I know, I don't usually post on Saturday

I just wanted to stop in and say I'm beat. Why?

I headed out at 9:45AM to pick up a U-Haul pickup. I then drove to a local ranch and hand-loaded (shoveled) a few hundred pounds of manure. Thereafter, I drove back home and unloaded said manure into my garden. Wee! I had to do some pretty fancy maneuvering to get the truck backed right up to the garden, but it paid off! I just had to shove the stuff out and it fell right where I needed it.

So then I cleaned out the truck (a messy task) and drove it to Home Depot. I bought twelve bags of large bark nuggets, then went home and unloaded them. Then I cleaned out the truck again, drove the truck back to U-Haul and then came home.

I ate lunch.

Then I started carving out nasty, useless sod from around a couple of trees. I did the math and it was about 150 square feet of grass that I removed, including some dirt. This took a long time, particularly because my wheelbarrow's wheel was low on air.

It turned out I should have filled the tire, because it exploded as I was pushing a load of dirt and grass to the hill I'm making. Annemarie was kind enough to call around to local stores to find a replacement, but in the meantime, I filled large buckets with the detritus I was removing and then hand-carried them to their destination.

I zipped out and purchased a tough tire that can't get a flat, then came home and had to do some quick MacGuyvering to get it to work. Then I finished the removal process.

Oh, I put on soup for dinner for the family at some point during all of this, but I don't remember when.

I raked the dirt even and spread out my bark. I had just enough.

Whew.

So why do I share this? Because... er.. I don't know. I just wanted to record it. My back is sore (but not thrown out, don't worry) and I am beat. Now I have to go and get kids bathed.

And yet I love life. This pain means I pushed myself and broke some limits. Bathing kids means I have kids, and I made the wise choice of marrying their mother nearly ten years ago. So basically, I'm in Heaven.

carpe somnium