Aches and Pains...

05/03/2009

I am sitting here on this very fine Sunday afternoon attempting to position my aching body so my back doesn’t hurt.  Right now I can feel pains in both my arms, my feet and calves, in addition to my back.  When I stand it feels as if every muscle in my body is bruised.  I am hurting.

Yesterday I worked outside for about four hours.  Nancy and I are putting in a vegetable garden.  The plot we have selected is 16’ by 26’.  It is in an area of The Farm that was very obviously used as a much larger garden plot at one time.  The soil is rich and not nearly as rock and stone laden as other areas of the 3.4 acres of yard we have here.

My original thought was to turn the soil by hand.  I did turn about an 8’X8’ section of it, but it was really tiresome and at the rate I was going fall would be upon us before I ever got it all done.  To expedite the preparation, I purchased a tiller.  Is that a laugher or what?  Me, a city boy whose collection of farm-type equipment now includes a big zero-turn lawnmower, a chainsaw, a host of shovels, rakes, an axe, and now a garden tiller.  What the hell could be next?

All of that aside, after using the tiller on the garden plot, racking the lumps of grass into a huge pile, shaking off the excess soil, loading them into my wheel barrow (never thought I would own one of these, either), I took two loads of the leftover grass junk down to the woods and dumped it.  With that done, I decided to cut some grass, but inasmuch as my big mower is in the shop again with a very flat tire, I used a little Lawn Boy and cut about an acre.  I am not used to physical labor at this intensity, hence my pain.

I can deal with the pain, and one of these fine days when I enjoy a delicious homegrown tomato or a squash or a zucchini, I will appreciate the pain I endured, and will be able to more justify the $600 tiller, the $360 I spent on screened top soil, and $200 worth of lumber and chicken wire fencing I bought to keep out the deer, rabbits and groundhogs, not to mention seeds and plants to grow all the delectable veggies and fruits we will surely harvest later this summer.  After all, it’s only money, right?  Just look at how much we will save in the long run?

Damn, I hurt!!!

And that is all I have to say about that…