Tossing Pebbles in the Stream: 09/01/2013

Monday, September 30, 2013

Busy, Busy, Busy

It seems I have been too busy to keep up with my blog writing. I feel badly for this and I expect to get back to it more regularly in the near future.

I have been following regularly the Toronto Blue Jays and their farm team the Buffalo Bisons. It has not been a good year of the mother club. Toronto had great expectations but as things worked out they missed out on the playoffs. There have been lots of problems that resulted in this disappointing result but just the same there has been some exciting baseball and individual players have show some exciting moments in all the games. They ended the season with many Triple A players from Buffalo playing to replace injured and ill regular players. They have done well and have been exciting, hopefully boding well for the future of the home team.

I am not sure if I will watch the playoff as closely as have the Blue Jays teams. Perhaps, just the World Series round.

I have been suffering for some time now with chronic pain in my legs and hip, probably arthritis. particularly my left one and of course I have the chronic pain in my right shoulder as a result of dropping a tree on it when I was logging.

In spite of this I am able to cut and split firewood. I like to say I am old from the waist down by young in my upper body., for a while longer at least.

I am currently having my front porch roof rebuilt after having the snow load tear it off this past Winter. It will be done in a week of so. My neighour is doing the work, He is the husband of my blogging friend and dog sitter Jenny.

There has been more progress since this picture was taken

My son , Parker, managed to harvest some potatoes from my neighbours patch on my land. With permission, of course. They are large Yukon Gold variety. This potato is quite popular. I would have preferred a red variety, I always used to grow some red and some white potatoes. The Yukon Gold was developed by a professor at the agricultural college at Guelph University.

Here is my current fire wood project. The logs have all been cut into blocks now I am slitting and piling the firewood so It will further dry. At the rate I go I think it will be all done this week. There will be six rows the length of the one in the picture.We have been having some nice drying weather. Come November I will move as much as I can into the basement of the house. I am curious to find out how well the ash burns and give off heat. There is also birch and poplar mixed in. This I am familiar with. I am in good shape for wood this year. Last year, I had to buy some in the Spring for the first time. Shame on me.

I am busy trying to find homes for my kittens. Here is one of the four orange ones in the litter of five, alone with the mother. In the background outside the window is a field of feed corn that has yet to be harvested.

Now I need to get caught up on reading other people's blogs. I have allowed myself to get distracted by Facebook, postings of family and friends which I find limited and light weight chatter. A blog is better for writing and sharing more substantial reflections.

Friday, September 13, 2013

Friends

"Whoa! you are little". "And you are so big." "Could we be friends?"

"How about a lip massage of you wee back."

"Let me lick you wee behind and seal or friendship."

"And I will lick your nose and soft lips."

"Thanks for letting me nap under your warm ear. I need to find my mother so I can have lunch. You sleep. I will be back."

Thursday, September 05, 2013

Kitten Galore

Feeding time at the mother's milk bar

Lounging about after a satisfying lunch

Psst we are all hiding in here

Strange bedfellows catching a "cat" nap away from kittens. No the cat is not the mother but a barren aunt.

Monday, September 02, 2013

Wood Meditation

It is time to get the firewood done. No it is past time. I should have done it in the Spring. I had good intentions all summer to get at it but as usual I procrastinated. For the first time, I did not cut the trees down and haul the wood out of the bush. My neighbour who used to help me with it, using his skidder had a family tragedy and has not been around much lately. His youngest son (age 25) committed suicide. Just a few years ago his other son died in a car accident. Since then his brother who was just a year older than him died unexpectedly who watching a NASCAR race in Bristol, Tennessee. Sometimes I wonder just how much tragedy and grief some people have to endure.. I had hoped to reconnect with him and cut some wood together but it has not worked out. http://philiprobinson.blogspot.com/search?q=Doing+Firewood

I purchased some logs from another neighbour who is a small jobber cutting logs and selling the wood off crown land, under contract. Below is the pile of wood he delivered. He tells me it will measure out to between 17 and 20 face cord when I cut spite and pile it. I shall see when I finish the work. I will pile it outside until November so it can cure some more and then I will move it into the basement (la cave, en français) I love the French word, it is so much more descriptive of what an unfinished basement is.

I enjoy to fire wood. It is a form of meditation for me. It is a solitary activity, with the buzz of the chain saw and the silence interrupted by the chopping of the blocks. In the piling of the wood there is a satisfaction in seeing the results of your efforts grow into elegant pile of well stacked wood four feet high and 16 inches wide. This is an art form, which I have never managed to accomplish. Before I am through I will have at least part of one of my pile fall over in need of a re-piling. I doubt it I will ever be skilled at this art form. I so admire the neat piles of some neighbours who have spend their life time doing fire wood. Still while my piles stand I admire them as if they were perfect..

I meditate while doing wood. There are time when one is in a trance state doing it. I enjoy the physicality of splitting wood with a maul. This I do do with some skill. To split blocks of wood one must study the wood and discover the lines it will best split along.. A knowledge of the type of wood is required. My load has birch, poplar and ash. This is the first time I have spit ash but I expect it will be relatively easy as ash has very straight grain.

This task will occupy me over next couple of weeks., or longer if I do not tire too quickly.

Tossing Pebbles in the Stream

Monday, September 30, 2013

Friday, September 13, 2013

Thursday, September 05, 2013

Monday, September 02, 2013

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