Contemplating going to the gym..

[MidgetGem]

Haha had to laugh at ogling bit there Pix, thanks for all your replies with bits of advice, I decided to take the plunge but well.. must say it aint for me! felt like a jail sentence running on machines, lifting weights to the basic sit ups and other strange exercises, my muscles ache and well, although the staff were nice the other people there weren't! they were rude, arrogant, ignorant and mocked me because I stand at 5ft as opposed to them with there stupidly big muscles and 20ft something height.. I dunno.. they're 6ft or something but well.. won't be going back I'll stick to healthy eating, working out at home at my own pace, cycling, hiking and climbing hills etc

I have decided though after trying to find an archery club/class near me for the best part of two years I'd go look around and walah! theres one 20 minutes from me that I'll definitely be going too! I loved it back as a kid, just for a bit of fun really as although you're pulling back 34lb's effectively at full draw on each bow it's not for long hours at a time so it's not that exhausting :biggrin:

[Bowyn Aerrow]

My weekly routine:

Mow 2 acres of land with a push mower (yes it has an engine to turn the blades, not the wheels).

Weed garden three times a week (not that big of a chore since I laid in lots of mulch).

Trim shrubbery:

We have a driveway that is 280 feet long and about 20 feet wide - along most of the perimeter is hedge row, we also have hedges dividing up the 2 acres into 5 distinct 'gardens'. Then we have the street line which is oleander. I trim it all about once a month, a bit each week. Using these:


Rake and fill wheelbarrow dozens of times: We have a larger wheelbarrow, it allows me to haul more crap to the edge and dump it over or to haul stuff to one of the nearby compost heaps. We are about 80 feet above the river with an 80 degree slope.


-Pretty lady not included.

Rake, rake, and rake some more.

Prune, shape roses, and other ornamental shrubbery and plants with one of these:


Alternatively, once a month turn the compost heaps (there are three). Each heap is approximately 60 inches wide, one is 8 feet long the shorted is 4 feet long. I use one of these:



Water: well that is not too big of a chore, I just have to go out and turn on and turn off faucets, move sprinklers attached to hoses, once every hour. I can only run 4-5 sprinklers at a time since we are on a well.

Two acres is roughly 87,120 square feet. A sprinkler has about a 40' diameter sweep, ideally covering roughly 1,256 square feet. So I need about 70 sprinklers to do all of the land, Running 5 at a time I I have to move them only 14 times to cover the whole property. That is 14 hours if I was to do the whole property in a single day under optimal conditions. Fortunately the house takes up lots of room (450 square feet). :tongue:

Three times a week the pool has to be brushed and then vacuumed out. It is a gunnite pool installed in the early 1960's. Thus it doesn't have that fancy 'automatic' cleaner.

Blow the drive way and paths, pull weeds (mostly Virgina Creeper that tries to take over)....

When I was working we would add about 8 hours a day of heavy lifting, driving nails, carrying lumber, mixing concrete by hand, stucco work, hanging dry-wall...

So the whole Idea of joining a gym is, in my mind, sort of a waste of time and energy. If I want a work out, I have plenty of stuff I can do.

My partner wants me to pain the house - inside and out - sometime this year. :o

[MidgetGem]

Hehehe I also do all of that on a much smaller scale your house and garden (yard) is HUGE, minus the lawnmower as my garden (yard) is mostly slabbed but filled with shrubbery gardens, rosaries, flowers, veggies and fruits growing all with manual tools too as the electric or gas powered ones tend to ruin the job you can't really see what you're up to.

I don't envy you haha takes me the best part of 3-4 hours to get mine looking neat, tidy, cared for and organized no way near your 14 hour mark!! no pool to clean out either the weather here says no as does the small garden.

Good luck with that house painting! :tongue: