“We’ve got 370 bales for you and they’re about 60 pounds,” Eli reported as he pulled alongside the barn with a trailer that stretched from here to Columbus.
“Did you say 370? That’s 100 more than you’ve ever brought before!” I said.
I was already fatigued from moving thirty sheets of plywood and piles of heavy material we’d taken to our charity event from Saturday. I’d picked it up and returned it all to the farm before the hay’s arrival. We moved the 50 bales already in the loft in an effort to make room for the delivery. And it was hot.
I don’t mind a good workout and since I was going to see Jack after work and have a heavy, gravy/fat laden dinner, this was a good thing. We spent the next 90 minutes moving and stacking hay and by my calculations, which are nothing if not precise, I handled over 11 tons of the stuff. When I finished and came down from the loft, I noticed by legs and arms were trembling. It was a lot and I knew I needed some recovery time.
I went home and picked up Dakota and Heidi and headed to Jason’s place, my old home, where Jack was staying. We watched some more of ‘Game of Thrones’, but I was struggling to stay awake, so Jack suggested we go out and play catch.
He had a catcher’s mitt and had wanted to do some pitching, but after a few quite errant throws, offered to catch for me. He was anxious to see if I could throw strikes since I always seemed to get the ball right to him when we were playing catch…something that puzzled him since I hadn’t thrown a baseball much since he was a little boy.
“Muscle memory,” I said. I explained that, as a young man, I’d thrown a rubber ball against the garage door simulating an entire game between the Yankees and the Red Sox probably over 100,000 times. I did this until I was fifteen when I could pick a mosquito off a hitter’s hat at sixty feet, six inches.
I stepped off sixty feet and he went into a catcher’s squat. I threw about 40 pitches, two wild and a couple where he had to move his glove significantly, but the remainder found their target quite nicely.
I will probably pay the price for those throws with a sore arm, but so what? I’m 62 and can still find the strike zone consistently. And my son still wants to play catch. Life is so good…
Hay Delivery: 90 minutes.
Training heart rate: 100 bpm.
Calories burned: 1,000
Bonus: 18,000 steps
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