Heavy garden stuff

Submitted by louiseds on August 23, 2008 - 5:20am
Body: 

Hi All

I've just been thinking about stuff I do outside and figured that there are better and worse ways of doing almost anything.

One of the worst things to do is hurrying. This probably applies to non-garden things too. If you take your time and do tasks mindfully it is usually possible to get your posture organised in your head before you do something stupid.

I discovered today while mowing the lawn with our 4 stroke push mower that I can stay in posture really easily by pushing the mower with my pelvis against the handle by standing closer to the machine and just using my bent arms and hands for stability. This means my shoulders are open and I am bending from the hips and pushing the thing along, largely using my leg muscles.

Lawn mowing is a job I save for when DH is home, so he can start the darned thing for me. I used to have a cantankerous old two stroke that only I could start. It was a breeze. When DH purchased a shiny new four stroke I thought he might want to take the job over, but alas no. Unfortunately it is much harder to start the four stroke than my old monster, so he gets to be admired and adored and thanked effusively every time he starts it for me. Some men will do anything for a hug!

Bag trolleys are great for shifting heavy objects like pot plants.

Hands and knees is the way to go with weeding.

Anyone else have POP-friendly garden techniques?

Cheers

Louise

Clonmacnoise

August 23, 2008 - 10:29am

Louise,

Bending from the hip and not the waist helps to keep the pressure off the abdomen. To do this you have to have a straight back. When you begin to round the shoulders or the upper back, you're bending at the waist and not the hips. You should be able to bend all the way forward with your back straight and your bottom out as if your back is a dinner table.

By bending at the hips, I find that I can bend over far enough to nearly get my elbows on the ground, but it takes practice and hamstring development. This position allows me to do any kind of thing "down on the ground" for as long as I need to be there - tying a shoe, weeding, sweeping up with a hand broom. It allows my prolapse to relax and the exercise feels good.

In the kitchen, I have a stool that takes the pressure off my legs and my prolapse. This is for long jobs like cutting fruits and vegetables for 35 kids.

I find as often as I can I squat...I know, I know you hate squats. But squats can come in any form - feet like a duck, feet apart, feet walking, on toes, one leg extended back, etc, and you can do a big kagel while you squat. It's good for the legs and general flexibility.

Did yoga today for the first time since my mother died, and it felt really really good.

Judy

granolamom

August 23, 2008 - 8:39pm

disclaimer: I am a newbie-gardener and have a pretty small garden. that said, I (well, dh really) built a raised, square foot garden. so we don't have to weed at all! how cool is that???

and I will admit that we hire someone to mow the lawn. but I have dreams of doing away with the grass one day anyway. but that's for another (off topic) conversation...

here's my non-gardening POP friendly technique for the day..

when I go grocery shopping I leave a laundry basket just inside the front door. when I get home, all the bags get deposited in said basket and then I get on my knees and push it to the kitchen. or even better....I can get my toddler to push it! harness their energy, I say!

louiseds

August 24, 2008 - 2:52am

Hi Judy

When you bend from the hips and your elbows nearly touch the ground, are your knees bent? I think if your knees are straight it could be a good hammy stretch, but I think there might be better ways to stretch hammies. The risk, if you keep your knees straight is that the stretch on the hammies will tilt the pelvis back, which would not be good. I agree with you about the 'back like a table'. It indicates to me that there is lumbar curve happening.

What are your favourite hammy exercises? I assume you mean stretching?

You said I hate squats? Only full squats with the knees together. I find that keeping my knees well apart and my feet flat, my belly has room to expand. Yes, it is a good way to get close to ground level, though it doesn't agree with my ankles for too long. I prefer to kneel forwards. I also have an ancient sturdy plastic toddler chair that has weathered three children and is still in use. That is also handy to squat upon when working low to the ground. I guess it really depends on the task at hand. Either way you need to wear clothing that allows belly expansion and a little modesty when in the presence of people who may be offended/challenged by my rather unconventionally unfeminine posture. ;-)

I do hope I can still squat into my old age. I am certainly planning on it! :-)

Cheers

Louise

Mae

August 24, 2008 - 7:25pm

Hi Granolamom,

I love your toddler pushing groceries technique! Very clever! It's a win win!

Warm regards,

Mae

louiseds

August 25, 2008 - 8:36am

Hey Gmom, so glad you have a little garden. I agree with you. Why make room for weeds?

The laundry trolley and basket works well for bringing in shopping from the car too. I just wish they would make them a little more sturdy, eg wider tyres, so they were more like an all purpose domestic trolley. I think it is called a pram <:-s>

I can see a little Granolababy with a little red wagon. Such useful toys!

Cheers

Louise

sng05

August 29, 2008 - 6:29pm

I love to garden and have had to really pare it down over the last few years due to advanced arthritis and some nerve damage in my neck and shoulder---but also have to take care not to do any more damage pop-wise.

For weeding I use a boat cushion to kneel on and it's wide enough that I can actually kneel/sit on my butt and pull weeds. Then when I've gotten all the ones I can get by hand (best to get as many as you can all the way to the root!) I use a newly sharpened garden hoe to get the rest (standing, of course!) Keeping it sharp really makes a difference.

Instead of carrying the many loads of pulled weeds, dead-headed flowers, broken branches etc. to the compost heap (or the burning pile, depending on the contents) I have an old broken up plastic laundry basket (a new one is needed very soon!) with rope threaded throughout and a long enough end so that I can pull the very full/heavy basket from behind or walk backwards and pull it along. Very little strain on my shoulders if I keep my arms low enough---and no strain at all on the tummy. I use this method to move many things around the yard. Sometimes I have to resort to the wheel-barrow, but that doesn't give me as much 'freedom' in how I hold it, etc.

We're getting 'fall' type weather here already. Sigh...

Peace,
S&G

louiseds

August 29, 2008 - 11:38pm

Hi S&G

Far out! What a brilliant idea. I would add to that. Fasten the rope double so you can walk between the two halves with the loop crossing your body at pelvis level, so you split the load between the two halves of your body and stay in posture. You will be using your leg muscles and taking the strain off your back. Good for strengthening the legs too.

While I am posting, I amazed myself and my builder yesterday by unloading over a ton of brick rubble manually off our trailer onto a causeway over our creek, and came up smiling. DB (darling builder) had just demolished seven brick pillars and loaded the rubble into our trailer for me to dispose of them. "I'm impressed," he said. No problems with POP's today. I did it all slowly and purposefully, aware of posture at all times.

I am becoming like an ant. Give a colony of several thousand ants unlimited time and they can build a nest several feet high. I did it one brick at a time, with a lot of leg work, and eventually I had an empty trailer on my hands. We can learn a lot from ants.

Cheers

Louise

Mae

August 30, 2008 - 1:24pm

Louise, you are an amazing woman! I can't believe the things you do! I get tired out just thinking about doing all that..LOL!

Regards,

Mae

louiseds

August 31, 2008 - 1:40am

Well, I do it very carefully and do not hurry. While I am doing it I think about how much I would have to pay somebody else to do it. It was quite fun really, tossing each brick into the water with a satisfying "Per-lopp!", and listening to the water babbling over the bricks. Very soothing. Mind you, when all this building is over I will probably have saved enough money to buy a bobcat for next time! There will also be a new red frock, and probably some sparkly red shoes so I can get to Kansas!

Cheers

Louise

Mae

August 31, 2008 - 10:01am

See...you do know Oz is in Kansas! LOL! Hope you get there one day. I hear there there are no POP's in Oz! A quick visit to the Wizard and you're good as new...happily following the yellow brick road home!

Ahh...if only!

Regards,

Mae

Oceanblue

August 22, 2009 - 11:29am

Hi all,

This morning I went to the market, came home, and noticed how my husband was cutting the lawn (some grass, wildflowers, mosses, mushrooms, berry bushes) in a linear fashion, which I do not like. I like to, if at all, to follow the contour of the land, and to go around mushrooms, or berry bushes and so on. My cut is a long cut, he goes over and over until it is a buzz cut. Grrrrrr :)

I was thinking about the vacuum cleaner, but... that simply does not work, it would be rather awkward to have the reel beside me, going up and down the hilly topography.

Am I overdoing it? I don't push in a gung how fashion, but at least I see what I wish to see, not shaved linear grass, as when I mow .. the flowers pop back up and the mushrooms remain ... food for others!

Thank you,

Oceanblue

louiseds

August 22, 2009 - 11:52pm

Hi Oceanblue

I have one with a motor to run the blades and I still have to push it along. I did think about getting a fully manual one but decided that it would cause too much blowing out of the pelvic floor, because you really have to get the wheels going quite fast on each stroke, to drive the reel, and each stroke has to be quite long, so it is not easy to keep the lumbar curve in place all the way. Starting the b***** thing is my main problem. I think manual reel mowersreally are made for men. You might be able to get it to work if you adjust the handle so it is lower, bend your knees and use your thigh muscles more.

Once you figure out the principles behind keeping your organs out of your vagina you can experiment a bit with what works. If you get the pressure in the vulva, just adjust your body in some way, or adjust the height. It is only by trying things that there is a possibility that you can do it. If you don't try it, you will never find out. Now the lawn has a buzz cut you could get the mower out and do a few dry runs. Cutting it on the contour should be better because you are not fighting gravity as well as the inertia of the reel. Good luck.

L

Oceanblue

August 24, 2009 - 9:08am

Dear Louise,

Thank you for your advice.

Am off of any kind lawn mower.

Thank goodness for Christine's WW workouts!

Best wishes,

Oceanblue

Oceanblue

March 26, 2011 - 5:29pm

Ooooo ver did today!

6 cubic foot wheelbarrow with one tire in the front, if you lift that empty, it is slightly over 60 lbs and a huge NO.

Just finished doing Christine's dvd workout to work on regaining myself!

Golly day, neighbours should just butt out. What was I doing that necessitated the use of my wb today? Snipping up left behind barbed wire fencing, not to far from the oceanic waters. Local farmer uses this method to keep in his cows, and when one fence falls apart, it is simply torn down, tossed aside and replaced with another. So, I am in the process of cleaning up quite a mess. Yes, there is a reason, the frogs like to sing in the neighbouring fresh water marsh. One difference though, from now on, no more wheelbarrow, have to bring it back in a medium, reasonably sized bucket, as walking always makes me feel better :)

Yes, best would be to have a friend along, who would lift and push the WB :)

louiseds

March 26, 2011 - 8:39pm

Ocean Blue, sorry to hear that you found out the hard way about wheelbarrows. Your solution of using buckets instead is a good one. Take two buckets and underload each one a bit. I am sure you will be able to carry more very comfortably with two buckets than one because you will be better balanced.

Are you saying that lifting the empty wheelbarrow handles, with the wheel on the ground is a 60lb load? Or do you mean that a full wheelbarrow with bits of barbed wire makes it 60lb?

If the latter you could still do it with the wheelbarrow, but only load the front half of the wheelbarrow. This will put the load more over the axle and the wheel will carry most of the load.

When you use the wheelbarrow ensure that your arms are always straight. If you have to bend your arms to get the legs off the ground (You are not very tall, are you?) you will have to shorten the legs to do this. It is much easier on POPs to walk a barrow in WW posture with arms straight. If you have to bend your arms you almost have to involve shoulder muscles and that induces a hunch and POP problems.

What are you going to do with the wire you remove? This guy's behaviour is a bit hard to stomach, but it is such dreadful stuff to handle that I can see why he leaves the old wire there. We have a lot of half buried wire, barbed and plain, in our creekline, because that is where the boundary runs. A long time ago the creek flooded and much of the barbed wire was buried under sand. Many trees and branches have also fallen on it, so it is almost impossible to remove. By leaving it there we are warned to watch out for it. This old wire is so thick. It takes decades to rust to nothing. Newer barbed wire is galvanised so it takes longer to rust away. We have slowly replaced all the barbed wire on our fences. Our sheep don't take much notice of barbs. The only thing it stops is people, and then with limited success.

So you will be able to get to the fresh water marsh now to listen to the frogs? This must be a sign of warming weather for you.

Louise

Oceanblue

March 27, 2011 - 7:43am

Thank you Louise, for your concern as well as wheelbarrow tips.

I should have listened to my body, stopped immediately and gone back for my one medium sized white plastic bucket (retrieved washed up along the shoreline some time ago), and work on this project a little at a time.

If you placed this heavy duty wheelbarrow on scales it would weigh 60 lbs, but nevertheless, one has to lift up the wb by the handles in order to move forwards/backwards. It's simply too heavy!

Am taller than the average woman in Canada, and weigh less than the average woman in Canada, but that does not mean that is very tall or very slim, sad to say, take a peek:

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/average-height-of-a-woman.html

Best fence is no fence, but if you must, how about one that is earth friendly?

Louise, I love sheep, what kind of sheep do you have? My favourites are merino, working with cert. org. merino wool is like no other!

Today is going to be a day that will focus more on my knitting and a little less on wire collection. There is a large scrap metal yard not too far away, that accepts "everything."

And the frogs? With the present howling west winds, I patiently await their peeps!