It’s after 11 on Sunday night and as I type this message the muscles in my forearms are aching. In fact, a lot of muscles I’m not using right now are aching. You see, I had a very manly weekend and as a result I am pretty sore. How manly you ask?
During the winter we had a wicked storm blow through here. Pay close attention to the “blow” part cause its important. There was very little rain in this storm. It was mostly wind. This wind did a number on my backyard fence. See, my dad and I built the fence ourselves and based on some (bad) advice, I only dropped concrete into every other post. The other posts were just packed back into place with soil. Well, when the wind was blowing with near-hurricane force, the posts that were concreted barely moved but the posts packed into the dirt wobbled back and forth with the fencing acting like a sail. I know most of you have probably forgotten your high school physics lessons, but when certain sections of a rigid structure are moving and others are stationary, they call the stationary part a “fulcrum” and the moving section “broken.”
So I promised the wife that the first warm weekend we were at home, I would get out and repair the fence. The night of the storm I had put a band-aid on the problem by hammering some of the boards back into place, but I still had a broken panel, a cracked crossbeam and several posts that were leaning. It looked like a ship listing in the water after a nasty storm. Since the sun was finally out this weekend, I decided that I would get my fence repaired and standing up straight.
First, Casey and I had to mow the backyard, which was pretty ridiculous because we hadn’t mowed since last fall. Our grass doesn’t grow at all during the winter, so I had been able to neglect it for months with no consequences. Three weeks ago I got out and did the front yard when the grass started growing again, but I had yet to find the time or the motivation to complete the back. No one can see the backyard and its not like my dog is complaining. Well, I waited a little too long and by the time we got back there on Saturday morning, it was at least two feet tall in some places. So at 9am on Saturday, just 15 minutes after I woke up, I went through with my weed-whacker and chopped the tall grass down while Casey came behind me with a mower and finished the job. It was only after that was done that I could begin to think about the fence.
After a trip to Walmart and Lowes for house and yard supplies, I headed out back and started digging. I had to dig out around each post that was weakened and down to about 2 feet or so to get them standing straight again. Then I would have Casey hold the post level while I poured concrete from 80 lbs bags and repacked soil on top. I did five or six posts and then moved on to repairing broken fencing. I dropped a new crossbeam, replaced the broken panel and missed the nails more times that I should probably admit while swinging the hammer. Apparently working in video game development doesn’t develop the skills you need to swing a hammer properly.
By 7pm we had the fence fixed and called it night. However, my manly Saturday was not over. We hadn’t had dinner yet and we were getting hungry, so we ran to the grocery story and when we got back I set out to make a hearty meal. I made low-fat turkey burgers and probably the healthiest cheese fries known to man with boiled & baked fries, 2% reduced-fat cheese, turkey bacon and fat-free sour cream. Despite all the fat/hyphen combinations in the recipe, I turned out a very tasty and satisfying meal.
This morning Casey and I made it to church on time for the 9:00 service. Our small group all gave us high-fives because (sadly) we’re usually at least 5 minutes late. After church we headed home and after some flirtations with napping or spending the day chilling on the couch, I headed back out to the store and picked up some gardening supplies and lumber. When I got home, I built two raised beds from the lumber and Casey and I set up our first garden together in the backyard. We planted tomatoes, cucumber, zucchini, hot peppers and a variety of spices. I then used the dug-out soil from the boxes to re-grade the uneven sections of our yard that don’t line up very well with the fence. We managed to finish all of this by about 6:00.
When we came inside, I cooked another meal. Did you know you could make a healthy taco salad? I use ground-turkey and lots of vegetables and then throw on some fat-free sour cream. My wife works in the health and fitness industry, so I’ve learned how to cook lots of healthy meals that don’t taste like cardboard. It’s not always easy, but I’ve found or developed light recipes for almost every meal we enjoy. Although, if the turkeys of the world ever take this place over, I will probably be the first one shipped off to Gitmo, so we’ll see if ends up being worth the efforts.
After dinner, I transferred my homebrewed beer to the secondary fermentation container and dropped in some more hops to “dry hop” it, which should add some really amazing aroma to the finished product. It’s an Extra Pale Ale and if you ask nice, I might just let you have a bottle when its finished. I brewed a 5 gallon batch last week and let it ferment in a plastic bucket that has handles. I transferred it into a glass container without any handles, so of course I ended my weekend hefting the jug back into the closet, muscles twitching and joints strained.
So I ache. It’s a good ache. It’s the kind of ache that you earn and you’re happy about, even if it hurts for a few days into the week. The aches go away, but my fence will last for years now that I’ve secured those posts. The plants that we put in the ground will yield fruit for months to come and after a three or four more weeks I’ll be able to enjoy an extra pale ale that’s better than anything you can buy in stores. I’m sure I could turn all of that into a great spiritual lesson, but I’m too tired. You connect the dots. I’m going to bed.
