If you want to increase your success rate, double your failure rate.

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Bad Knees, Giant Trees and More Snow Please!

So your all aware of my infatuation with battling the propane tank and the funny thing is I thought I was winning.  I have been burning wood steadily, keeping the thermostat turned down, we have sealed the windows with the 3M insulator kits and added extra blankets to all the beds.  Sometimes it gets a bit chilly but it's not  a huge house and heats up quick.  I don't see the point of warming a house when no one is here.  I'll wait till I get home.
  Generally the heat is turned down to 50 or so when we leave.  Upon return I light a fire and turn the thermostat back up to 70.  The furnace runs for 20 minutes or so and then the fire keeps the house warm after that and I turn the heat back down.  Enough said.  I win.  Or so I thought!
Yesterday I went out to cut wood because I am getting dangerously low and while cutting the second tree for the morning I turned to trot away as the tree began to fall and my foot stayed put, thanks to some roots and branches and my body turned to run.  Mr. Knee apparently isn't supposed to contort that way and thankfully the sound of the chainsaw muted my girlish yelp.  The tree fell and so did I.  Not even a full load of wood and I was down for the count.  You have to be careful of those propane tanks they are evil and their demonic spirit can travel with you wherever you go.
That was on Monday.  Today is Wednesday.  I cam back to finish this post.  I sorta lost interest on Monday.
A bit of rest and a few icings of the knee and I will be back at it today.  I have recruited my children to help.  I just have to wait for their butts to get out of bed (at Dad and Step moms) and get over here.
I have found one tree.  A giant red elm that must be 80 feet tall and has a trunk diameter of  30 inches or so.  This one tree should keep me in firewood for a couple more months.  I just hope it is good all the way through.  Nothing worse than cutting down a giant tree and halfway through the cut you notice it's rotten on the inside.  They don't show that on fear factor.  Probably should. 

Well nothing much to report on besides that.  It did finally snow, enough to cover the grass and make things slippery.  What a weird winter so far.  40's this weekend.  The dogs are killing the back yard.  The frost comes and goes and makes mud and their paws rip out chunks of turf as they run.  We need cold and snow before my entire lawn is gone.
I'll be back.......hopefully,
-Bushman 

4 comments:

  1. As one who suffers from chronic knee pain every day, I so feel for you. It sucks. Every step is excruciating! It's been a weird winter so far. Places that usually have snow have not had any in forever and that makes me wonder what kind of January and February we will have. Take it easy on that knee!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm with you about winter. I just wish it would freeze. All the rain has made my backyard into a muddy morass (NOTE: my clever use of alliteration. Those correspondence college classes -THERE, I did it again!-weren't wasted, after all). But, God can keep the snow, though (gotta blame somebody).
    I've now become the Dad who shovels.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Propane tanks are demonic. About the time Dad turned eighty he switched from firewood to a gas fireplace, and let his son in law keep the tank free of snow. As long as he keeps his remaining fingers out of the snow blower, we let him tidy up the drive. (A neighbor plows the deep stuff)
    Baby the knee and get a little sweat equity out of the kids. Happy New Years

    ReplyDelete
  4. This book is meant to be a textbook for graduate-level courses in approximation algorithms. Once some expertise teaching manicures within the space within the mid-90s, we tend to sat down and wrote out a top level view of the bookstores.

    ReplyDelete

Leave your comment here please.