I’d normally be working out right now (according to my new schedule), but I called an audible and decided to blog because I’ve got some serious digging to do tomorrow and need to conserve my strength.
I’ve got two fairly large gardens to flip with a shovel early tomorrow morning and I’m actually looking forward to it. In my younger years, yard work was something I tolerated, but never really enjoyed. It’s only been over the past two years or so where just getting outside and working with the earth has become enjoyable.
I’m not sure when or why this transition happened, but I think it came when I quit thinking about yard work as a chore to take care of and started thinking of it as a project to take on. That seems to be the case whenever I’m confronted with something I don’t want to do – it starts out as a chore, which makes me hem and haw at the prospect of having to do it. Once I’m able to see the benefits of doing said task (in this case, homegrown food, free compost, and firewood for the winter), I can change my perspective on it, turn it into a project, and go after it with gusto.
I also enjoy the gas-free approach to yard work as I traded in my gas mower for a push mower a couple years ago, though my reason for doing so was mostly for the exercise. At least flipping the garden with a shovel has more of a reason behind it – the rototiller jacked up my back pretty bad last year and using a rototiller to stir up the earth tends to turn the earthworms into chunks.
I’ve known since grade school that earthworms are good for the soil, and good soil tends to breed better plants. I ran into quite a few of the critters while flipping the garden bed on the south side of the house last month, which is a promising sign. It also gets the most sun, so the plants that need it the most (tomatoes) go there.
I also need to figure out which tree branches I can take down in order to increase the amount of sun that those soon-to-be flipped gardens will receive. Right now, it’s somewhere between 5-6 hours, which is not enough for a good deal of plants to yield well. I don’t know if I’ll get to cutting any branches this weekend, but I might – depends on how worn out I am after all that shoveling.
Today’s weight: 216.0 lbs
Holding steady with the weight, which is better than gaining. I have a feeling I’ll be dropping a bit of weight once Sunday rolls around, for obvious reasons – well, obvious if you read the rest of this post, that is.






