Happy Spring Everyone!
The days have been long and exceedingly warm this first two-weeks of May. Of course with summer so close everyone is thinking about getting back into shape. I’ve found some new enjoyable ways to get rid of the winter bread-basket, while also stopping to smell the roses. My front and back yard is about four acres. Beyond that we have about 100 acres behind us that is being used for wheat. The woman who lived here before us had a son who was a professional landscaper. He filled the yard with forty different roses bushes, lilac trees, azaleas, lilies, bulbs, herbs, and exotic blooms that have all come into their full glory.
When I wake up, I put on my robe and go out to tend to the chickens, who like to be freed from their coop as soon as possible to gather the bugs who linger from the evening. As soon as I open my door, the yolk-colored sun is casting orange magic across the hundreds of acres of wheat-fields that surround our farm. Lilac and jasmine, which blooms together on both sides of the house, permeates the early morning breezes. My skin is aglow in the sun, each flower still damp with dew, and the grass is cool beneath my feet. These are the perfect mornings for getting my work-out outside. I’ve taken to using a push-mower on the lawn in preference to the nice shiny new one that we have. There is nothing like 
mowing ones thick green yard in the morning or evening light, catching tiny cobwebs against my face, ducking under heavily bloomed trees, and enjoying the smell of cut-grass and lilac with each pass I make. With my heart-rate monitor strapped on, I found I burn about 800 calories per 1.5 acres. When I go to the gym now and see people toiling away on the stair-master, I guess I have a little smile on my face…it’s like I’ve found out a secret long ago lost by our modern culture. That’s what I felt compelled to blog about tonight.
With the beauty of the season awakening early here, I’m more motivated than ever to get swimsuit ready for July. Still, I’m finding that the idea of doing hours of cardio per week on machines doesn’t work for me anymore, and a lot of people feel the same way. This is why gym memberships drop dramatically in the summer. Who wouldn’t rather be outside? In fact, besides the basic must-haves at the gym (such as a hack-squat and free weights), there are many ways I’m getting my work-outs in without even leaving my own abode.
For instance, I’m in love with my garden right now. Not just the magnificent blooms that give off their early morning perfume, but also medium-sized plot I fenced in behind our barn. I’ve got cabbage, spinach, Brussels Sprouts, squash, lettuce, chard, and kale already yielding and early harvest, as I thought ahead to start them indoors. I add them to my morning green-drinks. I used to pay $5 per day to get my green-drinks at the juice stand…I face-palm to think of the waste on my wallet, which I’ve luckily found a simple solution to through the creation of my own garden. On my hands and knees, wench style :), I use my bare hands to pluck out the strays, casting them aside into mounds. I’ve come to be a sort of expert with my tiny trowel, hand rake, spade, and hoes. I’ve learned how to work my pressure cooker for canning, and have experimented with some incredible delicacies using my canning jars! I found I burn about 300 calories in a 45-minute session of gardening, not to mention the good kind of burning I get in my gluts, abs, and lower back when I do it.
Just down the road from me, but almost in a different world, I see rows of meticulous rural neighborhoods, with yawning green lawns and ornamental trees, which in the end provide nothing but a landscaping bill to mot of the residence. I’ve noticed that those RARE folks who have bothered to add a garden spend their outdoor time pumping deadly toxins or artificial fertilizers from plastic backpacks while on their riding lawn mowers. Yet another amazing way to burn fat and build muscle lost by modern concept of convenience.
Cleaning up and tidying up after my very large flock is honest work as well. Loading and unloading grain and hay, mucking coops, gathering eggs (which they lay all over our 4 acre yards), and filling up water and food troughs daily is rewarding work with a delicious payout. I burn an average of 80-100 calories both morning AND night caring for my girls. When I see people with large yards, yet rushing off to the store to buy their milk and eggs, I wonder why. I don’t want to put anyone down, but at some point I’d like to say I offer a voice of reason. If people are simply living for modern conveniences, are they actually LIVING? And more important, are they really enjoying their convenient lives? Recent studies on depression shows MOST are
not. Seems to me convenience isn’t actually so convenient, adding to the ever-growing LIST of obstacles towards physical and mental well-being.
I’d like to share with you the joy you can receive from having your own flock (food supply), your own orchard (replacing decorative trees with those that supply fruit), your own garden (instead of yet another lawn), and doing manual labor MANUALLY (that means sitting on a lawnmower is out).
On Friday I awoke early, went out and performed my tasks. We get two dozen eggs +/- per day, and because of the variety of our flock, just look at the gorgeous eggs we get! I gathered a basket of multicolored eggs from under the soap trees which line the back of our yard, dividing it from the hundreds of acres of wheat beyond. I then went to my garden in the cool, misty morning, and cut some chives, green onions, one dry-onion, and a bunch of spinach. On my way inside, I grabbed rosemary, mint, and a gorgeous array of flowers for the table. I put the flower in mason jars around the kitchen and dining-room while my scramble was cooking. I put the fresh mint in a pitcher of water and put it out on my front porch in the sun. I also used six fresh eggs to make a batch of Yorkshire pudding (a fluffy low-calorie bread), which the children love with their herb/veggie scrambles. By the time breakfast was ready, and the day was ready to begin, I had a complete healthy meal for my entire family, iced mint tea, and fresh-cut flowers to gaze at. I’d already made homemade strawberry jam the day before, using my organic, tiny red strawberries that were sweet as dessert wine.
By the time summer has arrived, we will have apples, pears, and lemons, Marion berries, red and green grapes, and a much larger variety of veggies which are only seedlings now.
If I break down my weekly labor working with my flock, yard, and garden, it equals about 3-4 hours per week. Three or four hours is just about the same amount of daily free-time that any 
working person would have after coming home from work. In my thinking, if someone could sacrifice one day of “free-time”, couldn’t they also enjoy a thriving life outdoors (housing situation permitting of course). When people have free time, what do they do with it? Watch their big-screen TV? Go out to a sports bar or a restaurant? Play video games? Peruse a mall or stare at a giant screen at a movie theater? Surf the net? Why have we allowed free time to translate into indoor time, and worse yet, idle time? The average person may never experience a caloric-deficit, leading to rapid weight-gain, even if they diet due to lack of exercise. For some, the idea of taking away free-time to go to the gym is ruled out from the get-go. If that sounds like you, or someone you know, then I’d like to offer you a suggestion. Instead of going to the gym, why not work-out right outside your own house? It’s free…it’s fun, and it is rewarding.
With new laws allowing even suburban neighborhoods to keep hens, with water shortages across the nation leading to urban lawns being a worthless and presumptive asset, and with the price of food sky-rocketing, why won’t people give up couch time for lifetime and make some magic? Replace your yard with a garden and reap the benefits, physically and mentally. The REAL joy of a garden can only be discovered when using your REAL hands, not more convenient devices that also conveniently deprive you of the physical experience, which is an integral part of connecting with the outdoors. Spend a weekend with the kids building a small coop so you can enjoy fresh eggs. Sell the fancy mower on Craig’s List and buy a push mower. I chase my kids with the push-mower…who says you can’t mix work with pleasure? Remember that 3-hour long MP3 book you bought but never had time to listen to? Imagine enjoying the prose of Margret Atwood while you live your life in real time…making neat rows in your grass, working up a good sweat, smelling the fragrance of summer as you burn enough calories to stop feeling guilty about sitting all day.
I hear the excuses…I used to wonder if I was merely paid to listen to excuses. Too tired is the most common myth people have about their state-of-mind when returning home after work. Is sitting at a desk all day really so physically exhausting? I fear that is a mentality we have talked ourselves into, rather than a reality when it is explored. If you are coming home exhausted, it’s most likely from the emotional demand, which can easily be cured by a cool evening in your garden, or a refreshing glass of lemonade while hanging out with your flock, watching them as a free 
circus show before you, promising a gut laugh or two if only you give them pause.
When we first got chickens a few years back, we actually stopped using our television save for movies. Flocks can be so entertaining, with each chicken sporting a unique personality. Some are born grumpy, some are loners, some talk all day to themselves or whoever will listen and chime in. It’s like watching Glee in your front yard staring a mix of lovely fancy-footed bantams, Buff Orpingtons (so fat they can barely walk), white-puffed Silikes, and fat-cheeked Aracanas. We even threw in some Turkens, Australorps, and Barred Rocks for good measure! We have a rooster as well, Poco Rojo, who is quite the Fabio with his ladies. He loves to get high off some wild mushrooms that tend to grow in our compost. Once we watched him standing in the grass with his legs slowly slipping out both sides, doing the splits. He tried to get fresh with one of the ladies while in this altered state, and got up on her and fell asleep. She was squawking so loud she drew attention to the whole scene, and the rooster ended up face down, getting hen-pecked by every lady that came running to her aid. We had to spray them off to keep him from getting de-feathered!
Poco loves to fight it out with our 5 pound Pomeranian (who has also taken a likening to the tiny little mushrooms). They run circles around each other, dodge, attack, and squabble like an old married couple. Sometimes the entire flock will chase the dog for a few rounds about the yard, other times he is the one chasing them. Our girls are so tame that if they see us sitting on the ground they jump onto our shoulders to snuggle, or wedge themselves between my husband and I if they think we are getting too close.
I just wanted to share a little bit of the magic I experience when I translated some of my free-time into life time. Other ideas for real-life exercise if you live in a domestic neighborhood would include hanging your own laundry out, hand-washing clothing in buckets on your porch, hand mopping floors and hand-washing carpets with sudsy water and lemongrass essential oil–with all the windows open to catch the breeze–washing walls inside or out with a mix of lavender and peppermint Castile soap in water, washing the car/boat/bikes using water, spot-free soap, and fresh squeezed lemon-rinds, hand raking leaves, making bread from scratch, playing in the sprinklers, etc. Those are all calorie-burning activities that produce positive MENTAL and physical results, unlike hoping off a treadmill after 40 minutes glued to a TV. Gyms are great for the fall and winter, but summer fitness is best when done outdoors.
Last week, I took my kids to a National Park with 10 different waterfalls. It was so warm we had a nice refreshing swim, and then hiked 12 miles. State/National parks are a cheap (about $5 bucks for all day use) and fantastic way to burn a few thousand calories if you had a slow week with your outdoor excursions. Most have mountain bike and hiking trails. We bring water, protein powder, dried fruit, turkey jerky, and kale chips. PS: Don’t underestimate the amount of calories you will need to consume if you are doing a 5-10 mile hike!
I just wanted to encourage everyone to slowly revive that passion to reach summer goals by warming up to the idea OUTSIDE! Use the spring to build, create, and modify old outdoor projects, take labor on manually, and dream big…you’ve got calories to burn!
PPS: Here is the my first ab shot of the season. I’ve continued in the gym 3-4 days per week for weights year-round, but only just started my outdoor-cardio routine two short weeks ago. So far I’m down six pounds, probably five or so left before swim season. I’ll keep updating as I go down to 8% again. I’m guessing it will take about 4-6 more weeks of push-mowing to get where I want to be while managing to avoid indoor cardio.
I Am 