Training Like a Cave Man 'er Woman

I just read on-line at denverpost.com this morning an article, "Train like a cave man," by Josh Noel, Chicago Tribune, about the latest fitness craze.  It seems to be an offshoot of the NeanderThin diet, a favorite of my brother.  In this latest craze, you not only eat like a Neanderthal--meat and berries and whatever else might be as similar as possible to what the hunter gatherers ate--but you exercise by doing activities Neanderthals might have done just as part of their everyday life hunting and gathering.  From what I understand from Mr. Noel's article, the first Ancestral Health Symposium was held last August in, where else, Los Angeles.  So, instead of spending hours in a gym, you walk, outside preferably, I guess, because they eschew treadmills, and keep up"a low level of activity all day."  It apparently also includes "short bursts of weight-bearing intensity...such as pushing a weighted sled or pounding...."  Today, adherents pound on old tires.  They also carry rocks, lift tree branches and do monkey-like antics on adult monkey bars.

So, I joined the movement today.  I decided it was time to dig out the wood I had put in the woodshed, which had by now become totally blocked by junk.  My outside woodpile had shrunk to frightening levels over the last week.  This photo was taken about a week ago, so it is a lot smaller than this now.

With the high winds I didn't want to pull everything out of the woodshed to access the stored wood for fear things would blow away.  I cannot tell you how many things I lost to the winds before I got savvy.  Even in summer you can put out fox food in a dish on a beautifully calm evening only to awake in the night to gale-force winds that have carried the dish down the canyon.  Lids to trash cans or plastic containers and anything else that isn't battened down also become victims. I think there are people down the canyon that probably are like those coastal peoples who profited by confiscating the goods off wrecked ships.  (If you have the vintage fruit bowl, the cute little red enamel bowl, the little black pan that looks like a miniature gold panning pan, the lid to my kindling container...they're mine!)

Cleaning out a storage shed is not something a person would normally do in late January, but it actually got up to 40F degrees today and when the day dawned calm, I dragged everything out.

As you can see, if these out buildings were ever weatherproof, they aren't now.  A lot of snow blows into both the woodshed...

...yes, those are chunks of snow that have blown in the east side even though the winds usually prevail from the west...

...and the toilet...

No, that's all you get to see of the privy today.  I've got ideas for making it the most upscale privy in Colorado, but that's for spring.

Once I got everything pulled out, I re-stacked the wood on this old pallet. 

I've found that the outside woodpile is a lot more accessible, and even without being covered, the wood burns as well as that stored inside.  You just knock off the snow and it's fine.  I expect that will change when spring and wetter snows and rain start, but it's the case now.  This is not the best wood stack I've ever made, but it should suffice as fast as I expect to go through it.  I've got another cord ordered for delivery in eight days and I can see this should be adequate.  I wasn't really sure how much I had left in the woodshed, but, in addition to this, I've still got this remaining in the woodshed, so I should be good.

I had purchased a whole chicken--been a long time since I've done that, but these were really reasonably priced--so I cleaned the chicken and set it to simmering before I went out to tackle the wood.  Lots of good eats for me and any visiting canid...canids?  (According to wiki.answers, "Members of the Canidae family are called canid and include dogs, wolves, foxes, coyotes, dingoes, jackals, and lycaons. The Canidae family is divided into the "true dogs" (or canines) of the tribe Canini and the "foxes" of the tribe Vulpini.").  Don't you just love it?...I'm awaiting a visit from the tribe Vulpini that is going to think it died and went to heaven...So, no, I didn't kill it (the chicken) with a slingshot, but I think it fits into my "ancestral" health day.  What did you hunt and gather today?  Teddee