Last summer when some friends and I were moving the panels of a round pen into a trailer for transportation to a new farm, I grunted, "Ugh! Next thing I'm going to write about is why farm women don't need a gym membership!" I revisited that thought when I was out snowshoeing yesterday. I usually walk my dog for 45 minutes to an hour every day. This is no little walk around the block, mind you! We go over hill and dale, thru the woods, over logs, under brush, you name it. I have holes and rips in my clothing that can only be explained by describing my encounters with hawthorns, pucker brush, and pricker bushes! Oh, and the occasional tumble onto my face when I trip over a branch cleverly concealed by Mother Nature. I'm sure she's laughing uproariously as I desperately cling to the leash while trying to extricate myself from the forest floor! But I digress...............
So yesterday I strap on the snowshoes and head out sans beagle (she's only 13" high and we had at least 2 feet of fluffy snow - you do the math! ha ha), looking forward to a leisurely ramble over.......well, hill and dale, of course. It was an absolutely picture-perfect day! The sun was shining and the snow looked as glittery as that fake stuff they use at Christmas time. The fir trees looked like someone had strategically placed cotton bolls (nope, that's not a misspelling!) on all the branches and the sky was literally a deep turquoise, with fluffy white clouds scattered throughout! It was breath-taking! As I slogged along thru the deep snow, I got to thinking, as I was lifting each heavily booted, snowshoe clad foot up high......You know, Nike and Sketcher and the rest of those guys who make those ridiculous "exercise and tone your leg" shoes have NOTHING on the snowshoe and a few feet of fluffy snow! I mean, I was getting all the exercise and toning I could hope for out there! And when you add in the amount of snow that accumulates on the top of your boot and snowshoe, you've got "weights." Now think how high you have to lift each leg out of the deep snow and you've got step aerobics! Holy cow! This is the perfect exercise! I walk every day but I've got to tell you, I was huffing and puffing when I returned home but it felt good! No stuffy, sweaty gym can compare with the crisp fresh air of a winter day! And I've never seen such gorgeous scenery in a gym! (Well, OK, *maybe* there's some nice scenery in the gym but those guys are really few and far between.......ha ha)
And after that little sojourn, I lugged water buckets from the house to the barn, tossed some hay, cleaned the barn and dumped the manure, etc. Gym membership? Who needs it??
The birds at my feeder are in a frenzy this morning. Does that portend another storm, I wonder? Well, no matter! My snowshoes are fired up and ready to go!
Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!!!!!
Of winter's lifeless world each tree
Now seems a perfect part;
Yet each one holds summer's secret
Deep down within its heart.
~Charles G. Stater
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