Monday, April 12, 2010

Tales From the Front Yard...

This is the old-age, out-of-condition edition.  Debbie and I spent half the day yesterday working on our front yard.  We're cleaning up a small section (about 300 square feet) and planting it. 

Our first step is to rip out some old flagstones, perhaps 30 of them.  Some of the flagstones are fairly large, up to 8 or 9 square feet.  All of them had been set in a thin layer of poor concrete, about one inch thick.  The largest ones approached 200 pounds; I could just barely lift them up to put them on a little two-wheeled truck. 

After three hours of flagstone-lifting, we were beat – especially me.  This is the first hard physical work I've done this year, and my lack of condition really showed.  We have a nice pile of flagstones now, sitting up against a post – but we're only about half finished!  We spent another hour hoeing some weeds and grass off an embankment under a liquid amber tree, and laying down some pine-bark mulch.  Should make the tree happy!

By the time I got back into the house last night, I was sunburned and my muscles felt like quivering jello.  Everything hurt.  A nice warm shower felt oh-so-good.  When I got out of the shower, the smell of grilling steaks filled the air – Debbie was outside on the grill with two huge slabs of beef, and some potatoes were in the oven.  Sure tasted good after all that hard work!

This morning I don't feel quite so bad.  I think there are three, maybe four fingers that are pain-free.  One earlobe, too.  Everything else still hurts...

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