Taking Steps

2

February 4, 2016 by Rex

Shot from my iPhone showing the steps and distance I walked yesterday working on the farm.

 

More Easy Workouts

It’s simple. I drop the iPhone in one of the various pockets of my work pants and I start working. The iPhone does the rest. We work SOOOOOOO hard and spend SOOOOOO much money in finding ways to workout our bodies to stay in shape and I get it almost every single day. Oh and that was only about 2 hours of working in the late afternoon. In the morning I was on the computer at our desk in the house and working on veggie bed layouts.

It’s really cool how just doing things that need to be done on the farm turns into a better full body workout than anything some trainer you pay a lot of money to could come up with.

Yesterday, I was back at the tires again. So I was lifting and shifting. Carrying tires, one or more in each arm about 50 yards from the stack I had made from the veggie bed to the the front yard where I’m laying them down and stacking them so they will retain the dirt I plan on dumping over top of them to create our new front yard.

Overall I have moved about 70 tires in two days. Plus the side walls I had cut off last year.

It’s great time out there as well. (How many people can say that about their workouts in a gym?) My 3-year old, Jake, was out there with me part of the time. He would get on is bike (with training wheels) and ride back and forth with me from tire stack to front yard. Back and forth back and forth. When I would struggle to get a tire in between other tires or inside another tire. He would get off his bike, walk over to the troublesome tire and give it good shove and tell it to get in there! (He showed it who was boss.) Then he’d get back onto his back and race with me back to the stack. When he got worn out he went in for a drink or a snack.

Later, that night, when I was sitting in a chair and checking my e-mails, he was riding around in his play tractor from Santa. He stopped the tractor in front of me and told me, “I really loved being out there with you riding around and helping with the tires.”

Now… what gym can you get that from? Most expect you to drop your kid off at the child care area while you go and workout.

Also, by being out and doing the work on the farm, I’m getting a workout while doing something I really love doing. There are SOOOOOOOOO many projects that are needed both not only on this farm, but  this a house also that needed MAJOR renovation work done to when we bought it and still does. The projects are varied and take attention and thought to complete them. I’m not just sitting on a bike and riding while watching whatever is on the television in front of me. I’m IN the moment. I have to think how something need to be laid out in order for it to work best for our needs. I need to draw on past experiences (and mistakes). I need to think to the future (what is the ultimate end goal for this project. What do I want it to look like? How do I want it to function? Who does it have to function for?) We don’t have just one user at this place. I have to think through the functioning of not only 6’2″ 200 lbs me, but all the way through the family down to 12 year old 5′ 80lbs Allie.

It’s great. It tests my abilities, intellect and problem solving capabilities.

There is so much work that needs to be done here that it can feel overwhelming. But when I stop and step back and look at the fact that I have an entire life to get these things finished it starts to slow down and appeal to me.

I can lookout the front window here while I sit in my oversized comfy and cozy chair, with Jake sitting in “the valley” on his iPad watch Kids YouTube video, Lewis laying next to me with my right forearm resting on him as I type, and see all kinds of projects that need to get done. I can also see projects that have gotten done and it makes me feel good. I CAN accomplish it all. Given time.

We all get caught up in needing to make money to live. And we have to face that as well. We’ve got to start selling some veggie around here soon or we’re gonna be in a whole mess of hurt. BUT… we don’t need to be millionaires anymore. Making just enough forces us to be more resourceful and really we have a better life because of it.

Look at the last two days: I’ve moved tires from the veggie yard, stacked them and them moved them over to front yard. The tires were free. The bike for Jake we got for $5 at a yard sale and we put another $5 into a new tire tube. The iPhone for tracking my steps was paid for YEARS ago. (We don’t have phone service on it.) I painted the sheets of metal with primer last night using left over paint from the inside of the house. (I’ll get to what the sheets of metal are for in a later post. 🙂 )

So costs were in the zero range yesterday for me. The farm looks a little cleaner and more organized because of the work and the Veggie Yard is that much closer to going into super-producer mode.

Oh yeah, and my body feels MUCH better this morning for having done that whole body work out.