Anyone Else "Just Like to stay Busy?"

[BrokenTrack]

My Mom never said I was a bad kid, just very "active".

Over the last four years, (3) bouts of cancer had really slowed me up. For those that do not know, cancer is funny in that it consumes 3 times more energy to fight, even when the body is at rest, so trying to work, can really cripple it. This was my seventh circle of hades, as I am a "doer", a "go-getter", not someone to "sit around and talk about it."

In some ways, that can be bad. I am a workaholic for sure, but I got things to do, and a lot to get done. Sure I have lived my life at 100 mph, but equally I could die tomorrow and have lived a full-life...so no regrets.

But in terms of projects, I do tend to be single-focused. My wife: she can bake a cake, nurse a child's scrape, and watch Property Brother's while crocheting all at the same time. Me...nope...I am intensely focused on the project at hand. Well to a point...

I try and line up things so I get the most done with my time. Right now I am:

1. Re-graveling my driveway from gravel out of my gravel pit
2. Rebuilding my bushog
3. Installing a new back-up generator

I have to have (3) things going because the latter two for instance, can be done while it is raining, since they are in my barn and in my generator shed. Today since it is snowing (yes it is May 9th, and yes it is REALLY snowing and accumulating on the ground), I will work on the latter (2) projects: the generator and bushog rebuilds.

My To Do List includes things that can be done in good weather, but also bad weather, using the tractor or not, and whether I am waiting for parts or not, all in categories. That really keeps me focused so I can make the best use of my time.

Is anyone else like that, planning your to do list around weather, what else to do while on the tractor, and parts availability?

I get up early (2 Am or so), but go pretty hard all day long until 6 PM or so. After that I crash, but man after (4) years, it sure is nice to be myself again.

 

[Tomtint]

My Mom never said I was a bad kid, just very "active".

Over the last four years, (3) bouts of cancer had really slowed me up. For those that do not know, cancer is funny in that it consumes 3 times more energy to fight, even when the body is at rest, so trying to work, can really cripple it. This was my seventh circle of hades, as I am a "doer", a "go-getter", not someone to "sit around and talk about it."

In some ways, that can be bad. I am a workaholic for sure, but I got things to do, and a lot to get done. Sure I have lived my life at 100 mph, but equally I could die tomorrow and have lived a full-life...so no regrets.

But in terms of projects, I do tend to be single-focused. My wife: she can bake a cake, nurse a child's scrape, and watch Property Brother's while crocheting all at the same time. Me...nope...I am intensely focused on the project at hand. Well to a point...

I try and line up things so I get the most done with my time. Right now I am:

1. Re-graveling my driveway from gravel out of my gravel pit
2. Rebuilding my bushog
3. Installing a new back-up generator

I have to have (3) things going because the latter two for instance, can be done while it is raining, since they are in my barn and in my generator shed. Today since it is snowing (yes it is May 9th, and yes it is REALLY snowing and accumulating on the ground), I will work on the latter (2) projects: the generator and bushog rebuilds.

My To Do List includes things that can be done in good weather, but also bad weather, using the tractor or not, and whether I am waiting for parts or not, all in categories. That really keeps me focused so I can make the best use of my time.

Is anyone else like that, planning your to do list around weather, what else to do while on the tractor, and parts availability?

I get up early (2 Am or so), but go pretty hard all day long until 6 PM or so. After that I crash, but man after (4) years, it sure is nice to be myself again.

I have always been a mover..always doing something and get restless when idle. The past couple months have almost exhausted my to-do list of projects...had the weather been better...I would probably be out of projects all together. Its funny..2 months ago, my days typically started at 4am to get up and get out the door by 4:25 am so we could get into the city for work and miss traffic...Now I tend to get up at 5:30 ish,,,It may be a little adjustment getting back to the grind when we get the green light to go back to work.

 

[chim]

First of all, I'm glad you are doing well. I'm 70 and have been blessed in many ways, including health. With several of my friends facing some of the trials they have I don't take it for granted.

I always seem to have plenty to keep me busy. Being off work since March 19th (heading back on Monday) it seems I should have accomplished more. I'm not a morning person though and to get a proper start I need to do the "3 S's" (used to be 5 but now I'm bald and quit smoking 30 or 40 years ago). Being off work my schedule shifted. It has often been mid-morning till things got rolling, but then kept plugging away till dark.

My first project was completing the demolition and removal of a small old shed that was replaced with the large one I built late last year. The next one that still isn't finished is re-furbing an old 5' RFM. Welding and grinding here is outside work. The weather didn't seem like it would be great for painting, so the mower was set aside to cut down a few dead/dying trees. Since brush forks would be handy, making a set became the new priority. The forks I had were made to work with a pin-on bucket and went away with that tractor. Dropped the last tree on Thursday and should get that cut up and cleaned up today. Also there was a fair amount of mowing and some other tree trimming, helping with a couple things at the church, going into work occasionally to process some paperwork and check things, sharpened saws, rebuilt weed eater carb, and other small but time-consuming tasks.

 

[defranks]

Keep up the fight!

My wife and I moved from Washington to Tennessee 16 months ago. We rented a small condo when we arrived as a place to live while we got our house built. I went nuts in there, as there were no chores to be done. I guess I never quite realized how much I enjoyed doing chores. We found it impossible to find the help we needed to build our house, so I find myself doing all the work now. So maybe I shouldn't have complained about having too little to do, as now I definitely have too much! Never happy, I guess.

 

[shovelmike]

I'm glad you're doing well, broken track. I too was born to keep moving, covid put the kabosh on my part time job, so I have been super busy with projects. Fixed my grandson's girlfriend's ATV, my wife's ATV, my old Sportster, did needed carb rebuild on my old 29 year old lawn tractor that I don't use often, but the old thing just keeps on going (Craftsman-made by Murray 12.5 Briggs and Stratton commercial gold engine).
Also clearing a lot of brush from my paths in the woods.

 

[s219]

Is anyone else like that, planning your to do list around weather, what else to do while on the tractor, and parts availability?

Absolutely, and I am one of the few people I know that is so sensitive to weather and planning. Most of our local family, and most of my neighbors, are oblivious to weather in comparison to me. My wife pretty much schedules things when she wants to do them and we often have to neogtiate on my availability due to weather. It generally comes down to me doing the outdoor stuff when the weather cooperates, then letting her schedule me when weather doesn't matter. If I just followed everyone else's lead, I'd be wasting a lot of good weather on projects that don't require it.

I got lucky when coronavirus shutdowns hit in March, I had been planning and accumulating material and hardware for multiple large projects. I didn't know that ahead of time, but couldn't have planned it any better. So I have been able to knock out these major projects without a single trip to the store:

1) siding and trimming my barn addition
2) wiring and lighting for the barn addition
3) built new stairs down to my pier (originals wiped out by rot and a falling tree)
4) new wiring down to the pier
5) put in a new road for a trailer storage area (gravel had been delivered and was waiting on me)

And this week I am about to do the 200 hour service on my outboard motor, which will involve pulling off the lower unit to replace the water pump impeller, changing all fluids/filters, doing plugs, etc. Amazingly, I had bought all the parts, tools, and fluids for that last fall when I thought I might hit 200 hours sooner. So that's also on deck to go, and I hope to knock it out this week when we have several dry days in a row, since I will be working outdoors (can't fit boat in my barn although I could back the stern and motor inside if needed).

I only had one mishap that went awry, and that came when painting my barn addition and I *twice* spilled a can of stain from a ladder. Had to make two unplanned trips to the paint store for curbside pickup for that fiasco. It just so happens I hate painting so it doesn't surprise me that is the project that went off the rails. And that was probably the most weather-sensitive of them all, to boot.

Some folks have more enjoyable hobbies, and I do ski a lot in the winter. But the rest of the year I enjoy good old fashioned hard work as my hobby.

 

[sodamo]

Anyone Else "Just Like to stay Busy?"

Congrats to OP on cancer battle. At 73 I consider myself very fortunate to be in quite good health, wife survived her cancer going on 14 years.
Seems my todo list never gets smaller, by the time I complete a project, several more made the list. Usually have more than 1 active at a time to accommodate changes in weather. I no longer enjoy working out in the rain.
My big one this year was building a 24x31 carport (detailed in own thread). Lately I’m trying to get back to even on brushhogging, have 2 areas about 5+ acres each that take about 2 days each, but hope that I can get that down to maybe 3 days for both. I made the mistake of having potato farmers a few years and they left both areas in rough shape.
I hope that OP will start a thread on his mower rebuild as that’s on my list as well.
My big project for the summer is to get back to converting a container to a caretaker studio. I have most of the material, well except the 2x6s and 2x4s that conveniently got used on other projects.
Unlike many of you, I hardly do a full out 8 hr work day every day anymore, closer to 6 with more/longer breaks, start by 9 quit by 5 unless something special. Wife says it’s time I slowed down, but I tell her if I didn’t have projects she might decide I’m not needed and I’m not ready to check out yet.

 

[RalphVa]

I had been until hit by congenstive heart failure late in 2012. It and some lower leg neuropathy has really slowed me down.

My wife is the one who is always going. She's still sawing big limbs, autumn olives and down trees and lopping everything in the way of doing those. She has well less than an acre to go yet. Just went down to check on her. She'd been working since just after lunch down there, and it was after 5.

She continues to do all the housework except vacuuming here in the basement (my job) and knits afghans for the senior center while relaxing in front of the TV.

She even does a lot of the lawn mowing of the approximately 1/2 acre here around the house. I do the grass whipping and other gardening.

Ralph

 

[civilian]

To add to this I can say our (my wife's and my) project list won't be completed for a while (years maybe). We have 80 acres in Northern Michigan. We bought it 2 years ago, and built our retirement home here. Nice wooded area. Summer time projects are outside ones. Ash borer went through before we bought and have spent the last week or so cutting up 100" sticks of ash. Got a few loggers cords stacked up the firewood processor we will rent later this fall. Have a lot more to get to. Need to have driveway mix (Afton stone here) hauled in for have of the 3/8 mile drive. Landscaping needs to be done around the house and out buildings. A lean to for the firewood storage would be nice before winter. Garage walls need insulating before winter to conserve on wood burned to heat it and the house. Rear deck may not happen this year. Work shop insulation and heat will probably be next year. (Hopefully investments will return by then.) This past winter was building kitchen cabinets. Next winter wil be finishing the doors and drawers for those cabinets, a laundry cabinet, window and door trim in the house. Trim will be from cedar and white pine that was rough sawn a few years ago. So yeah we have a list of projects to look forward to. Jon

 

[dstig1]

But in terms of projects, I do tend to be single-focused. My wife: she can bake a cake, nurse a child's scrape, and watch Property Brother's while crocheting all at the same time. Me...nope...I am intensely focused on the project at hand.

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