One of our first years in the house, I found a solution that was very labor-intensive, but effective. I made a sifter out of some scrap lumber and quarter-inch wire mesh, and shoveled wheelbarrow-full after wheelbarrow-full into it. I shook out the dirt and the leaves, washed the gravel with the hose, and eventually had a lovely gravel path again. After only two days and enough calories of gravel-sifting to feed Paraguay for a month. I decided early on that it was a fool's errand, but continued, not wanting the guy we'd hired to install our flooring in the basement, to whom I had described my plan, to see it fail. In the end, though, he when all was said and done, he just asked me, "Was it worth it?" And I simply turned away and gently wept.
So I'm ashamed to say that my solution this year involved a lot less sacrifice on my part, and a lot more on the earth's part. I took the hose to it without doing any real shoveling. Eventually, I got a pretty good scheme going - my thinking was that the rocks, which, while small, are still rocks, and were unlikely to be blasted very far by a glancing jet of water across their surface. But the leaves, dirt, and pine needles, when hit, would be blasted farther. So if I just strafed the surface with an intense jet of water, starting at the top of the walkway and heading down hill, eventually I would wind up with a mound of crud at the bottom and a barely-disturbed layer of clean rocks above it. It pretty much worked out that way, in the end, and the walkway looks a whole lot better than it did. But the Earth is one swimming pool's worth of water less whole. Can't win, I guess, no matter what I do.
In gravel walkway maintenance, anyway. In other areas, I'm becoming a very consistent winner. Like in running. yesterday, Memorial Day, we celebrated by taking the whole family (after T's baseball game, where she hit well but got thrown out two times out of three) up to the U-10 soccer field and playing in a pickup kids-and-adults soccer game, organized by Magnus, our friend and the girls' U-10 soccer coach. Not too many people showed up, so it wound up just being Janneke and me, Brad, Betsy, a guy named Jeff, and Magnus and his wife Margaret against all our kids and a few extras who jumped in for fun. The field was big for such a small team, and we all played barefoot - the unfortunate part of that being that Janneke got stung by a bee on one toe, and had to leave the game. (Mostly to go home and cook, as most of the players were coming over to our house for a barbecue.) But the fortunate part is this: I sprinted and raced and zoomed around that field like I was 12 years old! I had NO pain, ANYWHERE! Not in my knees. Not in my hips. Not in my feet. NOTHING! My feet are getting to be so strong and healthy now, and my fitness level is so improved from all the running I'm doing, that I was downright playin' some damned soccer, and suffered no ill effects what, so, ever. In FACT! This morning, and all day long, I have had no residual stiffness or soreness in my right foot at all - quite different from most mornings, when I grimace and wince a bit on my way to the bathroom. The right foot, while painless during my runs, has been pretty creaky after a night's sleep. But yesterday, I must have simply blasted it into such supple pliancy that there's just no trace left of an injury.
I am deliriously excited. I might start going to the grass fields to do WIND SPRINTS, I feel so dang good! A lot of my athletic identity has always been pinned to running - I wasn't tall, or skilled, or especially coordinated. But damn it, I was strong, and I could motor. And now that I can motor again, look out! I may even look into trying to play some kind of dang SPORT!
(Though it would have to be barefoot. Whenever I had to stop quickly on the field yesterday, I would do so with a very fast series of stutter-steps, chopping my feet to brake without digging them so deep into the grass that I would slip or lose control. If I had been wearing cleats, I'd have been able to stop in one smooth, quick CHOP!, and would very likely have snapped something in one or both knees. I am becoming a barefoot evangelist - I had a blast, and would love to start playing ultimate frisbee, but I do know this: It would have to be barefoot. I know my limits.)
Those limits, by the by, are getting more limiting as the years go by. The most challenging one this spring is the allergies. Holy Toledo! I have never had as bad a time as this. The reason is pretty obvious - here's the culprit:
That scum on the puddle at the end of our driveway is pollen. Pollen, pollen, everywhere, crawling down my throat. My only real symptom from the pollen is a cough - a persistent, insistent, itching, cloying cough that lets you get aaaaalmost completely asleep before it shakes you awake again. Oddly, the only time of day I don't cough is when I'm running. I go six miles without a single solitary symptom - 'course, when I get back, I spend five minutes in the back yard hacking up lungs until it sounds to the neighbors like they live on Frat Row at 3:00 AM on a Saturday night. But it's worth it - those 50 minutes of bliss are about the only decent breathing I get done these days. Today seems better than yesterday, but that's not saying much.
The barbecue yesterday, by the way, after the pick-up soccer, was wonderful. Very nice bunch of kids, who needed pretty much no adult supervision the whole time. No squabbles, no conflicts, just lots of interaction and play time. A great variety of ages (T, 6, all the way up to Benni, 12), genders, and interests. Q got to spend a fair amount of one-on-one time with Benni, which made him feel very big and important, and T was being fussed over and cuddled and pulled along from one event to another by an unending succession of older, patient girls. And the adult company was wonderful too - a great end to a great weekend.
Though I now have to really buckle down and plan all the classes for which I will be absent this coming week. I leave for Cincinnati on the 10th to correct AP exams, and don't come back until the 18th. So there are a lot of instructions to leave.
I was staying down here to meet up with the fambly at Q's soccer game in Pittsfield, but I just heard it's been canceled. So I'll do another thing or two here, then head home. Take care, brush your hair,
Joe
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