Hard Gardening Work

Weight: 204.0

Lowest I've been so far on this effort.  I've had no food at all since Sunday.  Monday morning I weighed in at 216.  Mind you, most of that weight is water and food in my system. It's still a drop from my weight last Friday which was 205.6.

Yesterday I spent most of the day getting my gardens worked on. I planted a few things at home and helped prepare the soil for a bigger garden at a friend's house. From 9am to 6pm I was working hard, shoveling, trowling, spreading soil treatments, tending a fire, walking, pushing a wheelbarrow, even removing a 200lbs rock from my buddy's garden.

Went to the RecPlex after working in the garden. Muscles were sore.  35 mins sauna, 10 mins cooldown in the pool, 5 mins in the hot tub--then my daughter asked if I could watch her jump off the diving board, so I got out and watched her, then they closed down the pool, sauna and hot tub. 

I have a mild sunburn on my arms. Thankfully, I wore a hat yesterday, so my face and neck are not burned. Plenty of Vitamin D yesterday! :)

Starting to prepare the soil.  You can see the difference in color between the prepared soil and the "yet to be prepared" soil.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v420/BenjaminRogers/IMAG0984.jpg

My plot goes to the right side of the fire.  (We cleared out some brush to till.)  My chicken coop will go about where the fire is located.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v420/BenjaminRogers/IMAG0985.jpg

Peat Moss that I used to treat the soil. 8 bags of 3 cubic yards--needed 1 or 2 more.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v420/BenjaminRogers/IMAG0986.jpg

Also had a little manure--but sorely lacking enough...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v420/BenjaminRogers/IMAG0987.jpg

The whole plot is treated ...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v420/BenjaminRogers/IMAG0988.jpg

Fire's dying down...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v420/BenjaminRogers/IMAG0989.jpg

My buddy tilling with his tractor.  The light tan is the straw and chicken feathers/dung from cleaning out his chicken coops. 
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v420/BenjaminRogers/IMAG0990.jpg

Fire's nearly out, now...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v420/BenjaminRogers/IMAG0991.jpg

More straw and chicken feathers/dung.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v420/BenjaminRogers/IMAG0992.jpg

I raked the fire into a pile to burn down all the coals.  We'll use the ashes and the coals to treat more of the soil.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v420/BenjaminRogers/IMAG0993.jpg

Starting to till the straw and chicken feathers/dung into the soil
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v420/BenjaminRogers/IMAG0995.jpg

My buddy tilling. I'm not sure who did more work--he got to sit on the vibrating tractor while I had to shovel and spread all kinds of soil treatments...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v420/BenjaminRogers/IMAG0996.jpg

A slightly different angle.  If you draw a line along the closest edge of the fireplot, I have everything to the left of the line.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v420/BenjaminRogers/IMAG0997.jpg

Another angle.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v420/BenjaminRogers/IMAG0998.jpg

A little blurry, tilling in the soil treatment.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v420/BenjaminRogers/IMAG0999.jpg

Nearly done!  It was about 6pm.  He'd been tilling since about 9am.  I arrived about 1pm.  (He also tilled another area that was about 3x this size on the other side of his property.  While he tilled that area, I added the soil treatments.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v420/BenjaminRogers/IMAG1000.jpg

And some video of the tilling in progress...  (My voice at the end of the longest video talking about the clumps of soil being too big...)
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v420/BenjaminRogers/?action=view&current=VIDEO0017.mp4
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v420/BenjaminRogers/?action=view&current=VIDEO0018.mp4