I love to
garden. You might not guess this from
the weeds peeking out of my front beds, but I do. The thing is, I tend to garden in marathon
spurts. It starts with noticing a few
more errant weeds than usual…I pull one or two…and five hours later I can’t
stand up and the huge green waste can is overflowing. It happened again today.
I went
outside this morning to decide which dead branches I would remove from the huge
maple hanging over our deck from the neighbors’ yard (we love it and them!)
when my husband came out and said he’d be happy to chainsaw down the bush I’ve
been longing to kill remove from our yard. Everyone in our neighborhood has one of these
stupid ugly invasive big bushes because they attract birds. However, we have lots of plants that attract
birds and offer nesting areas, so I was ready to destroy that sucker get
busy chopping it into the bin.
With the
ridiculous boyish joy that only a full-grown man with a power tool in his hand
can exhibit, my husband attacked the butterfly bush. He managed to dislodge the
chain from the chainsaw and had to do a quick internet tutorial to reassemble
it for the final cuts. (He’s really good
with tools!) Anyway, cut away from the base, this bush took on a life of its
own. It was huge. So I started
cutting. And cutting. I filled out huge bin, the next-door
neighbors’ bin, the bin from the neighbors across the street, and after 5 hours
of cutting, was still left with a pile of denuded branches that I will happily
have my son cut up at his leisure (and by leisure I mean ASAP in case you are
reading this). ;-)
You all know
I am “banking” my calories each day.
Energy in, energy out. I had
breakfast before I started the project and had a little meal in the middle of
it, but, by the most conservative estimate, I burned over 1,400 calories
today. It was with absolutely no guilt
that I ate fish and chips with the family tonight and I am having dessert. In the old days I might have considered today’s
burn to be sufficient for the week, but what has changed in my mind is that
each day is a brand new banking day. There is no carryover. Use it or lose it as they say.
So, I am
freakin’ sore. And it feels fanfreakintastic.
No comments:
Post a Comment