We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
Probably 50 years old, petite but not skinny, cute face, tight body. Perhaps a bit of facial youtherizing. Out of the corner of my eye while I was going through my jump-rope routines I watched her place a high box under the bar, jump up onto the bar and proceed to perform 12 chin-ups. I thought she would never finish. After a rest and some water, two more times. She is doing fitness-maintenance.
No visible muscles, just toned. Watching her proved several things to me that I knew anyway: Regular non-athlete women can develop good upper-body strength, people can be very strong and fit without notable muscle, and I suck at pull-ups as I do at many life challenges.
Watching three skinny wiry guys, my roofers these 2 weeks, carrying two packages of 80 lb. shingles (each) on their shoulders up high ladders. That is not just strength, it is balance and agility too. In other words, athleticism. Worthy of admiration and envy.
If nothing else, God and nature and life teaches humility every day. Like it's their job. Maybe it is. Sometimes I wonder whether humility is a psycho-vitamin which, like Vit D from sunshine, we obtain from investing in life challenges. On the other hand, no rewards, however modest, from our efforts are dispiriting instead of healthily humbling. That is a drag for sure.
" 88’ at 4:30pm and smoke from a wildfire 200 miles away has nearly obscured the mountains and ridge surrounding our valley. However, mountain weather dictates that it will be 67’ by 9pm and 46’ by 6am just as it was 49’ this morning."
It makes sense to divide conditioning efforts into anatomical categories like Lower Body: Legs/Lower back; Upper body: Chest/Upper Back/Arms; and Core, even though most exercises use some of everything.
It is obvious that legs with strength and endurance provide and maintain basic functionality for men and women regardless of age, so let's use Legs/Lower body as an example for applying the Maggie's 3-category fitness model (resistance, calis, and cardio).
What can we do, in each of our exercise categories, to push our lower bodies towards further strength and endurance? Basic lower body-related routines are below.
Rule #1: IF IT ISN'T HARD, IT ISN'T EXERCISE. Our deplorable inner lazy-ass quitter is our enemy in life.
Heavy resistance for lower body strength:
Deadlifts Barbell or goblet squats Kettlebell Farmer's Walks Sled pushes and pulls
Lower body-oriented Calisthenics for muscle application and agility (many or most of these are included in typical cardio/calis gym classes)
High Step-ups (with or without kettlebell) Lunges (with or without kettlebell) Kettlebell Swings Box Jumps and jumping squats Wall sits or isometric 90 degree squat and holds Body weight squat variations (squat and press, squat with heavy ball throw, etc) Mountain Climbers Viper-toss side shuffles
Mostly lower-body Cardio and HIIT Cardio for endurance:
Longer Jogs and short sprints. Nothing long enough to promote arthritis. 20-30 minutes with jogs + sprints is enough. It's the sprints that build endurance anyway. Stair machine Rowing sprints Ski Erg sprints - done right, they are legs, back, and core, not arms Stationary bike (or bike) longs and sprints Jumping Jacks Jump Rope variations
There are many other things and variations to do but we try to keep it simple.
I think there are essentially two takeaways from this historic event in Helsinki. The first is that Donald Trump is a bold, risk-taking statesman whose demotic style of delivery prevents many from appreciating the beneficently radical nature of his diplomacy. Maybe he will wind up being played by Kim Jong-un. But maybe his astonishing meeting with the tubby tyrant in Singapore is the beginning of the normalization of North Korea. If that happens—and I acknowledge that history suggests it is a big “if”—then President Trump will have achieved a world-historical diplomatic victory. His willingness to meet “jaw to jaw” would then be seen as a gambit of genius.
Maybe Putin is running circles around a gullible Trump. But maybe it is a real, as distinct from an Obama-Clinton merely rhetorical, reset. Then that, too, will be seen as a masterly and peace-enhancing initiative.
Mrs. BD spent a couple of days in Dublin. Quaint tiny picturesque village in southern NH within view of Mt. Monadnock. As her pic shows, it's the home of Yankee Magazine (and of The Olde Farmer's Almanac).
Sheesh. How do you talk with somebody like that? It's always been interesting to me how it is possible to use a victim pose to bully or attack others. Problem is, victim posture supports self-esteem and seems to morally justify obnoxiousness - but gets your own life nowhere. Well, being hostile is fun in some ways.
Apparently UNH is a hotbed of oppression, racism and misogyny, so that's a shame. Poor gal is blind to her incredible privilege. Her superiority tone bugs the heck out of me.
My father-in-law said of the guy, "He's beginning to show his age." And so is Bush 41. There are many remarkable life stories out there that inspire awe in us regular folk with low-risk and low-drama lives.
Aggressive online virtue signaling is a fundamentally two-dimensional act. It has no human depth. It’s only when we snap out of it, see the world as it really is, and people as they really are, that we appreciate the destruction and human suffering we caused when we were trapped inside.
Men, and some women, love these activities. I do not mean lawn-mowing, I mean meadow maintenance without grazing animals on the land. Yeah, ideally you want cattle. Have you even found a pile of snake eggs beneath a cow pie? I did, once.
In New England, we have become so accustomed to the pastoral sight of meadows and fields that we forget that they are not natural. These were created out of the wilderness with tremendous effort for grazing and farming. Neglect them for 5 years, and they will be beyond repair because nature wants them to become woodland again.
At the farm, we have had meadows suitable for haying or grazing, areas that require annual brushwacking (because more brush than grasses in those areas), and steeps that need scything or something similar.
These sorts of land maintenance are deeply satisfying and, with machines, deeply relaxing with a cold beer or three. No lifting, work gets done. Somebody observed that open field maintenance is like running one's hand over the curves of one's beloved.
Haying for real hay is tricky. Timing is everything. Around here, July for commercial haying. You need the hay to go to seed, and then you need to let it dry after cut before the baler. No rain. Stored wet hay can spontaneously combust in storage, or, at least, turn moldy. You know that already.
With the dairy business moving out of New England, and horses fewer and fewer, we had no market for hay. We switched to conservation mode which is a non-economic mode.
The non-economic conservation mode for open-space maintenance is based on the idea that meadow critters (meadow-nesting birds, rodents, snakes, etc) are pretty much done by late July. However, many wildflowers are at their best in July and August and the bugs and butterflies rely on them.
We recommend mowing/brushwacking non-commercial, ungrazed meadows once per year in early September or late August. Let the mowings lie. They will mostly disintegrate by April.
If you like walking paths, keep them mowed like lawns, about 8' wide paths so you can stroll around your grounds with a coffee or whisky and ceegar without getting soaked with dew or infested with ticks while bird-watching.
We had a wet meadow in a flood plain along our trout stream (with trout pool for swimming) where the grasses and sedges grew so thick that once/year was not manageable. We had to brushwack that 5 acres patch twice/year or the machine could not handle the density of the lush growth. I was sadly aware, though, that the wetland meadow critters (Wood Turtles, Leopard Frogs, snakes, toads, etc) did not appreciate that at all and I felt bad about damaging that habitat and sometimes killing them. I wonder if it might have been left well-enough alone, but it's just what we always did.
And if you are out there in your gardens, now is a good time, and the last chance, to shear back the late summer and fall-blooming perennials that you don't want to grow too tall and scraggly, eg Asters, Daisies, and Seaside Daisies.
It's been a cold Spring in New England. Tomato plants aren't growing vigorously. New England is marginal for tomato compared to New Jersey or South Carolina, but home-growns are so tasty that we persist anyway. We really only get a crop in July-Sept while in south Jersey they can be harvesting garden tomatoes June-October. Unless you have a greenhouse. Some days, like today, I wish I had one. But naw, not really. Who wants the hassle?
The article begins by discussing the transformation of NYC's Fresh Kills landfill (dump) back to a sort-of natural wetland. However, the author takes the opportunity to discuss modern ecological theory.
6:14 King Herod heard of it, for Jesus' name had become known. Some were saying, "John the baptizer has been raised from the dead; and for this reason these powers are at work in him."
6:15 But others said, "It is Elijah." And others said, "It is a prophet, like one of the prophets of old."
6:16 But when Herod heard of it, he said, "John, whom I beheaded, has been raised."
6:17 For Herod himself had sent men who arrested John, bound him, and put him in prison on account of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife, because Herod had married her.
6:18 For John had been telling Herod, "It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife."
6:19 And Herodias had a grudge against him, and wanted to kill him. But she could not,
6:20 for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and he protected him. When he heard him, he was greatly perplexed; and yet he liked to listen to him.
6:21 But an opportunity came when Herod on his birthday gave a banquet for his courtiers and officers and for the leaders of Galilee.
6:22 When his daughter Herodias came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his guests; and the king said to the girl, "Ask me for whatever you wish, and I will give it."
6:23 And he solemnly swore to her, "Whatever you ask me, I will give you, even half of my kingdom."
6:24 She went out and said to her mother, "What should I ask for?" She replied, "The head of John the baptizer."
6:25 Immediately she rushed back to the king and requested, "I want you to give me at once the head of John the Baptist on a platter."
6:26 The king was deeply grieved; yet out of regard for his oaths and for the guests, he did not want to refuse her.
6:27 Immediately the king sent a soldier of the guard with orders to bring John's head. He went and beheaded him in the prison,
6:28 brought his head on a platter, and gave it to the girl. Then the girl gave it to her mother.
6:29 When his disciples heard about it, they came and took his body, and laid it in a tomb.
No reason not to set high, but realistic and not grandiose goals in fitness as in everything else.The ideal goal is just to be better than you were 2 weeks ago, whether in strength, agility, cardio endurance or cardio intensity. Or body weight adjustment. But it's difficult for humans not to set specific goals in life to which to aspire.
As I have confessed, I am a small-boned (now 5'11", once 6', 165 lb) late-middle aged guy who imagines he is still 25, without the genes for a mighty physique, with the genes for a dad bod - ie sloppy gut tendency effectively-resisted, but blessed with the genes or temperament for perseverance. I'll share my fitness goals for the next 5-6 months:
- Dead around 275-300 one rep - Run a 7 minute mile (that's about 8.5 mph) - Squat 200 one rep - 10 pullups or chin ups - 50 pushups non-stop - no bench press goals, just reps, due to bum shoulder - Lose another 4 lbs of fat and gain 2 lbs of muscle (my trainer can tell by looking). Like to get to 15% body fat, but beer. - Survive the most challenging cardio/athletic class at my gym without taking any 45-60 second breaks - Getting hit on more often by young blonde chicks in the gym Mrs. BD
For some, those might be modest goals, but not for me.
" Some have suggested that Strzok's reaction was "Duper's delight" - a hidden smirk that slips out at an inappropriate moment when a liar celebrates a successful manipulation. "
It's meadow mowing season in New England. Haying season too.
Mowing
There was never a sound beside the wood but one, And that was my long scythe whispering to the ground. What was it it whispered? I knew not well myself; Perhaps it was something about the heat of the sun, Something, perhaps, about the lack of sound-- And that was why it whispered and did not speak. It was no dream of the gift of idle hours, Or easy gold at the hand of fay or elf: Anything more than the truth would have seemed too weak To the earnest love that laid the swale in rows, Not without feeble-pointed spikes of flowers (Pale orchises), and scared a bright green snake. The fact is the sweetest dream that labour knows. My long scythe whispered and left the hay to make.
Self Control: 
Burberry destroyed $38 million worth of clothing and cosmetics —
It's meadow mowing season in New England. Haying season too.