Category: Fun Stuff

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Oh, Well. . . Not Today

Made a lot of good “man glitter” yesterday with ye olde Husky. Lil 16” bar and chain did an excellent job w/25” diameter logs on down to smaller limbs and even twiggy stuff, chewing away at the wood mess in the back yard. Was a pooped puppy by the time the saw ran out of gas. Actually, that’s been the way it works pretty regularly: both the saw and I run out of gas at about the same time. *heh*

Today has been a disappointment on the “man glitter” and cleanup gig because of freezing rain (and near-freezing rain that’s even more chilling in some ways) on top of the bit of ice and snow dusting the ground. Ground varies between icy and slip-slidin’-sloppy. Not gonna do that to my back and knees, so the back yard gets a pass today.

Instead, I toodled on outa town and got some material I’ll need next week to effect a safe setup of a burn bin and also use a lil timber jig to trim some of the larger logs down to manageable size. Need to pick up a couple of large tarps as well to erect a sort of awning over where I plan to store logs/trimmings and even a few early cut planks, getting them at least mostly out of the weather.

I hope that I can have a clear path from my back yard to the large logs still laying on the periphery of our property, so that moving them into a place where I can work on them will be possible. We’ll see if the weather will let me get that done.

Not the day I had planned, but I’ve still gotten a little good prep work in.

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*smh* Too Much Stuff

A reminder that sometimes “too much stuff” can be “just enough stuff” hit me today. Really nice Asus router (just about all the features I want in a router, mid-range price, etc.) had one critical port–the WAN port–die Christmas Eve. Yeh, getting a replacement not happening, and as for contacting Asus support for warranty claim? Nope. And yesterday was taken up with too much to bother with either, so we’ve been down to swapping the ethernet connection to the cable “modem” between devices. . . that have ethernet adapters.

Started seeing my way clear of Xmas stuff (and a break in wood “waste” cleanup) today and was reorganizing some tech equipment. In the Asus router’s box, found a retired cable “modem” (using one that complies with newer standards) and. . . a lil Netgear router that has never been used, a “fell off the back of a truck store” purchase. (Nah, really overstocks and returns place.) Now, I am not a real fan of Netgear routers, and this one is relatively low end, though it does have multiple antennas and two-band radio, so it’s not all that bad.

So, two is one and one is. . . very close to none, but not quite there, yet, and the local network is now fully “WAN-ed up.”

Sometimes, too much stuff is juuuust enough stuff.

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“Oh the weather outside is frightful. . . “

Snow (actually, ice) day for schools in America’s Third World County™ (and surrounding areas, as well). While I admit I have submitted to the weather and not gotten on my wood waste cleanup project (yet) today, stew’s on and makin’ for tonight, and I’m-a fixin’ ta head out and work up a sweat, loosen up some of these aching muscles-n-joints. . . 😉

Meanwhile,

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Recovery Taking Longer Than I Like

“Recovery time” between “exercise sessions” (cutting up and moving “wood waste”) is taking longer than I like, but I’m still enjoying both the activity and even the muscle aches and pains.

It’s the little things, ya know? 🙂

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Finally, an Exercise Program I Can Stick With

(Because I HAVE to? *heh*)

Oh, the joys of work. . . even if the pay is only the goal of satisfaction in doing a job well, to completion.

I have difficulty sticking to an exercise program, because such things are BORING. Nevertheless, I seem to have found an exercise program that I can really stick with for at least the next few months: cleaning up this mess and processing all the “waste” into useful things. Of course, at my age, and in my condition, I can only manage one to one-and-a-half hours at a time (with appropriate rest times between), and even then, only about three sessions a day.

And oh! do my muscles ache! (In a very good way, one with which I am quite pleased, in fact.) Right knee (my problematic ACL knee) started aching early, and I felt the thing start to collapse on me but caught it in time. Swollen. Aplied a knee brace and some OTC pain meds, and was back at it. Feels OK. Still sensitive to side pressure, but the brace really helps, and if I take care to carry things on my LEFT side, I am much more comfortable. Typical lower back pain a bit exacerbated, but I’ve put up with lower back pain and pain in my left hip since I was, oh, about eleven, so that’s pretty easily dealt with.

All-in-all, really having fun out there, and looking forward to the projects I have in store for this wood. Sure, most of it (by far) is sycamore–a very “soft” hardwood–but I believe I can get some fencing out of it, as long as I paint it well, and the little stuff will serve nicely as burn material to use in making charcoal out of the elm, maple, and even walnut trees and trimmings that I plan to also take down. Also have some furniture planned for a few of the uniquely-shaped pieces of sycamore. Gonna be fun there, too.

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Ah! The Old Made New

Some 40 years ago, when we were “young marrieds,” before our first child, we purchased a nice set of “waterless” cookware. And it was nice, with but one flaw that made itself known over the next 20+ years: the pseudo-bakelite handles were not really all that durable, and as the less-than-durable handles (including the pot lids) failed, replacements. . . weren’t. Available, that is. Still, some components remain useful.

Fast forward to today when I was looking for a way to “fry” eggs in my air pressure/fryer/sous vide/slow cooker (love these combo appliances, when they work). Ah! The lil cups for the steamer/egg poacher add-on to the waterless cookware set! Yep. All six of them fit very nicely in the cooker. I love it when past and present come together to make things work well.

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Yeh, Well, I Definitely Do These Sorts of Things So You Don’t Have To

Was at my fav “fell off the back of a truck store,” today, and passed through the “$1 salvage items” aisle. Saw a $1 box of 12 bottles of BSP (buffered sodium phosphate) solution–bottled and prepped for use as enemas–and thought to myself, “Self, since thou doest always gargle salt water (sodium chloride + h2o) and this BSP is sodium phosphate+sodium chloride+water, and ingestion of “gargle water” ain’t on the menu, why not? Yeh, if and or when I get a sore throat this winter, I’m-a giving my mouth an enema. (Small amounts of sodium phosphates via mouth–traces not spit out with “gargle water”–are not harmful, and. . . prepackaged!)

Continue reading “Yeh, Well, I Definitely Do These Sorts of Things So You Don’t Have To”

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Success!

She’s baaaaack! *heh*

Well, despite occasional game cam and live trap failures, my Wonder Woman’s cat is finally back. Haven’t checked the game cam again, yet, but somewhere between 1630 and 1810 this afternoon/early evening, the live trap finally, urm, trapped her. Surprisingly, for all that she’s not come when called, and has run off on the one other occasion when spotted, she seemed enormously happy to be back inside, found pleasure in pets (of both kinds: her comrades–well, the dog, at least–and being petted and cuddled), and, of course, some nice, fresh canned cat food.

Now, I’m not going to set the live trap back out for the opossum. Nope. Glad to have one (and where’s there’s one, there are likely to be more) around. Great for pest control.

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Has It Been THAT Long?

Yes, it has.

I put a new enameled steel roof on TWC Central six years ago, just a year after a neighbor two doors down had a new asphalt shingle roof put on. Our new rood has proven to be a Good Thing: improved energy use, DRY (really solidly improved weather resistance), and–a surprise to us–quieter than the old roof (maybe the insulating gap helps there? *shrugs*).

Oh, and the neighbor with a seven-year-old asphalt shingle roof? Had it replaced this week.

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All Night Long. . .

All night long, it seemed my Wonder Woman’s phone just would not stop with that annoying weather alert. *heh* Constant warnings to “seek shelter,” etc. “Stop it! We’re sheltered already!” 😉

HEAVY rainfall over almost all of America’s Third World County™ yesterday resulted in many of the back roads being flooded out overnight, fords washed out, and even some state roads rendered impassable as roadways collapsed (largely because of poor initial construction, poorly-maintained, IMO). Rural schools with more than half their students coming in from areas closed off from safe travel resulted in countywide school closings. Rescues of contenders for Darwin Awards weren’t many, but a few Darwin Award aspirants did decide to drive into raging waters. Silly puppies.

Some folks around TWC Central measured 5” in their rain guages. I can believe it. Our street was flooded and the recently-covered public works excavation replacing their leaking water line needs to be repacked. We didn’t even try to measure, because at least half of our precipitation seemed to be in the form of hail. 100% coverage of our lawn to the extent that it looked more like snowfall. Really beat up our impatiens. *shrugs* They’ll live or they won’t. Short power outages, no biggie, throughout the county. Touchdown of two funnels juuuust over the county line to the east.

Fun times.