digging a hole

I'm going to move some trees. They're honey locust trees I planted from seed. They're nearly as tall as I am and there are half a dozen all close together I'm going to dig up and move. I dug a big hole to put them in. I filled it with water and then dug some more when it soaked in. I trenched around the trees, and filled that with water. There was a bunch of big river rock in the dirt there, like fist-sized "pebbles," and that made it harder.

I was letting my mind just flit and flow while I dug and it crossed my mind that Keith might ask who dug those holes for me. And then I wondered why Keith might assume I didn't dig them. Then I knew why.

I don't have a broken leg, I'm not recovering from a broken leg, I'm not pregnant, and I'm not recovering from a cesarean.

In the past twenty two years I've had two broken legs, and three pregnancies, not in that order. The first broken leg led directly to the first pregnancy, and the second broken leg was when Holly was ten or so, and I suppose I could have dug holes in those years after I recovered from Holly's birth, and I probably dug a few smaller ones, but I had three little kids and a big strong husband.

Now I have a husband with arthritis in his shoulder; I have a nearly-twenty-one-year-old with a fulltime job and little interest in yard work who's moving away next month; I have a big strong eighteen year old who had a skateboard wreck last night so both his hands are bruised and scraped (not too badly; he'll be in armor on Saturday) who's driving his sister to Las Cruces for Warped Tour tomorrow so she can see Cute is What We Aim For (with an older friend, and a younger friend, so four of them are going for an overnight adventure), and then he's going to an SCA campout in the Jemez Mountains (between Jemez Springs and Los Alamos, not anywhere near Las Cruces) on Friday.

So I'm the best available hole digger today, and it was fun, and I felt strong. Good.