When I used to hear people say that they would garden for exercise, I would kind of chuckle inwardly, with a smirk and a sarcastic "some exercise!" look running across the face of my mind.

I had no. idea.

Obviously, I was thinking of the bi-summerly weeding I would invest into the scraggly patch of flowers I would pretend I knew how to grow in front of my house. I had no idea how to properly prepare a bed, what it took to make things really grow, let alone what went into preparing a vegetable garden from scratch.

Especially one made in raised beds.

Jason's little truck bed is not very long--only about 7 feet. But still, after three loads of manure and dirt (and I need to get one more of dirt!) which I shoveled out by hand, then mixed up on the tarp by hand (the mixture is 1 part each of manure, topsoil, and peat moss), then into garden beds, I am sore. I am losing the last remains of my paunch (re-accumulated on my trip up here). And I am getting a tan.

On Thursday night, I was working in the garden until about 11:00 p.m., finally filling up two of the beds and getting my potatoes in. They were so well-sprouted, they were banging on the lid of the box, begging to get out! I am hoping that they were still in the ground early enough that I get a harvest. I should get the last two garden boxes put together tomorrow morning, and hopefully fill up one more with dirt and get my onions in. I have to get my other load of topsoil before I can finish filling up the last three boxes.

I have been grateful that I have been able to borrow a friend's cordless drill and saw set to put these beds together, as our power on the property is only run to a pole, and no further. However, that means a significant drive every time I need to work on it, as the tools are at the Gregorys (about ten minutes north of town, and about ten minutes from the property, and about fifteen minutes from here), and Jacob also has projects that he has been using them for, so I have to return them every time. I am VERY grateful that I will be finished with needing them after tomorrow morning.

Tomorrow night, Jason and I will be renting a hotel suite in town for a little "alone time" to celebrate our ninth anniversary, which was on Wednesday. We have not had much time to spend alone together since I arrived back in Alberta, so we are both looking forward to it.

However, between now and then, we are babysitting three extra kids overnight--which means that yes, there will be nine kids (eight boys and one girl) eight years and under in the house tonight! It's going to be noisy!

Happy weekend, friends!