This month is when things really start getting fun for me and my goals. My first goal was about my ongoing battle with the crazy vines that have taken over our forest. I try and de-vine at least one tree a year. At this rate, I should be done when I’m about 80!

However, it looks like it’ll have to wait until 81, since I decided to change this goal. I updated it to be: build a wood box and fire pit near the trampoline, and clear out the branches on the driveway.

First off – the wood box and fire pit. This one was fun to do since it didn’t require too much effort, and the payoff was getting to sit around the fire all summer and fall. As you can see from the pictures above, Mindy and I tackled building the wood box. We built a solid frame to sit on 4 cinder blocks and that was our foundation. After that, it was a pretty simple matter of building up the walls and framing the roof. I don’t remember exactly how long it too, but I think it was just a couple of weekends when all was said and done.

With the wood box done, we then went on to build the fire pit. First off, we had to clear all of the stupid vines that are taking over the ground as well as the trees! After clearing out the entire area, we harvested a big pile of rocks from our creek. We used these rocks to outline our pit. With the area cleared, and the pit in place, it was ready for our annual end-of-the-school-year paper burning! This is where the boys all bring home all of the things they’ve collected through the school year, and we make a gigantic bonfire out of them!

Onto the second half of my modified goal – and sadly I didn’t take any pictures of this one. For this, I rented a wood chipper from Home Depot and used a chainsaw to clear the low hanging branches of the pine trees leading up to our house. Then the boys hauled up the branches to where we parked the chipper, and I loaded them in. And let me tell you, that was a horrible process!

First, the chipper was small and definitely not meant for the kind of stuff we were feeding it. However, this is the first time I’ve ever used a wood chipper, so I didn’t realize that normally you DON’T have to shove every single branch in, and turn the thing off every 5 minutes to unjam it.

As if all of that and the hours and hours I’d already been working on it weren’t bad enough. Near the end of the day, long after the boys had loaded up all the branches to me, I had turned the machine off and verified that the torque was out of the chipper teeth. Then I reached in yet again to try and pull a branch that had jammed the machine. And this one was really stuck, like caramel in the fillings stuck. So I got a grip on it, braced my chest against the mouth of the chipper and PULLED!

Which is the point that I felt my lowest right rib move in a way that it’s never moved before, and heard a weird pop in my chest. Yup, I had managed to fracture a rib. Actually, I have no idea what I did to it. Fracture, break, bruise. Whatever it was, it took about 2 days before it really manifest itself. The next day I just felt a little discomfort. The day after that was when I started wondering if the weird pop I heard maybe did something to my ribs. And after that? Well, let’s just say that I spent the next 3 weeks trying not to sneeze and sleeping downstairs on the couch because it’s the only thing that would force me to sleep on my back and not roll over on my side. Yeesh, I’m shuddering right now just thinking of it.

Oh, and this happened in September, right as I was starting to train again for my 5 and 10K runs. Ya, that set training back a month.

So all that was my first goal, now onto my second goal of the month: my videos!