Extreme Gardening

     Today I spent about 6 hours in the garden.  I must have poured out at least a gallon of sweat.  What was I doing? For the warm up, I inspected and pruned the six tomato plants we have. I tethered them better to the "stakes", which are merely saplings cut down during early clearing of the garden area. As I surveyed the garden wondering what I should do next, I noticed there was too much shade on the garden. The culprits were two small trees that I judiciously cut down with an axe. This was not an extremely difficult task, but it sure in the heck was not easy. By the time I was finished with that, I was in dire need of a water break.
     After getting some water, changing over some laundry, making the kids some lunch and then cleaning up, I went down to see about making a small place for some seeds in the wilderness-becoming-a-garden area.  I began clearing, then I cleared a little more. I started off with raking up some underbrush, progressed to pulling many roots out of the ground, and ended up with an all-out assault on the untouched patch of ground that is now about a 12X3' bed for some beans and carrots. I wrestled with that patch of ground until it became a fully submitted piece of earth that will (God willing) grow some food for my family. I am exhausted, but I feel very accomplished. AND I feel good because I had to have burned some serious calories!