Turns out Wednesday is the last of my 24 rehab sessions. We're going
to
sign up for followon, where we pay some nominal sum ($15 or $30 per
month)
to go use their machines periodically. Mary's going to do it also.
We have a
treadmill at home, but I think occasional change of scenery and
machinery
will help a lot during the winter.

I thought today was gonna be a bitch kitty. I did NOT feel like doing
it today. Much to my utter amazement, the Airdyne was actually no
big deal today. Treadmill has always been tolerable but until today
I have purelyhated that infernal Airdyne and the infernal NuStep
before it.

After my treadmill time, Mark said: "Don: airdyne, 20 minutes at
50." I grinned at him and said "no". He cracked up. "No? You say
no?" "I'll do 45 and not a farthing more, aarrrrr."
"Awright, 45." Last time they said my heart rate was right at
target max when I was doing 45. Today I was amazed to find that the
first 10 minutes were not a problem and passed very quickly. At 15
minutes I called to Mark, "Mark, how are my numbers? Can I speed up
to 50?" He looked at his monitor. "No!" "No? You say no?" This
time all of the staffers cracked up. "You're at target max rate,
what are you doing?"

"Thirty two." Now everyone within earshot is grinning or laughing,
including my fellow travellers. Mark: "I'm writing 45 for next
time. You have 88 minute to go."

Later, the guy next to me (never have learned his name) wondered where
my bud Joe was. I said he was done last time. He asked when I'd be
done. I said next session would be my last in this phase. He said,
"Geez, Don, who's gonna set the pace for me?" I grinned. "You're
the pacesetter now. You were barely movin' when you started, look
what you were doin' today."

His grin coulda lit up Beijing. "Yeah!" he said.

Tomorrow I'll be cutting up some logs with a chainsaw. We had a guy
drop one of the three trunks of the cottonwood tree in the back yard.
It was looking like an accident waiting to fall on my boat in a
future severe storm, and Dave the really good tree guy was available
so we had him drop it for us. He's also doing one for Trav 'n Nikki
next door and one for Con next door the other way.

Dave is very good at his craft. Quietly scarey good. He definitely
knows how to disassemble a tree from aloft, and he does as much of
that as he deems necessary ... and then he fells the tree missing
powerlines and structures by inches. It isn't bravado, he really and
simply is that good.

Travis went up to Forest Lake this evening and glommed his Dad's
engine-driven hydraulic log-splitter. Well aw right! I've
been helping Trav make .40 cal handgun ammo (several hundred rounds of
it) so he's returning the favor a bit. So tomorrow I'll buck my logs
to 24" length or less and then we'll split them. That'll make as
large a pile of firewood as we're likely to need. We'll stack it to
dry here. Mary will do that, she's good at at it. If we take it to
the lake and stack it there, Zip and Charlie would eventually nick it
all bit by bit. Hey, I said they're good neighbors, not perfect!
We're glad to share, but our very modest firewood pile is about 1/2 of
what it was last fall and we've had no fires since then. Hmm.....