Here are some branches closer to the start. As you can see I also peeled bark off some of the trunks.
My wood pile when I still had some branches left to cut.
The wood pile is a temporary pile in a temporary location near where I do the cutting.. So I just tossed the cut branches in a stack - and it caught up to me when the pile collapsed.
After I re-stacked the wood after a second collapse.
When I re-stacked the wood I added the two steel posts on one side to help hold the wood in place.
The wood pile when most of the branches have been cut. Now to let them dry more, then find a permanent place to store them until I burn them. In the right foreground are some wood pieces I had gotten down the road. They are very dense and quite heavy and need more drying and then splitting. In the background are some of the stumps I have to split later this year.
On the left side are the larger pieces left to cut. The branches on the right side have been all cut since I took this photo. That pile was over twice this size when I started and this was one of two piles. The other pile was smaller though closer in size to what is seen in the photo.
I think all this cutting messed up my right shoulder muscles for a while. A month ago they began to act like they did after the bicycle accident in 2000 where I suffered an oblique non-displaced fracture of my right collar/shoulder bone. Back then I had some shoulder/neck muscles that wouldn't easily "turn off" or relax which caused soreness. After a summer of therapy and exercises the muscles returned to normal.
Even though I saw using my left hand, the upper back muscles are connected and I think they got imbalanced from all that sawing and somehow the right shoulder/neck muscles got turned on non-stop. First they were sore/tight in different spots ranging from my mid neck to outside my upper shoulder depending on what I did or didn't do that day. The only comfortable positions to sleep were on the left or right shoulders and not on my front or back. Driving was a 'bitch' as sitting and driving was uncomfortable whether for a long drive (like to get the new cattle) or a short drive uptown. Later the constant "on" position began to limit my range of motion as the opposing muscles got tired of fighting the muscles that were suppose to be relaxing during arm movements. Doing the kitchen/dining room remodel looked like it would be an even greater challenge.
So I found my old exercise guide and did exercises a few times. I soaked my shoulder in hot water in the shower and did some self shoulder massages and stretching. As Tammy doesn't believe in massages I only got a short shoulder/neck massage from her one time. She also doesn't like the smell of the Bengay lotion - which surprisingly to me helped the muscle soreness - so that limited my use of the lotion. Her advice was to go see a doctor even though I knew what my problem was. I started to take some glucosamine & chondroitin sulfate vitamins and vitamin E as I believe they help with joints, muscles and healing.
Mainly I continued to use my shoulder muscles, working through the pain. I'd like to say I took it easy but the last few weeks I've been rebuilding the loading corral and other fences by installing heavy railroad ties. I also cleaned the cattle's water trough which meant moving and lifting the very heavy cast iron trough. They don't make water troughs like this anymore.
And between everything, my muscles appear to have recovered. The pain and soreness is gone and I got most of my range of motion back, though I still do stretches after warming up the shoulder muscles in a hot shower. I wonder if the fence work was the 'nail in the coffin' as that work overloaded and tired out all my muscles and that perhaps enabled the troubled muscles to finally turn off and relax. We'll see how long this lasts.
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