Lumberjack Gym

Today, after a breakfast of home grown sausage and egg breakfast with maple syrup, Nyle and I went over to my brothers house and picked up the old freezer that the rest of my pig was in. We emptied out the old freezer with it's rust covered door then loaded it with the cobwebs stringing from its coils in to my old Isuzu pickup. Or at least what is left of the old Isuzu. The freezer is an an old upright so we had to haul it standing up. I am always a little nervous of hauling something that towers above the cab of my pickup truck. I fear the wind might snatch the cargo out of the bed and in to on coming traffic. We had it loaded in just a few minutes and I strapped it down with a good cargo strap going over one of the uppermost corners and then down around and behind it to a side post embedded in the bed of the truck. It's what I call a 3 corner tie. I never have lost anything using that method of tying fridges and freezers in. I then went on a junk/scrounge tour of all the stuff my brother was going to leave, or throw away. I scored a brand new very large roll of barbed wire. An old Yaesu ham radio transceiver. An old 23 channel Cb. Some old wall thermostats. A little 2 wheel trailer like you pull behind a lawn mower. A 12 foot piece of 1/2 copper pipe. A home brew screwdriver antenna that needs finger stock installed. I just happen to have some! It would make a really nice multi-band vertical antenna. He has an old wheel barrow I need to go back and get. The handles are rotted on it. I have a wheel barrow with steel handles that has a broke plastic "barrow". I also picked up a few scissor jacks he was getting rid of. Basically I came home with a truck load of his junk. The old saying "One mans junk is another mans treasure", is so true. I am now sooooo rich!
I unloaded all of my treasure, plugged the old freezer in and loaded the pig back in the old rusty bucket. I then set about cutting another load or 2 of firewood if possible. The first thing I had to do was sharpen my saw chain. Yesterday I hit something and dulled it down pretty good. So I started out sharpening the saw while Jen started on preparing lunch. Nyle was "helping" me, of course. Jen called lunch just about three teeth from having them all sharp. I told her I'd be just a few more minutes and then I would be right in. I finished up and inspected my file work. It looked pretty good. I was ready to go. After a quick bite of lunch, Nyle and I loaded up the saw, ax, and a maul and headed to the woods. The woods is about 60 seconds away so it was a short and uneventful trip. I put Nyle in the bed of the truck so he could see me work yet not be put in harms way. The brier bushes helped in convincing him that was where he really wanted to be located for this adventure. I cut about 3 pieces of fire wood before my saw stopped cutting. The chain was dull again and looked as if I had hit a piece of metal in the tree I was cutting up. I took a close look at the tree but could not find anything that looked like it could had done the damage. So I loaded up what wood I had gotten cut and went back to the house because Nyle had to take care of a personal issue that could not be taken care of easily without a bonafide toilet. While I was at the house I sharpened my chain again and then dug out the old chainsaw chain I replaced last year and put it on the saw. I did not know what was damaging my chain so if I was going to ruin one, I wanted it to be an old worn out chain. I then kicked back the weeds and briers to see what may have caused the damage. Nyle and I went back to the woods after I got the new "old" chain on the saw.Just about the time I got out of the truck, my cell buzzed. It was Jen telling me she was going to town to do some errands. I called her back in a few minutes and asked her to pick me up some new chainsaw files. It looked like I was going to need them!
This time, before I started cutting, I made a careful inspection of the area to see if I could figure out what was damaging my chain. I kicked back the briers and grass to get a good look at the ground. That is when I discovered I was cutting firewood on top of a big mound of dirt colored sandstone rock. I am not kidding, it looks like dirt, but it's rock. So I was extra careful and this time was able to cut without damaging the the saw. I almost got a load cut when Jen drove back by comming home from town. In a few minutes my cell buzzed again. It was Jen reminding me it was Nyles' nap time. I told her I would bring him in just a few minutes. I loaded a few pieces of wood so I would feel like I had accomplished something before I went back home. Nyle was about to fall off his perch he was so sleepy. So I decided to take him in and get me some more sweet tea while I was at it.
After about 30 minutes I was back at the woods cutting up a new tree top. I had diced up the smaller limbs and was about to start on some of the bigger material in the top when the saw ran out of gas. The gas can was setting down by the wood pile back at the house. So loaded up what I had cut and headed back to the house. I had about 3/4 of a load so it wasn't all that bad. When I got home I unloaded it and started splitting up some big pieces I had previously cut. That took me the rest of the evening to split and stack. I finally finished a whole row of firewood. I need an=bout 4 rows to go through a winter. I now have 2. I am 1/2 way there! I am getting a great work out. I am sore all over!
For supper we had Beef Manhattans with home grown corn. The beef was raised by my father in-law. He grows his own hay, corn, and soy beans to feed to his own cows. I can tell you, the beef is real good tasting! Each year we get a portion of the slaughter. That's real nice of him. He is a good man with high standards, morals, and respect. I could not have asked for a better set of in-laws.
Speaking of farming, my chickens have really slowed down on the egg production. The days are getting shorter and we have been having a lot of gray days as well. I still have over a dozen eggs in the fridge, so I am not too concerned. I have been thinking about getting a rooster for the old hens and raise a new crop of chickens. I have also thought about getting a milk goat. I am not sure if it is economical. Feed is rather costly. I will have to give this some further thought and research.
I guess I will do that now.
Have a great day!

Firewood Score

Hello once again from the heart of cold country. It is soon to turn cold hear. The temperature will soon follow the leaves and fall.Undoubtedly so too will the snow. I have been putting off cutting firewood this year. We are trying to sell our property so that we can be closer to Nyle's grandparents. But with a down economy, selling a house is not an easy thing to do. On top of that, we are not the motivated by money home owner with our financial backs against the proverbial wall as most sellers are. So we aren't really negotiating on the price...much. We do have someone that is interested, but I am not holding my breath. So a few days ago I decided it was time for me to start looking for a place to cut some firewood. My brother sold his place this past month so that I had to find another place to get my wood. As it turns out there is a place about 300 yards from my house that was cut off a few years ago and I noticed it looked like it still had several tops that could be turned in to firewood with ease. If you can call cutting wood with a chainsaw, hauling, splitting, and stacking wood "with ease". This place is very conveniently located to me. In fact Nyle and I walked down to a trailer that sits in the middle of all this cutoff woods, and spoke with a tenant who is renting the place off of the owner. So we went over and knocked on the door and it just so happened this person was home. A nice fellow about my age, maybe just a little older. A nice conversation ensued and I told him my desire to cut some of the tops laying all around his trailer. Well, he said that I would of course have to speak with the owner of the land, but he thought the owner would not mind. He gave me a name and I thanked him for his time and walked back home. As I was making the trip I recorded the owners name in my phone audio recordings. I have a great memory, it's just really short! I looked up the owner and phoned the gentleman> I knew he would be an elderly man. Google not only came up with his name, address, and phone number, but also his age. The owner said he had no problem with me cutting all that I wanted. All right! After I had charged the battery in my truck, ran to town and got some gas for the truck, and chainsaw gas, which involved having to have my van jump started...twice! I was back home and ready to work. I got this all done and ready to go to the woods about the time Nyle takes his afternoon nap. I hated to go with out him, as he really enjoys going with me and watching me, and helping me, when he can. But I thought it might be better to go by myself and just see how the place was and if it was conducive to have Nyle along. There are some big dogs in the neighborhood and I dd not know if they would show up. At any rate I went on over there and stopped in and spoke with the renter and let him know I had spoken with the owner and had obtained permission to cut. I asked about how he felt about that, if the noise would bother him, and let him know I would not cut too early in the day, or too late at night so as not to disturb him. He said not to worry about it that he hardly heard them back there when they logged it off originally. That was nice. I also asked him about here the property lines were so as to be sure and not start cutting on someone's land that I had not garnered permission to cut on. He was kind enough to give me the fifty cent tour and gave me a pretty good idea how the lines ran. I thanked him and went on back behind his place where the "woods" started, or where they used t be. I scored a big old red oak that was doughty at the trunk, but had good wood in it further up. I started cutting it up. It was such a good piece I did not finish getting it chunked completely up. I still managed to have a full load of firewood on my Isuzu. So you know this was a pretty good start, and a great find for my firewood this year. My chainsaw ran great! I am really impressed with my $100.00 chainsaw. I bought it last year and it ran great. I pulled the rope maybe 6-9 times and she fired right up this year, and ran flawlessly. Now get ready for this... it's a McCullough Chain Saw. I never ever would have bought that brand as my childhood memories of this brand of chainsaw were of my dad saying, "NEVER BUY A MCCULLOUGH CHAINSAW #!&*$&^!!!! He had one of those that was made in the 40's, out of solid steel billet and weighed about a 100+ pounds. And it never ran, except on the hottest days when you really did not want to run a saw. They make them better now. This model has the "bigger chain" on it. It's supposed to be a "real chainsaw" and not the cheap Walmart, Kmart, Big box cheapy junk. Evidently McCullough makes a cheapy model, but this is the real "lumber jack" version. So buyer beware, they aren't all the same. However, I really like mine, as much as a man can like a chainsaw. If you know what I mean...
Tomorrow I am going to finish unloading the truck. Then I am going over to my brothers house, the one he just sold, and pick up the freezer that has been storing the pig I had butchered earlier this year. It still has a lot of that pig in it and I really must bring home the bacon tomorrow. After that I might cut another load of wood if it is not raining. I have included a vid of Nyle and his Grampa fixing a flat tire. Note how well Nyle does with handling the wrenches. He loves doing this kind of stuff. Well I got to get. See you later....

Pizza Bones

Last night we came pretty late and Nyle wanted pizza for his bedtime snack. We had a piece of frozen cheese pizza that Jen microwaved for him. She went up stairs and started getting ready for bed while I cleaned up the kitchen a little. Nyle does not like his food very warm, and he likes it cut up in bite size pieces. So to accommodate his preferences, I cut the slice of pizza up in to small pieces and let it cool. I then set him up at the table and he began eating his pizza while I continued cleaning. In about 10 minutes I heard him say " well, there's a bone", kind of muttering to himself. I said,"What's that? How's that pizza? Do you have any left? He said, "nope, there aint nothing left but the bones!" I thought to myself "Bones!?" Hmmmm. I went over and checked out his plate. Sure enough all that was left was the crusty bone hard edge. A pizza bone for sure to a 3 year old. It was especially hard from the freeze and thaw and then the microwave. It was hard as a rock, and not at all worth eating. A pizza bone!
Today's little video clip is of me singing at the state fair earlier this year. It takes a while for them to get the song setup for me to sing. But the real entertainment is my dancer. Check it out...

Fall is here

Hello once again from the heart of Indiana.
The fall season is once again upon us. The leaves are changing color and falling to the earth in their splendor. This season is interesting to watch. It gives warning to the coming days of cold winds and snow that are soon to abound. We have many gray days here in the winter, which ultimately leads one to a depression type state of mind. Football on T.V. can help one cope with that. However since the channels have been digitized I can not receive football programing. So what is one to do. I have my ham radio, tinkering in the shop, and I could make maple syrup again this year. I have also thought about trying to build a small green house in an effort to raise leaf vegetable through the winter. This would require me obtaining some plastic sheeting for glazing. I already have some cattle panels I could use as the structure to sup[port the glazing. If you don't know what I am saying do a search on Google for "cattle panel greenhouse". It is the easiest and cheapest way I have seen to build a small simple greenhouse. In fact, you could copy then past the following URL in your address bar and see exactly what I am referring to.
http://www.ericsprojects.com/?p=3
Take a look at that site and you may be tempted to build your own! Green-housing is a way to defy natures cold,gray weather days. It is a way we can fight ol' man winter and grow some great tasting fresh vegetables at the same time! I would also like to get me a couple of big black plastic barrels and fill them with water to absorb day time heat to be released after the sun goes down. It would be fun and cheap to try any way.
I have been thinking about ways to advertise my business. As you may know I am trying to start my own service company. I really like the idea. The hard part is coming up with the accounts. Starting a cleaning business is a lot about trust. Especially if you are going to be doing residential cleaning. You do not want just anybody going through your house at liberty if you do not know them, or trust them. So I have to advertise trust AND ability. I am doing a ton of research on advertising and marketing, which are not the same thing. Marketing would be using the concept of trust as a point of interest to advertise to garner clients. There are many ways to advertise. The local paper seems to be a popular idea. There are other ways such as door hangers, post card/ direct mailing, cold calling upscale neighborhoods and so forth. What I really would like was office cleaning. A few hours every night can usually be all that you need to make a decent living. You won't be able to vacation every year in the Caribbean, but you might be able to go to the beach for a few days a couple time in the year. And that's all I need. I am a simple man. I like fishing, football, and outdoor bond fires with friends. Simple stuff.
Speaking of football, this year Brett Favre signed with the Minnesota Vikings. The last I heard he had one his first 5 games this year. That is pretty cool I think. He is one of the oldest quarterbacks in the NFL (40) and he still has the ability to turn a loosing team in to a winning team just by stepping on to the field and start calling some shots and making plays. I just someone would get the nerve to tell him to put the "R" in front of the "V" so it is spelled the way it sounds! Spell check does not like it one little bit the way it is spelled now....
Well that is enough for now, maybe too much. I would like to announce that in the near future I am going to be adding more video and photo's of the news and life that we live and see. Stay tuned for more. I am putting a small vid of when I made a homemade maple sap cooker for making maple syrup. This was very cheap and very effective. I might do a complete blog on how to make maple syrup. Once you figure out what a maple tree looks like, it's easy. my first time I gussed and taped 5 trees. I gussed right because the syrup tasted real good! Anyway, check out the video.
CYA!

Catching up

Greetings!
I have a few things to report.
Nyle passed a new milestone. About a week ago, I think it was October 2 2009, Nyle stayed at Mamaw's and Papa's house all night. That was his first tie being away from us for a whole night. We expected that we would have to go and pick him up at mid-night, but he never had a problem. He says he wants t do it again soon. So he is growing up. Our next son is due to be born in 2010. We do not have a definite name picked out for him yet. It seems all the good ones have previously been taken. We are think about Ryse or Ryess to be pronounced as Reese. It means small stream in some ancient language. Which would fit nicely with Nyle (big river) which would be Ryse's big brother. And it is unique enough I think.
I have been looking for gainful employment, but nothing so far. I am enjoying the unemployment benefits at the time. I still have several months before that will even begin to run out. I am not worried over much about it. The rocking chair is pretty comfortable so far.
In the mean time I am auxiliary pioneering this month, The C.O. will be visiting us next week. So that works out good.
I have been looking about starting an Ebay company. I know it sounds like a far fetched idea, but people make a lot of money doing it. Jen put in a bid to clean a house for a lady and that is what she does. She told Jen she projects that in 5 years she will doing $500,000 worth of business. She seems to be doing well with it so far. So I thought I would at least look in to it and see what it is all about.
Look on youtube for millionaire teenagers and you will someone has made the internet work for them and you don't have to be all that smart. You just have to "do it". I like to look before I leap though. I am looking....not leaping.
It is getting colder. It frosted this morning, Oct 11. It is time to tap the maple trees. I don't think I will do that this year, but I might since I am not doing anything else.
Nyle and I have had a head cold/ allergies for the last few weeks. I will be glad when we are over it. The swine flu is reported t be in Bloomfield. I hope we don't come down with that either. It may be inevitably unavoidable though. Hope not...
Well that's a catch up. I kno this is boring stuff but I am nt feeling briliant at this blog time. Sorry...
Bye

Another Day It was rainy

Well this was another day. We went out all day. Jen and I are auxiliary pioneering this month,so we put in a long day to day. It was raining for the first half and some the second half of the day. We did a few return visits and then we did door. I placed a couple of sets of mags. All in all, not a bad day.
We showed the house to another prospective buyer his evening. He and his wife are looking to relocate in the area from Michigan. He is working for GM in Bedford and she will be working in Indy. That is a long way from each other. They have a couple of little kids. This would be great or them for the kids. This road dead ends about 3/4 of a mile on back, so there is not much traffic through here. Maybe they wil buy, maybe not.
I haven't located any more cleaning work. well Jen has not. I am "unemployed" so I don't work per say. I am looking, but so far not finding much. I am enjoying the break from the rat race.
I think I would like to have a couple of floors to maintain and keep it simpl. I have thought about learning about installing solar cells and getting in to "green energy". That seems to be the wave of the future for this system. But I am in no big hurry to make any moves.
I am happy and content for the time being.
Something I haven't been for quite sometime.
That is all the new for today

You're Fired! And I am so glad!

Well folks I lost my job at the hospital on 9/10/09. I was accused of "Harrssing" the employees. Also known as being a boss. There was a select few staff who had it in for me and the got together enough "evidence" that got me fired. There are rules in the workplace that are not well defined in what one can say, and what one can not, also known as "politically correct". A few folks took some things I said out of context and presented it to the Human Resources director by an anonymous phone call. I had a black lady that worked for me and a few weeks prior someone overheard me say the "Your hands are as black as a chalkboard."
What I said was, "If you don't quit fiddling with that, your hands are going to be as black as chalkboard." She had a magic marker in her hands and she was trying to get the cap back on it, and not doing it very well. She was marking all over her hands. Well I guess a few folks overheard part of that and took offense. There were some other excerpts of things I had said going back for a year or more that was presented. I was hunted and attacked by the "smokers" in the department. I recently increased my unannounced, unexpected visits to the floors when staff should have been present. I suppose they did not like that. I don't really blame these people. They work awful hard for what they get. I do blame the investigating administrator and my director for not going beyond the prima facie evidence. It should have been obvious I was being attacked and the information that was given to them was not an honest reporting of policy violations intended to protect employees from another employee intent on harassment activities. However, my boss did not like to stick his neck out or be involved in anything that required too much investigation. Time and again I would have to attend meetings for him and then report back to him on what the meeting was about. He did not like to be "involved" with the on goings. Perhaps he was afraid someone would do to him what they did to me. And if that is the case, he is smarter than I gave him credit for. I did get word that the black lady was not happy with my termination and that most of the staff were upset about my demise. That was consolatory to hear.
I was looking for a job when I found that one. I am really enjoying staying home with Jen and Nyle and Ryse (sounds like Reese). I get up when I feel like it and stay up as long as I like. I am getting my unemployment. I can not work for less then about $10.00 and hour or I will be making less than what it will pay me. We are getting our WIC now for Jen, Ryse and Nyle. And I think we will qualify for about $100.00 in Food Stamps. Hey, I paid my taxes and now I am going to try and get the money I paid in to the system back out. The way I look at it, it was my money to begin with. I am lucky to be able to get some of it back!
Of course I am actively looking for employment. If the right job comes along I will put my work boots back on. I apply for every decent job I see. In the mean time I am trying to start my own cleaning business. I have enough experience now to hire employees and just supervise. First I have to get some accounts. I would really like to get in to residential cleaning. It is easy to train new staff on how to do that. It pays well and you can hire cheap labor to perform the work. Around $9.00-$10.00 an hour, which is more than they make for a big organization. Office cleaning would be great too. I already know where to find good help for that. The good staff I had at the hospital expressed an interest in working for me doing that after they got off of work. That way they have their insurance through the hospital and I can pay them more per hour than the hospital. A $100.00 a week extra can go along way for some of those folks.
I just need to find the work, I have a plan.
Marketing and advertising is what makes the services industry work. I need more market exposure. I am not doing so well at that yet. Hopefully I can get that ball rolling better soon.
I will enjoy having my own business again. I have a few accounts already, but I need more. At least another $400 -$500 more per week. Which breaks down to about 10-20 more hours of work per week. That should be very doable. I have about 6-12 months to achieve this target.
In the mean time we are trying to conserve our money. We were trying to sell the house before all of this, now we really would like to! We want to be closer to mama and papaw. That is really why we wanted to move up here in the first place. We have had some really god prospective buyers contact us about the house from our craigs list posting. If you are trying to sell your house, forget the real estate agent. Post it on craigslist.com We got a lot more calls on our house in 3 weeks of posting then we did a year with a Realtor.
We have a full freezer of food and some at my brothers house that wont fit in our freezer. So we got plenty to eat. Deer, Beef, and Pork. (Thanks to Khaki our last pig) We don't have any fish, but with being unemployed and all I can do some fishing and remedy that!
So if you read this, please do not feel sorry for me that I lost the job working at the hospital. It was stressful for my whole family. There was soooo much I could not discuss with Jen,(HIPPA) not that she wanted to hear about all that mess anyway. It separated us for 8 hours a day 5 days a week and then when o got home I often was still focused on the office and not on the family. So it was a good thing. I should probably write a thank you note to those that conspired against me. And I did learn a lot from the experience.
Well that is the update for now. I have more to say but will save it for latter.
Thank you and have a great day!
I know I am!!!!