Strength

I'm stronger than I had thought. I can haul and sling 50 lb sacks of feed up and down our yard easily enough. Who else is there to do it for me?! Dragging stack cages up and down, no problem. Moving fencing wire, driving in fence posts, tilling our large garden, mowing the yard. All done by myself without assistance.

Today, I had to move a couple 100 lb sacks of feed, from the rear of the van to the barn. Traditionally I would use a cart to do this, I've never been able to handle those alone. That's a lot of weight to lift and carry!! However, when I saw a neighbor hauling one of them down (Ari thought it was the rabbit feed she was trying to get, but it was actually the whole corn) I took and changed with him and carried it down myself. No big deal really, the guy helped a lot getting it shifted over to my shoulder. However, when I went up to get the sweet feed, I had thought I'd purchased a 50 lb sack and it turned out to also be a 100 lb sack! Without help, I didn't know what to do, but thought I'd try getting it down by myself. I managed with very little strain to shift it up to my shoulder, shut the door of the van, and proceeded to haul it down the 150 feet to the barn unaided! I was also able to control it's downward movement into the proper bin with great control (I didn't just drop it in like many would have, I needed it to fit a certain way!).

I am quite pleased with myself for being able to do that. It was the first time I had really tried, in the past I had always struggled with the higher weight feed sacks. Even David was surprised and said I may even be stronger than he is now! (of course, I'm also a lot more physically active than he tends to be as well)