of spring, this has really been a good one.

town elections tomorrow.

candidates are very disappointing.

Maine is going far, far left.

[Smoke]

Whole carb kit, plug, filters like 20 bucks!

Yea I have a customer up there… drives me nuts that she needs to put her pronouns in her email signature.

[fish]

stretch

nt

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mat

ball

cane

i have found a few readings on youtube that run for 8 hours or so.

for example, the actor who does Poirot, David Suchet, reads the new testament.

whether one is religious or not, it's great stuff.

other stuff, for example, includes personal histories of WW2 from books written by Japanese.

Lots of good stuff.

got a pair of earplug speakers.

they read me to sleep, and if i wake in the night (which guys my age do frequently, especially after radiation) they read me back to sleep.

earphones hold the charge for the entire time.

other than that, i start to think, which is not good for going to sleep.

[fish]

three of the last 4 days have been grounds work at the other house with my step-son and his kids.

the place was overgrown, as it has been about 18 months since i tended it last.

medical treatments, etc.

half day yesterday spend splitting wood here with his 38 ton splitter.

we had 10 trees taken down this past november.

we had the tree guys cut the wood.

with 4 people working the splitter and stacking the wood, it went pretty quick,

today NC and i spent a few hours continuing the work.

i worked the pile and spliter, and she did the stacking.

got a lot done.

this may be the workout for the next few days.

or weeks.

there's a lot of cut wood to split.

[fish]

i remember that you have done a lot of this wood splitting, so you'll get what i'm talking about.

some of these cuts are 24 inches diameter and 18 inch length.

and they're fresh and wet.

heavy.

moving them from the pick-up-stick pile to the splitter is an interesting exercise.

it is obvious to me, a man of many scars, that if i get it wrong, i will have a quite heavy log rolling over my foot and striking me in the lower leg.

so i stare at the pile for a while and make a plan.

so far, so good.

using what look like longshoreman's hooks to manipulate the cuts too heavy to carry off the pile and onto the lip of a heavy duty hand truck, cart them over to the splitter, and roll-spin the cut onto the deck of the splitter.

have to use it vertical.

we did (NC insists on helping stack the splits) three carts full.

it's good exercise.

have to remember to keep the stretching going, though.

this is going to take a while.

at least a month, if we get every day.

[fish]

looks like there may be more wood than i thought.

the wood guys said about 4 cord.

looks like 6 to me.

update later.

in the meantime

some really good pulp hooks come in very handy with this work.

we have a gen-U-ine peavey, after all, we live in Maine.

but peavey is good for logs, pulp hooks better for cuts.

old men learn the practical meaning of mechanical advantage.

the hooks to roll the cuts onto the lip of the hand cart to move to the splitter.

this is work.

if i were younger, i would have to reckon the cost of fire wood purchased at log length vs cut and split to find out the labor costs, not to mention the cost of the splitter.

probably works if one lives in the north woods and harvests their own hardwood trees.

for now, i'm very happy i can still do it.

and it's exercise.

[Smoke]

Good for you!

[fish]

wood

the cuts are pretty big, and moving them from the pick-up-sticks pile to the splitter is interesting.

hand truck or roll.

then into the cart,

then out to the back yard

then stack

we have about 1.25 cord split and stacked.

warm here.

[Smoke]

Was 90 something here today too.