Working Out

So, work has been terribly busy. To the point where I come home very frustrated and stressed. Don't get me wrong I am thankful we are busy. Its a good problem to have. Anyhow, I have felt the need to manage that stress in a positive way. Its nice to read when I can relax but I can't read when my stress is out of control. So that leaves working out.

 It used to be I had a handful of workouts I like to do. It starts to get old after a while. Now I've taken those workouts and incorporated the Bowflex (resistance) with dumbbells (dead weight). At pretty good weight (100 lbs resistance) 25 lb(dumbbells) amounts and I try to get more than 10 reps per set for 3-4 sets. I found that I hit muscle failure much quicker. Sometimes I will throw in fast paced med ball exercises between sets. This keeps my heart rate up and blood flowing. See I have so much pent up energy by the time I get done I feel good about what I just did.

 As far as cardio goes, every other day, it has been treadmill programs and increasing the speed to challenge myself. Sometimes its the recumbent bike with programs and pushing hard with it goes to high resistance. I haven't been able to put together full weeks. I'm starting to become ok with that because it is Christmas and because I am older and don't want to over do it.

 I try to keep motivated with custom playlists on my Ipod. I don't listen to angry music, it gives me a headache. But upbeat, high energy tunes. There are points in some songs that give me that extra boost when I need it. At cool down I will listen to classic guitar, or light Christian music. This helps me to reflect a little bit and appreciate everyone around me.

Thanksgiving

As I see all the posts on what people are thankful for, it got me to thinking a little. Everyone has their own little things that they are thankful for, family, seems to be the most popular and rightfully so. I want to open some thought to the bigger picture.
 It is easily forgotten why we have a Thanksgiving holiday. I see no one, myself included, giving thanks for God giving Columbus , then the Pilgrims, the guidance to sail over here. I mention God first because nothing happens without Him. The Pilgrims started the whole Thanksgiving day tradition, yet there is not any mention of being Thankful to them. There is never any mention of thankfulness to Washington, Jefferson and the rest of the writers of the Constitution, never any thankfulness to the revolution. These are things that helped gain our freedom from the British. I never hear any thanks for Harriet Tubman and the under ground railroad, I hardly ever any thanks to our WWII vets, that were the nail in the coffin of Hitler. We are finally starting to get it with thanking our current troops, and protecting us from people that just plain hate us.

Again this is not pointed at anyone, but everyone. How often do you really look at history and are thankful for sacrifices that have been made? Would we be where we are at if these things did not happen? Just  trying to start some thoughts this Thanksgiving.

15 Things I am Thankful for....

My Sister-in-Law Amy started the above title on her blog. As I read hers,then my brother's I felt I should do my own so here we go.

1.Jesus

2. Freedom                                                                 
 
3.My Wife which is my Best Friend and all she does

4.Cody,Amanda,Jeff and Jake.They joy of seeing them grow up.

5.Mom and Dad,I wouldn't have been born without them

6.Crohn's Diease, helps me take care of my body better.

7.The scars,broke bones,aches and pains. They all tell a story

8.My job. Even if it is a headache

9.A home and place to lay my head.

10.Friends and Family that have left this world way to soon.

11.Books and the ability to read

12.Coffee

13.Vacation

14.The ability to know right from wrong

15. The Car

A Book Finished

I just finished a book titled Black Hills by Dan Simmons.This book is a fiction novel based on historical fact. This type is out of my normal element.It intrigued me because in the start of the book, General Custer is killed at Little Big Horn, to have an Indian boy of 11 years old, named Paha Sapa, "count coup" on him. Custers spirit invades Paha Sapa, who's name mean Black Hills. The book works through Paha Sapa's life, jumping back and forth through his childhood and adulthood. As you work through the book, it refers to a lot of Lakota belief and at times become hard to follow or understand. You also learn along the way that Paha Sapa,can see events of someone lives if he touches them skin to skin. During his "spiritual testing" he has vision from the Six Grandfathers,Indian gods I presume, where he sees Mount Rushmore come to life. The Presidents end up destroying everything. As Paha Sapa grows older, he feels the need to blow up Mount Rushmore.

 As I said earlier, at times this book became confusing. I didn't understand what the chapters with Custer and his wife had to do with anything other than being a filler I guess. At one point Paha Sapa goes to New York,to visit Custers widow. The author decides to explain the building of the Brooklyn Bridge, again not sure what this had to do with the story.
 As many times I almost put this book on the shelf, curiosity kept me reading. At points, it was very good. I enjoyed learning how Rushmore was made. I could relate to all the tragedy in Paha Sapa's life and of course I enjoyed some of the history. I have never been so mixed about a book before.

Whatever to Blog about

Very soon,I will be writing another deer hunting story, but not right now. Instead I kind of want to blog about my life with Crohn's. When I had round one with this disease, I was in my 20's. Young, stressed out with a whole lot going on a that point. I has lost 30-35lbsand looked and felt terrible. I was taking three different meds, that weren't helping. On January 16,2000 I had a bowel resection.
10 years later, I knew something wasn't right with my gut and got checked out. Sure enough, Crohn's has reared its ugly head. I am back on Imuran but that is all right now. I have to get my blood tested every so often to make sure my blood count is good.I also take Iron so I don't become anemic.
  My whole point of this particular blog is to stress diet.I found that 25 or more grams of fiber help me out tremendously. Not to get all detailed, it slows me down a lot. I feel less pain in the colon area, and there have been times where I forgot I had a disease to deal with.This is not a cure or a solution. I still have to make good decision on what I need to eat. I my situation, fiber is the best thing ever.I also need a lot of protein.I'm not sure why I'm not feeling terrible or lost weight. My plan is not too. So, I try to eat better,drink a lot of water and keep a exercise routine, which Jake also likes to participate in. Oh ya,and I always make sure I'm near a bathroom.

Doing Something Different

I am going to try something different in the way of sharing stories of deer hunting, when I was a teen,or other events from my youth. These stories are as I remember them,dates and time may be general in some instances. I'll will start with this one:
                                                        15,November,1988
 Opening day of the gun hunt season. At this point I was 14 or 15. The morning did not produce anything but a cold body. If I remember correctly, Dad and I headed to the big swamp. We made our trek back home and discussed strategy for the evening hunt. Dad decided to put me on the old fence row, this is the boarder of Grandpas property, and the next property. He had said that the deer love to travel this fence row, really there wasn't much of a fence row left. Anyway, it was a plan.
 3:45pm rolls around and we head off to our spots on our 40. Dad takes me to the spot and I climb and get up in the tree.Dad headed off to one of his favorite spots, the "S" shaped tree. The top of this tree was shaped like and S, thus the name.
 So,I'm in my spot,wind was blowing West to East,SW to SE, heavy snow, not blizzard but darn close. It was uneventful sitting for the most part. As I am scanning, I heard a cough. I knew it was getting late and Dad would be here soon to get heading home. Time was about 5:00pm. So a few minutes go by and I'm scanning left, as I scan back right I look down, turned my head left and quickly looked back right. There was a nice, large 9 point.     He was darn near under me on my right, I was facing West, he came in from the North. I am sitting on a branch at this point, I pull up my rifle only to find the glove on my hand made my finger to large to pull the trigger. I take the glove off and set it on my lap. The buck was moving very slow, unaware of what was going on above him. Remember the wind was blowing hard, killing any sound. So, with the glove on my lap, I pull up to shoot again, now the branches are in the way because the angle changed. So I stand up, and there goes the glove down the tree.
 The buck looked up, he knew he heard something odd. The wind had muffled the scrapping down the tree otherwise he would've been gone. I was standing, pulled up and BANG. I saw the blood splatter from behind his front leg,his leg gave and headed east. I took one shot at his rear for good measure.
 I got down in a hurray and checked for splattered blood, it was all over the tags. I went back up the tree and waited for Dad. About 5:20pm, here he comes.
  "Was that you shooting," he asked.
  "Yep," I replied
 "Where'd he go,"
  "Between that tree and that tree," I pointed.
   Dad wanted me to stay there,he went to go look. He's gone not two minutes. "Brian dang it,this is a Doe" he says
"Bull crap that was a buck I saw antlers," I replied. So I got down to look. There stands Dad with that nice, old 9 pointer.
 He was more excited than I was. He asked me if I wanted to gut it. I kindly insisted that he could do it. He was more than happy to take care of it. Now it was to late to drag it back,so we would come back the next morning to bring it home.
 So this is the story of my first buck and one proud Dad.

Deer Camp

Finally where it belongs

Trail needs opened up

Much better

Its been a little while since I've had any posts. No excuses I guess,just things get busy. Recently, I finally had a chance to get up to the U.P with my cousin Jim, 2 of my boys and his boy. The basic task was to get a wood stove back out to the camp. This is something that has hindered us for a while. Fortunately I was able to borrow a quad from someone at work and we had a trailer. This was a tremendous help, because of the terrain. With the stove newly installed, we are that much closer to making it usable once again. On the way back to camp we had to clean up the trail. This took a lot of work. Alders are hard to cut and they just never stop. Now there is a lot of story to go with this trip and believe me,it wasn't as easy as it may appears to be. I know one thing is for sure my Dad and Grandpa were looking down laughing there butts off, while we were trying to accomplish this. You never know,maybe I'll have to change the blog to Stories from the Mid Forty Hilton. That almost sounds like a good idea.

The Ole Ball Game

Baseball is a game that is played from 5years old all the way up and through adulthood. Take away the business end, big contracts,player ego, and steroids. Take way all the scandals through baseball history.These are the things that the game of baseball aren't.

These things are what baseball is supposed to be: It is cotton candy, a bag of shelled peanuts,score cards,

kids with their baseball gloves waiting for a foul ball. Baseball is listening to the game on the radio with someone like Ernie Harwell drawing the game in your mind,                       

it is the applause when Nolan Ryan throws a no hitter, it is when Ted Williams hit .400 for season, it is seeing Babe Ruth run the bases after one of his many home runs. You know what really makes Baseball? Its the kids in little league getting up at 8am on Saturday to play t-ball, machine pitch, kid pitch, all the way up. The grass has dew, the sun is coming up starting to dry the infield, coaches are marking the diamond, parents are setting out their chairs with a cup of coffee,teams are warming up getting ready to play a game America loves.Then the Umpire calls "Play Ball".  Then for the next 1hour and half, the kids play their hearts out between the lines. That's the moment everyone is ready for.
 This is Baseball.

                                                           

Hatchet Continued

Sanding this down has taken a lot of elbow grease, I had to use the Dremel to try to get the charring deep in the wood.

 This was the good side, I sanded it down just to kind of match up the wood.
    I'm at the point where I could continue to work on it to get it perfect or I can be happy with where it is. I would like to get the blade sharp again. I'm also undecided on whether or not I want to leave the handle be or stain it. So I am not quite sure if I am ready to call this done or not.                                      

Hatchet Progress

This is where I left off.


So I got back out to the garage today and worked on the hatchet. I finally got a wire wheel for the grinder. This is what I got done......

I don't think I can get out all the pitting but it sure has brightened up. I also put the blade on the grinder and it is somewhat sharper than before. I really need to get the grinding wheel bolted down so its not so hard to to work with. So then I started on the handle.....

You can see its turned a lighter color, and see the grain in the wood again. This is going to take a lot of elbow grease.

U.P Trip

Well, I took Jeff up to the U.P again. This is the third time I've taken him up there, he's the one the one that has been asking. We cut down some trees, burned some old brush for Grandma and did some shooting with our brand new .22. This is a sweet little .22 Marlin semi-auto with a scope. I am teaching Jeff how to respect the gun, handle it and take care of it. He's an enthusiastic learner.
Trying the new saw

Shooting the new gun. Yes left handed talk about backward.


The fire, this burned for 8 hours.

I did some more reading. The thing that I found interesting this time was, in Roosevelt's Junior year of college instead of heading south for spring break, He goes to the Northwoods of Maine. Yes there's snow and its cold. Then he gets with a couple of guys (Cutler and Emlen) and decides to climb Mount Katahdin (5,268 ft). They tired out half way and quit. T.R soldiered on and made it! I forgot to mention that they canoed 20 miles just to warm up!
I will add more later cause I knocked down about 60 pages of this book and there are things to report but I don't want to over kill it. I am going to just stick to the action stuff or things I find extraordinary in ways of his outdoor activity. Oh I forgot to mention, sometime later the doctor told him he had a heart condition and to cease strenuous activity. Needless to say, he does not follow doctors orders. In fact he set up a trip with his brother Elliot to go hunting through the midwest.

A Book I'm Reading

For the last couple weeks, I have been working on the book "The Wilderness Warrior-Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America." This is about his interest in birds, animals, and preserving America's beauty. The one thing that impresses me early on is his interest in taxidermy. At age 10, he was collecting birds for his museum. He had detailed records of birds, that impressed some naturalists of the time. He looked up to Audubon. I am troubled to learn that at that age and into his teens he also study and admired Darwin. I am not so sure his belief in evolution held up over time, or maybe I am hoping it didn't.
The one thing about T.R, is that he was a man of action. After he was beat-up by bullies at Moosehead Lake, he made sure it never happened again. He immediately started working out, and engaging in strenuous activities. He never let asthma hold him back.
Anyway, that is enough for now. But for being an autobiography, as with all the Roosevelt novels I've read, its just like reading an novel..........Stayed tuned for more.

Identifing the Ole Hatchet

I am trying to find the maker of this hatchet through google. No luck yet, but I never knew there was such a history behind Axe and Hatchet manufacturers. Stay tuned, I will post results if and when I find them.

Last couple of days

Have not been back to the garage to work on the hatchet yet. Monday worked out, Tuesday went fishing and Jeff caught a nice fish, Wednesday I felt like dirt. I will get back out there soon though, it's nagging at me to work on it.

The Ole Axe

Well its more like a hatchet. Axe just sounds cooler. I'll get to that in a minute. Anyway, as some you reading this may know, my Mom is very crafty. She makes different kinds of dolls, mermaids and other things. My younger brother draws, does wood burning, and is now working with water colors. So, needless to say, I have some ability somewhere in these hands. I have to find it yet. I been having this urge to build a bird house. Nothing major, just something to get started. So, I bought some wood and some Dremel attachments I think I need.
Now the part about the hatchet. I found this hatchet in a basement pit that used to have my Dad's house over it (It burned down when we were young). In January 2004, my Grandparents house burned along with major damage to their garage. This hatchet was from that fire. I took pictures to show what it looked like before I started on it. As you can tell, its all rusted over and the handle is damaged.
I started to grind the blade to see if it could even be salvaged. I used a grinding attachment to start. As the blade started to shine, I decided to at least get the rust off the head. I've been experimenting with different things to help get the rust pits out. Honestly, I have know idea what I'm doing. I do know little things about grinding and sanding. So this is a learning thing for me. You never know, maybe, just maybe I find out a little about myself along the way.