physical labour = excrutiating back pain

Because, as teachers, we are sometimes required to work extra hours, from time to time we get an extra day off. Yesterday was one of those days.

“So Stu,” you ask, “What did you do with your day off? Read a book? Watch a movie? Sleep in late?”

Dear reader, I will tell you, but you may not like the answer.

I worked … all day … quite hard in fact.

And I loved it.

Because Kayla still had to go in to the library, the alarm still went off at 6:00 am. Since I was already awake, didn't see much point in going back to sleep, so I finished by breakfast and headed out with the saw.

I'm a sick individual – I love sawing things by hand, particularly logs and particularly with a buck saw. Since the windbreaks surrounding our yard have not been cleaned out since sometime in the '60's, there was plenty of saw work to do, I can tell you.

I hadn't planned on spending my day doing that – originally I set out to just trim back a few trees that dangerously block the view of oncoming traffic. But soon I was moving at a steady pace, hacking down dead trees the whole way.

I sawed, I carried, I dragged, I stacked.

I'm exhausted. But more than that, I'm sore.

The problem with heavy, physical work like that is that I'm not used to it anymore. When I was eighteen and worked on the farm all the time I was in great shape and could keep up a pace like that all day. Two years as a teacher does not a fine physique make, and methinks it will take a while before I can work like that again.

“So Stu,” you ask, “do you have the good sense to put your feet up for today?”

The short answer, dear reader, is no.

But I don't think that I'll spend another full day out there: in this trying-to-find-balance quest that I'm on it's important to take an afternoon off from time to time. If Bertrand Russell found something praiseworthy in idleness I guess I can give my protestant work ethic the afternoon off.

But that doesn't mean I won't start working three hours earlier today.

Regards from Alberta's brush plain.