It's Like Walking In Sunlight

I have a new found respect for those who do manual labor. Here's why.


I posted about how we are going to Tijuana in December. Well, that takes money. And we get to earn it. One of the ways to earn it is to rip out these huge railroad ties in our backyard that have been there since the dinosaurs roamed around. I never knew how much effort it took to remove ancient pieces of wood. One of the pictures are of the ties loaded into the trailer to be taken away forever. I don't know if i've ever had dirt in so many places where i've never wanted to have dirt. The worst part is hauling them up the stairs to load them into the trailer. I'm not positive, but i'd guess that each one is between 50-100 lbs. Not so much fun.


This one is what they looked like before. Nicely placed and oh so patterned. Seems nice right? And they look pretty old. How hard could it be to dig out some old, half rotting pieces of lumber? I'd try to explain it, but you can just ask the shovel in the next picture.


That is metal. Not just some cheap wooden play thing. And the only thing down there is wood and dirt! Those railroad ties are determined to stay put. Thankfully, we had another trusty shovel just waiting to be abused. So I used it. The square head was okay but its not as easy to wedge it into some places. Anyways, I went back to work and sweated some more. Wiped some more dirt onto my face trying to remove said perspiration. You get the picture. Oh and those gloves have got to be about the nastiest, dirtiest things i've ever put on my hands. I'm not sure if they keep the dirt out or just trap it in there. They seem to be preventing blisters though, so that's a positive.


It's kinda hard to see, but the ties are dug down into the ground quite a bit. I tried to use the shovel as a sort of a scale but i'm not the best at setting up picture things.



Those are the ones that I ripped out today. My forearms have never been so sore. I won't lie, it kind of feels nice to be this utterly exhausted. It's a bone tired that reminds me of TJ :)


This is what happens when you try to drop things off of your shoulder onto the ground and there are many sharp nails sticking out. You have to sew your sleeve. And if you are Merissa, you pick the randomest thread and do the ugliest patch up possible. It makes it look like a more legit work shirt. The hand is there to show you how big the rip was. And i'm not the best at formatting pictures into the blog post, so here is the part where I ramble about absolutely nothing so that the pictures will kinda fit right. I still don't have enough words on this picture so i'll keep telling you about how much fun it is to hang out with dirt and shovels for the last few weeks of summer. Let me tell ya...doesn't get much better than this.


This is an example of what caused the aforementioned rip. If you can't tell, those are nails. Lots of them.
















"Opportunity is missed by most because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work."