[chainsaws can be fun and dangerous]

Yesterday was exciting... and a little painful. Last week I asked Eric if I could start working at the camp a little early doing Maintenance because there was a lot of work that needed to be done. RadioShack had already started my summer hours and I wasn't putting in as many as I was the rest of the year, this gave me some freetime to do other things like work at camp. The St. John's Builders are making another guest appearance at the camp next week and the challenge course is being inspected in the next month so I was given the task of spring cleaning around the challenge course; clearing trails cleaning moss and algae off the elements, clearing room for a new challenge course element, removing dead trees that could fall or drop dead branches on the challenge course elements or people... I was literally only had one tree to take care of near the Mohawk Walk / Multi-Vine element. I had successfully felled at least six trees precisely where I wanted including a tree with a diameter of almost two feet. This last tree was pretty dead and had been that way for a while. When I went to drop it along the length of the multi-vine. The tree was so dead that the saw cut through it like butter. I notched the tree I wanted it to fall with no problem, then I went to cut the back side of the tree to fell it. Normally when you get to a certain point on this cut the tree starts to lean ever so slightly and you know you can remove your saw and walk away while it falls the opposite direction it is falling. This didn't happen. Instead it suddenly started falling. with the new angle of the tree now falling and my blade running, it kicked back out of the tree. The kickback wasn't so sudden that the saw went directly into my leg, but instead caught on my pant leg which pulled the saw into my leg lacerating it. I think that this is why my leg wasn't cut as deep as it could have been. The running saw was also hot which cauterized the cut preventing me from bleeding heavily. I wasn't sure initially how bad I was cut, so I ran down the path with the chainsaw (which I had the mindset to shut off) and pulled up my pant leg up to inspect the wound. I decided that I needed to head home and give myself a more thorough once over and make sure I really wasn't bleeding badly. I jumped in the GMC and backed out of the woods, turned around and headed through the field directly to my house ignoring silly things such as roads and speed limits. I got home and inspected my leg more closely and noted that it was not bleeding badly, but put some gauze on it and called my lovely wife to try and decide whether to call an ambulance or Larry to take me to the hospital. I decided that it would be better to have Larry take me since my bleeding was under control and I could walk with very little pain. By the time that Larry got to the house to pick me up I had put an ace wrap on my wound along with a square of gauze bandage.
If you're squeamish about anything to do with blood, you can stop reading here. If you don't mind seeing what my leg looks like before they stitch me up you may continue.

Since the picture is a closeup let me just get you oriented. Since I took the pictures on my phone they are from my angle. My foot would be at the top of the photo, and my knee would be at the bottom of the photo. The one on the left I sent to Casey for input on whether I needed an ambulance or just have Larry take me to the ER. I decided that since I had mobility and there was no major arterial bleeding I would save an ambulance trip for a more serious event. Casey was in Mt. Gilead picking up Lisa (who holds the equivalent to Casey's position at our sister camp LMC) to go on a trip on their days off to the Columbus Zoo. Needless to say Lisa ended up coming up to Mansfield and having a late lunch after I was sutured up. I ended this trip by going to Kohls and replacing the jeans that I was wearing during the incident. Also, if anyone is interested in donating, I'll be taking donations for a pair of Chain Saw Chaps ($90) . I've considered buying a pair of these in the past but never thought that I'd be in a position that I would need them. Needless to say I'll have a pair before I use a Chain Saw again. I highly recommend getting a pair for anyone that does any chainsaw work at all. The injury wasn't all that painful, but it could have been a lot worse than it was. I'd say that I have God to thank for watching over me. Amen.

[earth day]

Today is earth day and so much is going on. I am celebrating the day by wearing my green shirt, Literally and figuratively. It is the color green, and made out of recycled pop bottles and organic cotton. Casey and I celebrated by planting some tomatoes and peppers in the garden, and making reusable tomato cages. If there isn't an instructable on making them then I'll have to post how I'm making them.

[thunderstorms]

Wouldn't it be better if the weather would let us execute what we plan to do in a day? Most of what I planned to do today was outdoor activities. and about an hour ago we got a severe thunderstorm advisory between 1-8pm. YAY!

[extended weekend]

Starting tomorrow I have four days off. By having that much time off I'd really like to be able to get some major projects done at the house. It's kind of early, but I think that if I get enough work done in the garden, I may end up planting a lot of little plants there. I'd really like to give some of our seedlings some time to mature, but the fact is that we've got a lot of little plants growing on our enclosed porch, and I think that if I don't get some of them in the ground we're going to go outside one day hand have a wild forest on our hands. I'll be planting the cold-hardy plants outside first. I've got the garlic growing nicely that I planted last fall. We also found some onions and potatoes at Sam's Club. Those will almost definitely get planted in the ground tomorrow. I've also got some lettuce seed that are packaged as a tape so that when planted in the garden they are guaranteed to be spaced correctly.

Before I plant my peas beans and cucumbers I'll have to put up my trellis along the driveway. Last year I put this trellis up and used gardening twine to allow the plants to grow up it. The problem with that was that the twine started to fray a little. That in itself was not a huge deal because it gave the plants a place to grab and climb. The problem that arose was that the sting ended up stretching and became loose. This year I am thinking about using some metal wire and lacing it up on the trellis like I had last year. The advantage I see in that is that it won't stretch, and will be rigid enough that it will stay spaced exactly as I have it. I'm a little worried thought that it will be harder for the climbing plants to grab the trellis and grow up it. I guess we'll see what happens.

[getting things done]

Last night I retrofitted our TV cabinet so that I could mount our LCD TV on an swivel arm. When Melissa, Bill, and Dina were visiting over Easter, Bill bought me a soundbar. Thank You Bill! The only bad thing about the soundbar is that the pedistal that came with our TV didn't make the TV high enough. With the soundbar in front of it, it is not possible to control the TV because the IR sensor was covered. So to do that I had to temporarily put a little platform under the TV to raise it. Unfortunately this put the TV back a good 6-8" and made viewing from either side a little difficult.

I was fortunate to find the omni-mount at TheShack this winter on clearance for $10. Normally this TV Mount sells for about $100, but this one was a heavier model, and we had some new lightweight models. To retrofit the TV cabinet I had to install some reinforcement 2x4s along the horizontal top and bottom of the back inside of the cabinet and then attach an imitation wall stud vertically on the back of the cabinet offset so that the pre-drilled cable hole was not blocked.

I think that the TV cabinet now looks a lot cleaner, and now the TV can be swiveled for an almost straight on view of the TV no matter where you are sitting in the room. The soundbar is also not blocking the IR sensor on the TV. Now I just need to figure out what to do to use up all that empty space in the cabinet behind the TV.

[i'm a winner]

Well, in the event that you didn't hear, I won the instructables.com april fools contest as a runner up. It's pretty cool that I won when I just entered on a whim. The prize package isn't spectacular, but I get another t-shirt and a pro membership into instructables.com. Stickers too!

Aside from celebrating my win, I also spent part of the day getting the garden ready to plant some seedlings that Casey has planted on our porch. The garlic that I planted in the fall is doing well, although a few of my plants were getting smothered by the leaf mulch that I put down last fall. Now that I have all of the leaves cleaned up in that part of the garden, that garlic should start to stand a little taller and green up. Leaves all around on bushes and trees alike have finally started to unfold. The two blueberry bushes that I planted last year seem to be doing very well, and I hope to have a couple pints of berries from them.

Last fall I tried a little experiment and put down as much leaf mulch onto the garden as I could. The idea was that it would prevent weeds and grass from invading my garden in the spring, as well as prevent nature from undoing all the hard work I put in last year improving the soil. It seemed to work pretty well, although in the back of the garden there were a couple areas that I didn't cover very well and the leaves ended up blowing off the ground. In that area, I have some grass growing that I'll need to take care of.

[biking]

This morning in the drizzly cool rain I took my first real conditioning ride to get ready for biking to work. I did 6.21 miles uphill both directions. I've ridden my bike a lot farther without getting nearly as tired, but that's been on bike paths and flat terrain with either very short inclines or very subtle inclines. I can already feel the aching starting, and can't wait to feel the ache that comes with using muscles after a very long period very little stress. I can only hope that once I start biking it will become easier because I an not only more fit, but because there is not as much weight being moved.

Right now I'm just glad that I don't have to ride my bike home after work. I believe that once I can do about 15 miles in a morning without much consequence then I will be able to ride my bike to and from work each day, although I will still opt to drive when I am coming home after dark.

In other news, I've become a finalist with my entry into the Instructables.com april fools day competition. You can view that here.

[spilled coffee instructable update]

The voting for my spilled coffee prop/prank has ended on the instructables website and I finished in 6th place out of 96 entries. I think that's pretty awesome. Now the top 10 vote getters and the next top 10 instructables moderators picks get voted on by the people sponsoring the contest. There are 9 prizes being given out, but I think that it's just cool that I was featured on the website and voted in at 6th place by the voting members of instructables.com. What will my next creation be that goes on instructables? Wait and find out.

[bike cart]

Casey wants me to make this and bike our trash to the dumpster instead of driving it.


Bicycle cargo trailer--200 lb capacity, $30 for parts - More DIY How To Projects

[april 1]

[spilled coffee prank/prop] - More DIY How To Projects