Started the saw...

[Whitespider]

...for the first time in 2014 yesterday. Heck, i even started the splitter.

Needed some fire pit wood and headed out into the woodlot at 5:30 AM. Cut a small load from a blown-down American Elm (just came down in last weeks thunderstorm)... then split it and tossed it in the fire pit rack. About 2½ hours total work.

I learned something...
I've grown fat, lazy and damn soft over the winter.
And I need to get busy if'n I'm gonna' be ready for next winter... 'cause if only 2½ hours work kicks my butt that bad, the firewood ain't gonna' be pilin' up at a super fast pace
*

 

[turnkey4099]

...for the first time in 2014 yesterday. Heck, i even started the splitter.

Needed some fire pit wood and headed out into the woodlot at 5:30 AM. Cut a small load from a blown-down American Elm (just came down in last weeks thunderstorm)... then split it and tossed it in the fire pit rack. About 2½ hours total work.

I learned something...
I've grown fat, lazy and damn soft over the winter.
And I need to get busy if'n I'm gonna' be ready for next winter... 'cause if only 2½ hours work kicks my butt that bad, the firewood ain't gonna' be pilin' up at a super fast pace
*

I'm down to about a max of about 3 hours of brush and cut and as for walking forgetaboutit, I ride the rider mower from house out ot the woodpile. Age (and brews) will do that to ya.

Harry K

 

[Whitespider]

L-O-L
Well, I've been cuttin' back on the "brews" a bit... doctor's orders ya' know??
It's even a bit hard to "cheat" if'n I'm in the mood... the wife has formed an unholy alliance with the doctor
*

 

[CTYank]

Who knows? You might just have ducked peak deer-tick season! Ill wind blows nobody good.

 

[Duane(Pa)]

I was thinking the same thing today. One tank of fuel and I was whipped. Eighty six degrees and high humidity. Entering geezerhood I guess?

 

[stihly dan]

Yup, stacked around 15 PIECES of wood this weekend and threw out my back. Who new 5 lbs could create so much pain. Good thing I got most of it done during the winter.

 

[zogger]

Keep up with the no brews and lose the extra sack O spuds, you'll feel better and get more energy back.

Speaking of "backs", when i busted mine, that is when I upped the brew intake, liquid pain killer. Previous, couple/three, after back injury, six, then twelve, then..you get the picture. Well, that got out of hand, so I quit one day. Wasn't hard at all to quit, I wanted to feel better, and more beer wasn't doing it. Took about a full year to really achieve the full effect, which was amazing to me. Took two days to start feeling much better, but a full year to achieve wellness. It's like every day, you wake up "more", little bit more energy. next day, a bit more. Takes a lonnngggg time for the brain to rewire (what I have read on the subject since then).

Never missed it, not a bit, guess I was lucky or something.

Now my back never fully recovered, BUT, once my brain got to working better and my body responded by being healthier and somewhat stronger, it self repaired much better than previously, and now I can at least work a job part time and some days actually feel almost completely healed and normal, albeit within the limitations of being a skinny small guy who has hit at least entry level geezerhood.

Hey, good luck man!

 

[Whitespider]

I ain't just cuttin' back on the beer... the family (per doctors) is on my butt about the smokin', eating, and general lifestyle habits also.
Heck, I ain't been to the doctor but, maybe a half-dozen times in my life... until this past couple years, now it seems like I can't get away from 'em. This latest is horrible daily headaches that started 'bout two weeks ago... I've been poked, prodded, scanned, x-rayed, MRI'd, and given enough blood to feed Dracula for a year.

Doctors are tellin' me liver is headed south, lungs are starting to weaken, blood pressure is up, heart is workin' too hard, I'm a little over weight, they removed polyps during a recent colonoscopy and I'm supposed to have one every year now, arthritis and a bad knee, I don't drink enough water or eat enough fiber, now they've got the wife and family workin' for 'em... and they wonder why I have friggin' headaches

Basically what they're tellin' me is I've abused myself for the last 40 of my 56 years and it's time to either grow-up or start shoppin' for caskets... and the wife ain't in the mood for casket shoppin' just yet. Heck, she's even appealing to my buddies who stop over with a box now-and-then... she ain't being rude to 'em, but she makes sure they know what's goin' on. She also keeps pointin' at the 6-year-old and askin' me if I'd like to see him grow up... (sigh). I think her attitude really changed when we learned we're gonna' be grandparents this fall...

Anyway... the doctors say I'm darn good physically for my age, better shape than most actually... but my insides ain't holdin' up to all the abuse.
If I grow-up now it ain't too late to turn a lot of it around... if I don't grow-up it ain't long before the outside starts following the insides...
Guess it's time to grow-up... I hate gettin' old... almost as much as I hate cuttin' the grass.

I ain't tryin' to turn this into a whining session... it's all on me, and me alone... I made all my own choices in this life... just sayin' is all.
*

 

[kyle1!]

Non activity slowly kiills a person. Throw in some abusive agents and bad body habits then the death clock speeds up even more. You are over half way dead spidey!! Have a nice cold one will ya....please pass the ice water and figs.

 

[svk]

Whitespider: I usually like to give you a hard time, but in all seriousness take this as an opportunity to get healthier NOW. If not for you, for your family. It's damn hard for a young man to grow up without a dad, even with a good support system from other family members.

Once you start cooking and eating healthy (you already grill so thats a good start), after a few months you won't have much of a taste for the unhealthy stuff anymore. The smoking has to go (give vapor inhalers a try) and drop the alcohol. It will be hard at first but won't take all that long until you are feeling a lot better.

 

[Whitespider]

Yeah, the smokin' is gonna' haf'ta go... no doubt.
Really, I eat pretty healthy... at meals. Problem is I normally only eat one "meal" a day, that being the evening meal (which usually is eaten at too late an hour)... most days I live off coffee, cigarets and whatever I can grab 'n' eat on the run till mid-to-late afternoon, then beer and cigarettes till supper.
I don't see myself totally givin' up adult beverages, and the doctors are tellin' me one or two a day is good for my heart... but drinkin' 30-50 beers a week ain't good for anything (like I needed to be told that ).

So, I'm trying to eat a little something for breakfast, take a little lunch break, start the cookin' fire a bit earlier, and not open a beer until I start cookin'.
I quit carrying my smokes around with me so I haf'ta make an effort to light one, which forces me to think about it... I'm only smokin' about half of what I was a month ago, and I'll wean myself a bit more than kick that nasty habit.
Weekends are the hard time... I open a beer early some Saturdays/Sundays (like 10:00 AM if'n it's hot out) and if somebody stops with a box... well, it ain't hard to drink 30-35 in a weekend. And when I'm drinkin', I'm smokin', and I ain't eatin'... and I ain't always thinkin' about it either. Don't get me wrong, I ain't a fallin'-down, drunkin' slob... alcohol, especially beer, don't affect me that way very often, I'm still outside doin' what needs to be done... and the wife will back me on that, she even tells the doctors that. But what they're sayin' is it don't matter if I ain't a stumblin', drunkin', slob... it's still eatin' up my insides. I hung a sign on the beer fridge out in the shop that says, "HEY STUPID" It works pretty good... at least I think about it before I open the door. I also stack bottles of water in front of the beer now, and that works pretty good also... if I reach in and grab without lookin' I end up with a water instead of a beer.

Anyway... it-is-what-it-is... my daughters graduation party is this weekend, lots of friends and family around... I figure it's the last yippee-ky-yay... and then it's time to get serious.
She's the first in our house to graduate from high school... the wife, myself and the oldest boy all dropped out... this is a really big deal to us. (anyway, that's my excuse to carry it out another few days)
*

 

[brenndatomu]

Yup, better straighten up soes ya can stay in good enough shape to keep cuttin wood, ya wouldn't wanna hafta go buy a new fuse for that proPAIN furnace now wouldja?
I bet a giant pulsating brain would give a guy some pretty nasty headaches now! I know for me, if im gettin headaches, it's usually in the summer, cause I'm dehydrated. I feel like I'm drinking enough, but when the headaches and the nighttime leg cramps start, I know I need to up my WATER intake.
High school dropout huh? Well, I hafta say, if half the "graduates" today had even half the knowledge that you have pulsating away in that head of yours, this country would have a much brighter future indeed! (oh, looky there, a new symptom to tell the doc about...head swelling!)

 

[Chris-PA]

Last evening I was sitting on the porch swing with my daughter, having a beer and talking to a friend that stopped by. When I went to stand up my lower back cramped up and wouldn't quit, and pulled some muscles. I could barely walk and had to miss work today. It's getting better now and looks like it will pass.

Who knew drinking a beer could do that to a guy?

Wouldn't have anything to do with busting my butt all weekend I suppose.

At 50 I'm trying real hard to work carefully, but doing this stuff just sets you up for so many situations where you just need to put some force into things. Heck, just being in the steel toes all day hurts. Seems I rarely find out for a day or two if I've hurt something, and then it hits when I'm doing something tame, like getting off the swing or toweling off my hair.

 

[zogger]

Last evening I was sitting on the porch swing with my daughter, having a beer and talking to a friend that stopped by. When I went to stand up my lower back cramped up and wouldn't quit, and pulled some muscles. I could barely walk and had to miss work today. It's getting better now and looks like it will pass.

Who knew drinking a beer could do that to a guy?

Wouldn't have anything to do with busting my butt all weekend I suppose.

At 50 I'm trying real hard to work carefully, but doing this stuff just sets you up for so many situations where you just need to put some force into things. Heck, just being in the steel toes all day hurts. Seems I rarely find out for a day or two if I've hurt something, and then it hits when I'm doing something tame, like getting off the swing or toweling off my hair.

Gravity works, use it to your advantage. Get a chinup bar, combination dead hang for duration-feel your back stretch out and pop, then full chinups to keep arm muscle balance. Crunches in conjunction with the chinups are good, too, as are full side to side twists. I do that (have various branches and pieces of equipment around the farm I hit while out and about) plus use my inversion table, best thing for the back evah. Mucho cheaper over a chiropractor.

We are slow ground monkeys, doesn't mean we shouldn't climb, use the arms going up hill once in awhile, good for ya. Anything to let gravity work to decompress the spine and keep all the various muscles and assorted biological whatnots in tone.

 

[stihl sawing]

Yeah, the smokin' is gonna' haf'ta go... no doubt.
Really, I eat pretty healthy... at meals. Problem is I normally only eat one "meal" a day, that being the evening meal (which usually is eaten at too late an hour)... most days I live off coffee, cigarets and whatever I can grab 'n' eat on the run till mid-to-late afternoon, then beer and cigarettes till supper.
I don't see myself totally givin' up adult beverages, and the doctors are tellin' me one or two a day is good for my heart... but drinkin' 30-50 beers a week ain't good for anything (like I needed to be told that ).

So, I'm trying to eat a little something for breakfast, take a little lunch break, start the cookin' fire a bit earlier, and not open a beer until I start cookin'.
I quit carrying my smokes around with me so I haf'ta make an effort to light one, which forces me to think about it... I'm only smokin' about half of what I was a month ago, and I'll wean myself a bit more than kick that nasty habit.
Weekends are the hard time... I open a beer early some Saturdays/Sundays (like 10:00 AM if'n it's hot out) and if somebody stops with a box... well, it ain't hard to drink 30-35 in a weekend. And when I'm drinkin', I'm smokin', and I ain't eatin'... and I ain't always thinkin' about it either. Don't get me wrong, I ain't a fallin'-down, drunkin' slob... alcohol, especially beer, don't affect me that way very often, I'm still outside doin' what needs to be done... and the wife will back me on that, she even tells the doctors that. But what they're sayin' is it don't matter if I ain't a stumblin', drunkin', slob... it's still eatin' up my insides. I hung a sign on the beer fridge out in the shop that says, "HEY STUPID" It works pretty good... at least I think about it before I open the door. I also stack bottles of water in front of the beer now, and that works pretty good also... if I reach in and grab without lookin' I end up with a water instead of a beer.

Anyway... it-is-what-it-is... my daughters graduation party is this weekend, lots of friends and family around... I figure it's the last yippee-ky-yay... and then it's time to get serious.
She's the first in our house to graduate from high school... the wife, myself and the oldest boy all dropped out... this is a really big deal to us. (anyway, that's my excuse to carry it out another few days)
*

My Father in law done exactly the same thing.... He had a heart attack and died at age 53. He worked hard every day too. he was a welder.

 

[Deleted member 83629]

i felled 4 trees on friday and got them all cut,split and stacked by monday im a young grasshopper but it still hurts my back swinging that axe.

 

[Deleted member 83629]

Yeah, the smokin' is gonna' haf'ta go... no doubt.
Really, I eat pretty healthy... at meals. Problem is I normally only eat one "meal" a day, that being the evening meal (which usually is eaten at too late an hour)... most days I live off coffee, cigarets and whatever I can grab 'n' eat on the run till mid-to-late afternoon, then beer and cigarettes till supper.
I don't see myself totally givin' up adult beverages, and the doctors are tellin' me one or two a day is good for my heart... but drinkin' 30-50 beers a week ain't good for anything (like I needed to be told that ).

So, I'm trying to eat a little something for breakfast, take a little lunch break, start the cookin' fire a bit earlier, and not open a beer until I start cookin'.
I quit carrying my smokes around with me so I haf'ta make an effort to light one, which forces me to think about it... I'm only smokin' about half of what I was a month ago, and I'll wean myself a bit more than kick that nasty habit.
Weekends are the hard time... I open a beer early some Saturdays/Sundays (like 10:00 AM if'n it's hot out) and if somebody stops with a box... well, it ain't hard to drink 30-35 in a weekend. And when I'm drinkin', I'm smokin', and I ain't eatin'... and I ain't always thinkin' about it either. Don't get me wrong, I ain't a fallin'-down, drunkin' slob... alcohol, especially beer, don't affect me that way very often, I'm still outside doin' what needs to be done... and the wife will back me on that, she even tells the doctors that. But what they're sayin' is it don't matter if I ain't a stumblin', drunkin', slob... it's still eatin' up my insides. I hung a sign on the beer fridge out in the shop that says, "HEY STUPID" It works pretty good... at least I think about it before I open the door. I also stack bottles of water in front of the beer now, and that works pretty good also... if I reach in and grab without lookin' I end up with a water instead of a beer.

Anyway... it-is-what-it-is... my daughters graduation party is this weekend, lots of friends and family around... I figure it's the last yippee-ky-yay... and then it's time to get serious.
She's the first in our house to graduate from high school... the wife, myself and the oldest boy all dropped out... this is a really big deal to us. (anyway, that's my excuse to carry it out another few days)
*

the only time i drink beer is when im trying to understand women which is about 1-2 bottles per year. i quit smoking also i keep hard candy on me when i get a craving or when i stay busy it doesn't bother me like it use to. i got great stamina in the wood lot since i gave almost everything up except pie,icecream and bacon.

 

[blacklocst]

You don't want to become box o Spidy do you. If quit the smoking and heavy drinking and start restocking the wood supplies I think this will clean up most of your ills.

 

[Whitespider]

L-O-L
Seems the doctors and wife have recruited a few of y'all also‼
But y'all are right... the wife is right... the doctors are right... and I have enough intelligence (barely) to know it...
The thing is, I never really thought of myself as a "heavy" drinker... but even the wife's eyebrows raised a little when I answered the doc's question about how much I drink. He asked how much I drink per day... I couldn't answer that (never gave it much thought). So I said, "Well, I usually buy two cases on Friday after work, sometimes I need to buy another case mid-week. And I probably empty a bottle of whiskey once a month, depending."
And that's when the wife said, "Good Lord‼ And that's on top of what your buddies bring??"
And I said, "Well sometimes we drink all of theirs and get into mine, ya' know. I mean, they drink mine too, ya' know??"

And that's when the doctor said... "So you're a heavy drinker?? You need to STOP THAT‼ We can get you some help if you need it??"

It ain't all that often I give someone that "deer in the headlights" look... L-O-L
I figure the best way to "stop that" is to just stop buying it... or at least buy a lot less. One thing is for sure... the next time I tell the wife to pick-up a bottle or box when she's in town you can bet everything ya' own she won't do it.
*

 

[turnkey4099]

L-O-L
Seems the doctors and wife have recruited a few of y'all also‼
But y'all are right... the wife is right... the doctors are right... and I have enough intelligence (barely) to know it...
The thing is, I never really thought of myself as a "heavy" drinker... but even the wife's eyebrows raised a little when I answered the doc's question about how much I drink. He asked how much I drink per day... I couldn't answer that (never gave it much thought). So I said, "Well, I usually buy two cases on Friday after work, sometimes I need to buy another case mid-week. And I probably empty a bottle of whiskey once a month, depending."
And that's when the wife said, "Good Lord‼ And that's on top of what your buddies bring??"
And I said, "Well sometimes we drink all of theirs and get into mine, ya' know. I mean, they drink mine too, ya' know??"

And that's when the doctor said... "So you're a heavy drinker?? You need to STOP THAT‼ We can get you some help if you need it??"

It ain't all that often I give someone that "deer in the headlights" look... L-O-L
I figure the best way to "stop that" is to just stop buying it... or at least buy a lot less. One thing is for sure... the next time I tell the wife to pick-up a bottle or box when she's in town you can bet everything ya' own she won't do it.
*

That's how I quit smoking, just stopped buying it. I was halfway on on 100 mile roundtrip to the commissary on base to buy my months supply at around $200. Decided I had a lot better things to do with that money, did a 180 and came home Smoked up what I had and quit cold turkey.

Now if I just had the guts to do that with the brews...

Harry K