Tuesday, Apr. 19, 2005
Dear Diary:

Rumours of my death have been grossly exaggerated.

I am only half-dead.

So yeah, still chasing fitness goals. Can run four miles in a piece now and I've dropped the MarnCo Assisted Pull-Up Machine � to the lowest resistance bands my gym has. I figure I'm about 20 pounds away from doing an unassisted pull-up which means if I keep killing myself I might actually get one in by my birthday.

I live in hope.

The spousal unit's oldest brother has had to bow out of getting my mom-in-law's firewood split and stacked for next fall and winter so I stepped into the breach. Seven and a half cords down, seven and a half to go. Yes, I am using my pretty gym muscles for actual work, swinging a five pound splitting maul through block wood. I am as sick about this as you are, because as we all know pretty gym muscles are not meant to do actual work. They are meant move bits of metal in a gym and to be admired.

Sometimes life can be so very, very cruel.

One of my friends once joked that I'm the only person she knows who goes into training for gardening. I don't know what comes over me in the spring, but every year as the snows recede my need to grow things becomes almost frightening.

I go almost mental with happiness if I can combine my need to grow things with the appearance of heavy equipment. Some women live for lovely clothes, fancy shoes, or expensive jewellery. Tell me that I can have five or six hours of bulldozer or backhoe time and that's when I get my giddy on.

So it looks like we can afford five hours or so of back hoe time to continue building and shaping the huge bank in front to the house. I've finished sketching the shape I want and the spousal unit will call Calvin tonight to see when he has time free. Once the earth is moved then I will begin planting it with a tapestry of different leaved hostas.

My best guess is that it will take between 2,000 and 2,250 plants to cover the area, depending on how I space them. If I had to buy all these plants I could never undertake this sort of project but one of the joys of living in the same place for over 25 years is that I've had time and room to do a sort of loaves and fishes dealie with my hosta, religiously dividing them every two to three years. Oh yes, I am Queen of the Hosta.

Since that part of the project didn't really involve the spousal unit, he felt fairly benign about it all. I do all the work, he writes a cheque to Calvin. Easy peasy.

And then I mentioned that I want to build a massive stone wall at the bottom of the bank.

You could almost see his equanimity evaporate before your eyes.

I've been walking up and down the brooks on our property for the last five or six years, collecting flat rocks to lay up a final big stone dry wall but I couldn't decide exactly where I wanted it. I think that deep, deep in his heart the spousal unit was kind of hoping that the years would flow by and I'd let the project slide.

But as I sketched the serpentine shape I want the bank in front of the house to take I knew I finally had a shape I wanted to accent with a wall. I'll be 54 in May and I know my rock wall building years are drawing to a close. This will probably be my last big stone slinging effort.

Even though I won't be building the wall much over two feet high, I will probably have to involve the spousal unit. We (meaning he) will have to work out drainage issues and help me wrassle the biggest rocks into place. I can't drive a stick, so he'll be stuck driving the tractor back and forth with wagon loads of rock, crushed stone, gravel and top soil. In other words, this will be an enormous pain the buttal region for him.

He is being very, very brave, though, and the only whimpering I hear is in his sleep. But then again, the spousal unit's freshly back from a week's meditation retreat and he's always more tolerant of my craziness after he's had some time to himself. Plus, I timed it carefully, springing the project on him when we were in the sweet welcome home post-connubial glow.

Oh yes, I used my feminine wiles. Among other things.

I can be that evil.

So the next month or so is shaping up to be a very happy but very busy time. I know that some of my three loyal readers worry when I'm silent for long periods since I'm normally pretty gabby. Don't worry.

I'm growing things. There's heavy equipment in my future. After that I get to build a stone wall, weaving rock against earth.

It doesn't get any better.

--Marn

Mileage on the Marnometer: 499.77 miles. 10 per cent rubber duck10 per cent rubber duck10 per cent rubber duck Triple Duckage. You rack up the miles when ya train for a 10K.

Goal for 2005: 1,250 miles - 2000 kilometers


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