One of the realities of having a lot of land is having to take care of it. Because we don’t have a gardener anymore, and because I need to have regular exercise for health purposes, I’m regularly doing yard work every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Fridays, I spend an hour cutting grass when I get home from work. Saturdays and Sundays I spend about an hour and a half cutting the grass and another hour raking up the cuttings. Good exercise and it gets me out of the house and away from the computer.
Physical labor is special because of the internal space that opens up during the act of engaging in something that is mechanically demanding, but intellectually effortless. Somewhat like the internal space that is opens as part of long distance running, routinized manual labor seems to alter the brain chemistry in a similar way so that it’s possible to exist on several planes at once. Well, enough for the mystical aspects of physical labor.
While I was doing this, my wife was working on one of her egg trees for the second anniversary of the creation of West Sumbawa as an administrative entity. The camat, the administrative head of our area, stopped by to ask us to take part in the regional ceremonies in Taliwang, about 45 minutes from here. Because my ankle is still not healed properly, walking around for a long ceremony was not the best idea so my wife volunteered to make an egg tree. She spent Friday and Saturday doing that while I was out doing the yard work.
The kids spent the weekend doing homework and hanging around generally. Mercedes spent part of Sunday helping me with the yard work.
Another nice normal weekend in Sumbawa.
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