Skimlinks Test

Listen to the latest episode!!

Sunday, August 6, 2017

Health Priorities!

Our lives are consumed with keeping things going- at least mine surely is!  Two trees fell last night, unbeknownst to me, and unfortunately both of them fell across a road!  Yikes.
I was working in my garden, and then remembered I needed to pick up some branches that had fallen recently, so I could mow later.  I picked up said branches, and then spotted two more, up behind the garden.  Now, you need to know that my property is located in a coulee, which in the French parlance of the explorers who explored my area here in the driftless zone, long ago- a coulee is a three sided valley.  A big valley in my case, surrounded on three sides by tall bluffs, covered with woodlands.  It’s wonderful in that it is naturally very isolated.
My house, one of the original farmhouses in the coulee, is on the corner of the two roads that converge in the valley- and so, I have a road on the south side of my house, and another on the east side.  These are the only two roads that are out here.  
When I went after the two branches up behind the garden, I noticed a lot of shade here.  ‘What the heck?’ I thought, and walked up the little hillside to the road.  A tree had fallen, probably due to the incredible amount of rainfall we have had this year in the Coulee Region.  The tree, a box elder, halfway blocked the road to the south of my house. 
Sighing deeply, I’m sure (I have lots to do lately), I got my chain saw, my wonderful Stihl Farm boss, and went to work.  Maybe an hour or so, that was it, and the road was at least clear.  The rest of the tree can wait until Fall, or at least until I have more time.  I still had to mow, the next three days are scheduled for all rain!
I decided to head down the East road, to see if there was more damage.  I drove my diesel tractor, chain saw still along for the ride… there it was- another tree down!  I was the menace of the coulee, blocking both roads!  
I got down, fired up my Stihl, and cleared up this mess as well.  Another hour.  That’s two hours of heavy chain saw work, cutting, bucking, dragging, and stacking of bad firewood- and, this morning was my big heavy pushup workout day- so, I was a bit tired to start.  I like to take it easy after a heavy workout.  Recovery is important!
Now, I could finally mow!  Mowing is quite enjoyable, since I can listen to podcasts, or to AM radio like Rush Limbaugh.  No one explains modern politics better than Rush!  When I finally finished this, a couple of hours later, I went into the house.  I told my wife about the two trees down, and how I had to cut them up.  
“Did you cut up the old dead apple tree?” she asked.  
I shrugged.  “I never even thought of it.” 
She looked crushed.  
Well, I guess I will cut that down tomorrow, in the rain.  Why it was important, I had to ask.
“Because I can see it out the kitchen window,” she responded.  

I guess it’s all about priorities.  I wanted to clear the road so no one would get killed driving home in the dark.  But, since she spends a lot of time at that kitchen window, that seemed most important.
It is similar to everything in life, I thought.  A healthy diet, for instance, one without grains and sugars, heavy on vegetables and grass fed meat- it seems really important to me!  To get a good night’s sleep, every night, and to exercise on a daily basis- it all seems incredibly important to me. I am super-aware of how I will look and feel if I do such things right on a regular basis, and how bad I will feel and look if I don’t.  I make it a priority!
Other people have very different priorities.  They are fixated on making the maximum income, for instance.  Stay up late, eat fast foods, so you can ‘make deals’ and work more and more and more!  Ignore exercise and sleep, pay no attention to family and ‘tribal’ community connections- pursue the mighty dollar above all else!  And when you do have ‘downtime’- hey- party and go on elaborate vacations, showing everyone how you have got it made!  

Ridiculous.  We all need to set true priorities.  As humans.  We need to perform regular human maintenance- we need a good, paleo type of diet.  We need natural, ancestral sorts of exercise, as shown in the Perfectly Paleo Exercise book.  Calisthenics, Virtual resistance exercises, along with good stretching- forget heavy weights and gyms and Crossfit and long distance running and triathlons… they all have nothing to do with true health, with physical culture.
And don’t think I am telling you to go with the Medical Clinic Paradigm- the one that tells you that you need to go to the doctor on a  regular basis, getting tested over and over for anything that might possibly be wrong, and then to take dozens of prescription drugs to alter your mood, your cholesterol, and your blood profile:

BS

I really want you to not do any of that!  That is just the corrupt, current medical business practice, wanting you to spend lots of money on tests, (scoping for dollars), drugs, and surgeries!  Just forget all that, and be like our grandparents and their forebears all the way back to paleolithic times: do it yourself!  

Again: exercise daily.  Sleep 8 hours nightly.  Don’t take drugs, prescription or otherwise. (Prescription are worse than recreational, really!).  And above all- clean up your diet- eliminate grains, especially wheat.  Eat grass fed, pastured, organic and natural.  And cultivate a ‘tribe’, whether through church, or school, of family, or all of the above- we are social beings after all!
And get out in nature, every day.  It is amazing to me how many folks are just stuck inside, staring at screens of one sort or another.  And they never venture outside!
Although I do my share of “screen staring”, for instance as I write these words, I more than make up for it by my outside time.  I pretty much live in the Little House in the Big Woods, and only after all is taken care of do I venture inside to do my “fiddling”, meaning my writing and all else.

So, set your priorities my friend- your body, fitness, and mental state first, so that you are prepared to support your family and everyone else in your tribe.  Only if you have taken care of yourself, set your priorities, can you hope to accomplish anything else truly worth doing.