Today is different. No running. By noon I had baked zucchini bread, rearranged the kitchen cupboards, cleaned the cooking stove and counter, packaged items that need to be mailed, sorted the mail pile, persuaded Nathan to push through multiple loads of laundry and wash the dishes, took out the trash, went on a ball-throwing walk with Luna, and Nathan and I helped our neighbors move a desk and bed up a narrow stairway to the second story loft. Now that it is three in the afternoon I can add catching up with PT reading and PT nerdy blogs and baking bread. Upcoming is laundry folding, bathroom cleaning, and the beginnings of packing before making dinner. The day goes much differently when in the last week of a race taper.
Five days and counting until Bear, ready or not.
In other news, after going 2:2 for wood cutting injuries we have broken the pattern of doom with three non-injurious weekends of wood collection. Last weekend we managed to fill a work truck with extended sidewalls, meaning just over two cords.
Our garage had room for the Prius with the ability to open car doors.
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| Don't be fooled by the panorama's loss of perspective. |
Yesterday we had a normal truck with a trailer and managed to collect just over one cord, and it was all pretty well dry and light. Now all rows stack to the ceiling, and a half cord of larger logs sit outside. We are certain that we now have an amount matching last year's entire usage, and we are looking forward to collecting at least four more cords through October.
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| Luna dogdog. Wood surfing, airing it out on Del Norte Peak. |
Seeing our increasing haul makes us feel better since the weather began to shift a week and a half ago. Highs are still in the 70s, and lows are now 35-40 degrees. Last weekend's long run started at 28 degrees as the sun started to rise. Mornings and evenings have the crisp twinge of autumn. The kittehs have reinstated their winter lap-hogging routine. And the crazies started coming out of the woodwork a month ago, because apparently some locals are sensitive to the five degree lower temperature at night and that's why their bodies stop working and they routinely end up in the hospital. I think back to our ethics and psychosocial classes in graduate school and shake my head at the simplicity of our topics. In an area like the Valley our hospital staff encounters major ethical situations at least once per week. In that regard I am looking forward to Bear, as those six days off - including the race - promise to be easier than many work days.
