The first of many to come from the garden. I had another ripe one already, but it had some bottom rot so I tossed it on the compost pile. This one's a keeper, though.
I've already picked some cukes, and the peppers are coming in. Just a small patch but I've managed to keep up with the weeds and the weather this year. Maybe expand it a little more next year.
I need to get back in the shop but I've still got some work to do with the logs in the yard. Clean up, splitting and stacking will continue as time and weather allows. However, I've got a guy coming by tomorrow with an aluminum welding job. Have to see what that entails.
Rainy day yesterday and the "domestic help" was here continuing with the kitchen cleaning and rearranging. I spent some time moving things and being close by without being in the way. Pulled out the computer for a bit and rather than feed my paranoia listened to some music. My buddy Kevin and I had looked into starting one of the low wattage radio stations at the high school, but it didn't look like it was going to get any support from the office at that time, so it didn't go anywhere. So today you get a few of my favorites. No classic rock or jazz in the lineup, just some nice, easy stuff for a rainy day - the Johnny Winters tune being an exception.
I don't think I've featured any of these here before - maybe the John Prine tune, but "that's all right mama."
The Surprise lilies popped up the other day. You never even know they're there, then overnight they're a couple of feet tall and in bloom. Lovely.
I've been getting a lot of yardwork done but still a long way to go. It's been relatively cool, so I've been trying to take advantage of it. Ninety-degree weather is not for me but by going out on my bike in the morning and working outside late afternoon/evenings, progress is being made.
However, the county hit the road in front of my place with a fresh coat of tar and chips yesterday. While there are some cyclists who relish riding gravel, I'm not one of them. After a couple of weeks, since everyone drives down the middle of the road, the chips will be pushed to the side and it makes it tough on a cyclist to ride when moving over to allow a car to pass. Plus, the cars and trucks don't always slow down, so they end up slinging chips on the bike rider. They also do the same when going by another vehicle in the opposite lane resulting in broken windshields. The fresh chips end by the railroad tracks just out of the photo to the left, so if that's all the farther the county is planning to go, that'll be the way the Missus will be going in her new car whenever she leaves the shack regardless of her destination.
The tree crew showed up yesterday morning. They took down two oak trees and trimmed up a bunch of stuff. In the photo the bucket man is trimming the branches away from the shop roof and then moved on to the big barn and did the same thing. He topped a couple trees in the front yard to keep them out of the power lines coming into the house as well. That should be good for a few years now - at least until the trees grow back into the power lines.
These will be the next ones to come down. They both are leaning as a result of a big storm that came through right after we moved in. There was another one to the right of these two that was uprooted. After it got cut up, I started counting the growth rings but gave up after getting to two hundred. The tree was probably at least 300 years old as are the ones in the photo. There's another one to the left of these two that has a trunk a bit larger. It'll be a shame to have to cut them down when the time comes but they both dropped a large branch in the last big blow.
I've planted a bunch of trees since I've lived here and I've allowed some volunteers to grow. I've been cleaning up some of the scrub trees and undergrowth lately. The backyard looks like a park when it's trimmed up. I'll do a little more trimming and start splitting the pieces the tree guys left for me. I'm going to have a lot of nice firewood.
I tagged along with Coach Jen to ATT in Indy today. The gym has open sparring on the first Saturday of each month. Not a lot of boxers there today but some really good sparring sessions. The guy on the right in the photo is a pro fighter with a record of 10-0. I've seen him fight several times and he seems to be the most relaxed guy in the ring you'd ever want to see. He's scheduled to fight another guy who's also 10-0. Should be a good bout.
I worked with one of the boxers. Jen told me he's a hard worker but due his short stature, he needed some help on getting inside. I showed him a couple of things to help with that along with a couple other things I noticed when he was sparring. I hope it'll help.
I had a good time today - watched some quality sparring, had lunch with Coach Jen and then a nice chat on the drive home. Beats working!
I cut up a big limb that fell a while back into short pieces for the fireplace on Sunday. I left the couple of pieces in the foreground because it was hot, I was sweating, and I could feel my heart beating. I rested up for a couple of minutes and took my pulse - 85 bpm. If you take the most common formula for determining maximum heart rate, mine works out to 220-75 = 145. 145 x 80% =116. So, if I go by the numbers, 80% of my maximum heart rate is 116 bpm, I wasn't even close at 85. However, it was hot and humid and I've learned not to push it, especially when the heat index is around 100.
Yesterday it was a perfect summer day for working outside, so I moved the cut up lengths to the splitter and split them. The tree man will be here soon to take the rest of the tree down, so I'll have plenty of oak firewood for the winter. I'll take some of the next batch and put it under the shelter on the backside of the garage. The rest I'll stack with this pile and then tarp it after it has a chance to dry out a bit.
Other than some lifting, twisting and turning, splitting doesn't even feel like work - more like some of the Tai-Chai exercises I've been doing. I keep an eye on my fitness level by checking my resting heart rate. It was 56 bpm yesterday morning. Not bad for an old cardiac patient. Just need to watch the diet and stress levels to keep the arteries from clogging up again.
We've got a young lady coming in one day a week to help out around the house now. I figured she would be doing cleaning chores, but the Missus decided moving everything around in the kitchen would be the first order of business. I can no longer find anything, but who am I to argue? Anyway, the Missus handed me the little teapot in the photo and asked me if I could knock out a couple of dents in the side of the thing. I was able to fit a small ball peen hammer inside the teapot and work a little metal shaping magic on the dents. I filed off the high spots followed by sandpaper, Scotch-Brite, buffing wheel and a final polishing with some Auto Sol. It's not perfect, and if was a motorcycle part I probably would have done a little more sanding with a finer grit, but as the old saying goes, good enough for the girls I run with.
I ordered some crew socks from the Amazonians thinking that's a no brainer. However, such is not the case. I should have read the fine print a little closer. The photo looked like what I wanted, but even though they were sold as crew socks and work socks, they are more polyester than cotton, meaning they stretch to over the calf length. I was looking for socks that stick out about 1/2" above my 8" work boots. If I wanted over the calf socks, I'd be looking for some like Chuck Wepner had on in his fight with Ali. Actually, I used to wear those when I was training back in the seventies. I haven't seen those on any of the fighters in a long time. They probably went out of style about the same time as Wepner hit the canvas. Anyway, I still need some cotton crew socks, and who wears polyester work socks, anyway?
