I used to hand split all my wood with two tools. A 6lb. "go devil" or splitting maul and two wedges for difficult knotty pieces. One thing to think about is "length of rounds". If your stove is going to take 26" pieces and your wood is gnarly with knots and twists... you are going to be WORKIN"! Working with both wedges at a time and taking plenty of time at it. Lesser lengths = less work in small increments. I owned a "Sotz Monster Maul", one of the triangles of steel welded to a gas pipe handle. With proper technique you can break wood very quickly. You never swing it like a maul or axe, you raise it straight up and let it fall. Takes a bit of practice but the time saved in wiggling a regular stuck maul out of rounds is worth it. WEDGES: I was always told to keep my wedge striking faces trimmed and ground so there were no curls or chips. I did that for 25 years... no problem. One day I heard a "crack", felt a pain in my leg and the next day I was in surgery to remove a corn kernel sizes piece of wedge out of my lower leg. The force of this flying demon was enough to land the "bullet" in the center of my shin directly between the leg bones. Doc said I just missed major arteries and nerves that ran my feet. Coincedently my father called the next week to tell me of a man in his town who had the same experience only in the abdomen, perforated his lower intestine in several places. Forwarned is forarmed! LARGE TRIANGLE MAUL: I stopped using the wedges in favor of the large maul (just a bit too late!). Anything that could not be split with one or two hits with the 6er got the Monster. If it looked like the Monster would have trouble, the round got a starting slot cut 6" in with a chainsaw. The Monster would break knots this way. TRADE SECRET: To make any hammer style splitting easier bury a foot thick piece of log so the flat surface is parallel with the ground and raised 2" and level. Get a auto/truck tire and sit it around the buried chopping block. It keeps the wood contained as it's split. The buried block keeps springy dirt from taking the energy out of your maul. If you don't have a large block bury four smaller pieces standing in a close square and fill in between with sand or clean dirt. CAVEAT CHOPPER: If you have a bunch of wood and are not in shape... rent a hydraulic splitter. Wood splitting ain't for sissies or sissy wannabees... But it's a rewarding thing to see six cords on the pile that you have processed yourself by hand! Wood heats you 3 times. When you cut it and when you split it and when you burn it. I just got 4 cords oak dumped here Monday night and I'll be stacking it Friday. No more splitting for me!

We ate the backstraps/loins off this deer. Steaks buttlerflyed, grilled on the rare side of medium rare all at once, then frozen and reheated in the microwave to medium doneness. No noticeable side effects from eating the steaks. This was the third deer I "processed" this season, from the field to the freezer. I am very careful with my meat, which is why I do it all myself. Wild game overcooks and dries out quickly, most peolple eat it too well done, which is why they don't like it. I've changed more than one naysayers mind after they eat off my grill. I typically cut most of my venison into steaks and eat them cooked medium rare. I was actually worried about overcooking in the canner, since I cooked to what I consider done before putting it into the jars. Which is why I did half raw pack, that I'm now scared to eat. Weight was 10lb, guage read 11lbs for the majority. All the seals are still good. I love eating wild game meat, and canned meat sounded like the perfect solution for my needs, which is why I'm so heartbroke.

I absolutely love the Junior K name :) It's now being adopted by us and I'll share it with his teacher as well. :) It really is just that in our mind. Olliesmom...too confident LOL Ya my little red headed stuborn monster with too much confidence....it's enough to scare me under the covers at night LOL If he gets cocky I'll start erasing his homework at night so he looks like a slacker to avoid any chance of a cocky red head heh heh I scoped out the other kids today and will finish on Friday at their end of the year party, but it seems that only one of the six will actually be going on to the same school as him. He thinks she's 16 so I don't think he'll notice they didn't go together (everyone taller than him is 16 now since I told him he could drive the car when he was 16) :) I was hoping they'd marry (we have a couple crush on her parents cuz they're old and fun like we think we are LOL). But maybe the stigma of dating a younger (and likely much shorter) man will wain before 2025 and they will still have a future ;) But the other kids are either going to public school or the other private school and two (brothers) will be moving after this year, so aside from the one little girl he's going to be with different kids in his real kindergarten anyhoo. He goes with the flow on stuff like that anyhoo so that's not a horrible worry. I think it would be harder to be at the preschool and then have his friends go into class and not get to go with them. TT it is kind of a luxurious safty net to have isn't it? Worst case, it's too much for him and we back off but he never knows there was an issue. Best case, it's a good prep or Jr. Kindergarten before he moves to the other school for K-8 the next year. It's kind of a unique opportunity to have and I'm grateful for that coming our way. Lyfia my son has selective IgG deficiency which is a rare complication of prematurity. But for preemies, immunoglobulin deficiencies aren't as uncommon as many expect, though it's more often A that's deficient (he also had that but has grown out of it). Typically if there is a feeding disorder it's the opposite of your problem. They associate food with pain from the beginning of their life if their problem is not recognized early enough (as was the case with our son) so they learn to control or disasociate themselves with hunger (but not with the grumpyness that accompanies hunger LOL). IgA is fairly common at something like 1 in 300 or so. Very common in preemies (they're just not done cooking yet ya know) but gastric issues in general are always worse for preemies, even the close to term ones. One of the issues with preemies (even near term) can be problems with the way their body processes foods. Jesse has a very slow gastric system. (delayed gastric emptying) so if he's full and you give him one more bite he bursts! (a nice way to say he vomits with wild enthusiam which sucks!) He really is "full". We have to be careful not to overfeed (since he will eat what we make him eat even if he's full because of his nazi like feeing program training). But the opposite problem can also be a preemie issue...their gastric systems process foods too fast so they don't ever get full. It's called Rapid Gastric Emptying Syndrome or "Dumping". Dumping is normally associated with adults who've had gastric surgery but they are finding some babies have it as well and most likely a preemie. It causes the food to go through the stomach too fast and "dump" into the lower intestine. Milk (in both our case and a rapid system) is a problem because the large fats are difficult to process anyhoo, and even more so for those with gastric issues. Jesse isn't "allergic" to milk...it's more like a poison in his body (or was...this is something he's growing out of). For him, in the early years it caused a low level bacteria to form and that was the cause of his diarrhea. He couldn't even have highly processed milks that are supposed to be ok for kids like this but we learned later that's partly an issue with the IgG problem (hind sight is a biotch!) Anyhoo, both gastric emptying issues are diagnosed with a couple of simple tests. One is a barrium swallow where they give the child a bottle or meal with barrium in it (Jesse loved it LOL...it was the only time he ever slept well in the first year...I asked if I could buy it by the ton heh heh). Then they do a series of xrays to watch the food travel from the mouth through the system until it comes out (yes it takes a while but they get breaks...it's not terrible...probably one of our easiest tests). Then the other thing they do is an ultrasound after feeding with something laced with a dye. That was less fun because they have to lay still for 45 mins to an hour...we had to drug him. But that one is used to track more in debth how the lower gastric (stomach on down where as the other is more focused on the top end) system is flowing. Both of these issues tend to be seen in fail to thrive babies...you rarely see a "fat" baby with the problem so if your little dear is retaining all of the calories and gaining weight they won't do the tests, they'll just be incredibly helpful (eyes rolling) and tell you not to feed her or some other nonsense. Both issues can be corrected surgically if I remember right, but then they might have to be uncorrected later (in our case) so we decided not to put him through it. The positive thing is that normally in a few years the system does grow stronger and starts to do it's thing correctly, some as early as the first year. But there are some steps you can take feeding wise to help them retain the calories they need to grow if you know what the problem is, and in many cases adjust how you feed (for us that means more meals more often than a normal child, but smaller meals overall). I didn't say in this thread, but one of the reason's we want him to go to this school another year is that he's developmentally fine everywhere except for feeding issues. He still does not have a normal appetite (does not recognize hunger well) and would rather starve than eat. He also didn't learn to eat at the right time so he has difficulty with the process (can't separate foods correctly in his mouth so can only eat one texture at a time). I don't know how big your little doll is, but if I had the knowledge that I have now I'd have known how to deal with his problem and he wouldn't have a feeding issue now :( That kills me as a mom. The school he's in understands his issues and works with him, so there's a benefit to him getting another year of "normal kid" eating to see if we can move him forward before he goes to the big school! I tell you this only because I am thinking your little one is still pretty little??? If they aren't testing her gastric system get her to a gastroenterologist and have the tests run. They're not hard on the child, and could answer some of your problems so you can address them now verses being stuck with a 4 1/2 year old who can only eat food the consistency of mashed potatoes :o( I don't want anyone in the world to go through what we did with our son. Yes part was because of his rare blood issue, but the other part....we tried soy milk when he was just a few weeks old. The gastroenterologist we were seeing didn't tell us to stay on it for at least ten days (important with formula changes) so when he continued to have issues we took him off the soy and moved onto the next formula. I would happily run that man over with a car if he walked in front of me in a parking lot...(don't tell) :oP Sorry if I bent your ear too much on that lyfia!!! After our little saga I just have this burning desire to fix all babies with tummy issues so their mommies won't suffer!

Ugh...just returned from my regular vets' in order to get Sasha's files and ultrasounds, etc. for Wednesday's appt. with the oncologist. I reviewed my decision with my primary vet to go to a specialist. They still feel that surgery or euthanasia are the two options I am faced with. I reviewed the second set of ultrasounds with my vet. She noted that there appears to be a small tumor on a lymph node as well in addition to the large one on her intestines. Not good news at all. I'll tell you, I'm glad they can read those ultrasound pics, they seem pretty confusing to me. The kidneys look like tumors to me.... After leaving my vet, I'm feeling less sure about the specialist route now. I'm starting to feel like I'm fighting a losing battle. I am normally a very decisive person and feel like every hour I change my mind as to what to do for my cat. What I am struggling with is I don't want to put her through the ordeal of surgery--- only to then euthanize her. She's lost half her body weight in 3.5 weeks. I'd like to get a prognosis without having to have surgery. Is this even possible? My vet did 3 aspirations -- all showed necropic tissue which leaves the results indeterminant. Symptomatically, based on location of the tumor, lymphoma is the best guess. My vet feels that surgery is the only option left for treatment. Also, this specialist I have the appt. with on Wed. is the specialist my vet has been consulting with and who would perform the surgery. Ironically, last night and this morning, Sasha decided to begin eating again on her own. I got half a can of A/D into her. While it felt like a small victory, I have to remind myself that food will not cure her. I'm really struggling with this and feel more confused than ever.