Weekly Mileage #138 and an Icy Hike

the view on the way to our hike on Thursday

Monday I went for a trail run and a hike. Still a great way to start the week.

Wednesday it was really cold (20's to mid 30s), so we skipped the hike I'd planned on and I rode my bike instead. I also cleaned out the under stairs closet in the basement, which left me quite the pile of stuff to take to Goodwill. I've been meaning to declutter for awhile now, and I'm finally making progress, a little at a time.

Thursday was a bit warmer, so we went on our hike after dropping some boxes at Goodwill. We hiked to a natural water slide that I'd heard about too late to try out this year. We didn't plan on sliding, I just wanted to check it out for when it warms up. We've never hiked in that area, so it was completely unfamiliar. It was a nice hike, only about a mile or so round trip. There were icicles  on some of the branches over the stream crossing, so definitely too late to be getting in the water!

there's icicle on that branch over the water

I managed to get glutened at YW that night. I'm still not completely sure how- I ate two things that shouldn't have had gluten in them (vanilla ice cream and Reese's Pieces), but there must have been some contamination, somehow.

closer view

I didn't feel well that night, and I felt worse in the morning. A bad night's sleep made things worse, and I felt crummy most of the day. In the afternoon I did manage to hop on the mower and blow the leaves that were getting out of control. Of course, this was just in time for the wind to come through Friday night/Saturday morning to blow more leaves off the trees. But if I'd waited it would have been a lot harder to do (we'd already waited longer than we should have), so it's just as well that I did it when I did. It's just how things are this time of year.

Saturday I was supposed to do a ropes course with the YW, but no parents were willing to drive, so it got postponed till spring. Hopefully we'll have better parental involvement by then. For some reason, our ward has a real problem with some families expecting the YM and YW leaders to drive their kids everywhere and not being willing to help out. We're working to change this, but in the meantime it's frustrating, especially when it's an activity the girls want to do, and we have to cancel it.

Since we weren't driving a couple hours to ropes course, we did some yard work instead. The chickens have been roosting in the rafters, which allowed them to move to the side of the coop where we store the feed and straw. Not optimal. So I strung some plastic chicken wire from one wall, across the rafters, to the other wall. The chickens weren't thrilled about it, so I need to add another roost (they have two, but they're a lot lower than the rafters) that will allow them to be up higher while staying out of the rafters.

While I was messing around in the rafters, I organized the bins I store in the chicken coop rafters (various chicken paraphernalia and some cushions for our patio furniture).

Then I cleaned out and organized the garden shed. We've been tossing stuff in there for the last who knows how long and it was impossible to find anything, let alone get to where it might be stored. It's much better now, and will be even better once we get rid of the boxes of papers that need to be shredded. We have more papers in the house that need to be sorted, so it's not time to call a document shredding company just yet (yes, there's that much paper to be shredded).

Sunshine and I (with a little help from the boys) started moving the massive wood pile next to the chicken coop and the garden shed to the back side of our property. We've been waiting to rent a wood chipper, but we're not sure when that's going to happen and in the meantime the wood and brush pile has been getting massive and I'm sick of how junky it looks as you come up the driveway. We've only made a small dent, but it already looks better.

I logged 3.5 miles while doing all that work.

I've really enjoyed the last few weeks of increased energy and productivity, so being knocked backwards by the gluten was unwelcome. Physically, I felt a lot better by Saturday. The mental fog is harder to get rid of, unfortunately. And of course, mental fog doesn't just make it hard to concentrate, it also makes it hard to be motivated to do anything. Especially if it requires mental focus. which is why mowing the leaves was ok once the stomach pain receded a bit, but finishing a blog post was not an option. I think that's the worse- the lack of motivation. I know I need to be doing stuff, but it's so hard to get started on it.

Weekly Mileage
Monday- 2.10 mile trail run
Monday- 1.40 mile hike
Wednesday- 10.00 mile bike ride
Thursday- 1.27 mile hike
Saturday- 3.50 mile walk
total- 18.27 miles

35 hikes towards #52hikechallenge
2.56 kayak miles towards #365milechallenge

136.01 outdoor foot miles towards #365milechallenge
41.16 indoor foot miles towards #365milechallenge
120.0 bike miles towards #365milechallenge
299.73 miles total