Whipped by some bushes...

Saturday, August 6, 2011

I’d done a couple of late-night walks the night before. The first with Jack and the second with Holly. Jack had wanted to just talk and walk and we went about 45 minutes on the side streets in the neighborhood. He’s an interesting 17-year old and I’m always happy when my kids want to talk to me and keep my posted on what’s happening in their lives. We were talking about the universe…how big it was…how it was formed…did I believe in God…you know…big picture stuff when suddenly Jack said “who’d win in a fight…James Bond or Clint Eastwood.” Any wonder why we call him ‘Random Jack’? Anyway…I drilled down to the essence of the question. “James Bond is a character and Clint is a real person. Are you talking Clint as let’s say ‘Dirty Harry’? And which ‘James Bond’ are we talking here?” These were not unimportant questions. I mean I’d put Barney up against the Clint in the ‘Bridges of Madison County’ but no James Bond could touch Will Money from ‘Unforgiven’. Jack settled on ‘Dirty Harry’ which I gave to Clint…hands down. He struggled with Spiderman verses the Hulk because he seemed to think Spiderman would break the Hulk’s neck when he was just a puny human.

By the time I returned from my second walk…Holly offered no opinion on the James Bond verses Clint thing…it was way past my bedtime and so I started the day by not getting up at 7 a.m. to get to Mimi’s. I did make it by 8:30 a.m. and after having some coffee, got to work sawing down three Viburnum bushes that had morphed into small trees. In less than 5 minutes, I was soaked, filthy, and getting a great workout. I had the trees down and dragged to the chipping station in a couple of hours and began the more difficult process on trying to dig out the stumps. This required digging and chopping with a mattock…very difficult work but something I love doing. I attacked the first with gusto and had it out after thirty minutes of grunting and sweating. It was the smallest of the three and by the time I’d managed to cut through about half the roots on the second and largest stump, I was beginning to fade in the sweltering heat. Mimi came out to watch and immediately began telling me I should stop. I suppose I was quite a site…totally saturated in sweat with mud caked all over my legs and torso from the efforts of making the hole around the stump. I told her I was okay, but noticed that I needed a break about every 6-8 minutes when I decided I was pushing up against heat illness and decided I should take on my other job for the day…painting an old Victorian table…which I could do in the shade while sucking down some diet Coke.

Once home, I discovered just how tired I was. I’d probably dropped ten pounds of fluids during the four hours I’d spent cutting and digging, which had really drained me. I had to take Heidi back to Akron and by the time I got back, there was no time to ride…which was probably a good thing. I’d gotten plenty of aerobic and strength training earlier in the day and more would be superfluous. I helped Jack pitch tents in the back yard for his buddies, grilled lamb chops and catfish on the grill for Holly and me and enjoyed a delicious smoothie to finish out the evening. Before turning in, I went out to talk to the boys…gathered around the campfire I’d built…about the ground rules for the evening. When I mentioned sticking to the confines of the yard, Jack asked me to tell them about the time I’d been sleeping out and went for a walk-about only to end up in the back of a Mentor squad car. “The bad news was…we got caught. The good news was…I’m here today to tell you this story because my parents never found out. Now…if you guys were to do something dumb like that…which I’m sure you wouldn’t…you can bet I’d know,” I said and headed off to bed.

Yard work duration: 4 hours.
Training heart rate: 80 to 150 bpm.
Calories burned during workout: 2,000.