Ever since we moved to the wild+free farm in July, our fitness levels have been taken to new heights. From the get-go, we were engaging in on-farm chores from clearing branches, mending fence, stacking firewood and hardcore weeding & gardening. One day of outdoor chores would amount to more than 100 flights of steps and over 25,000 steps.  And there’s still more to do. There’s always more.

To be clear, it’s not like we were physically inactive before – quite the opposite. We painted, drywalled, mudded in the house, and outside of the house, we were playing hockey, hiking and camping. These new physical challenges in farming were a horse of a different colour.

We were using our muscles and joints in ways that they hadn’t been tested for some time. I was gardening in a sea of weeds, hoeing, weeding and bending. I was hauling wheelbarrows of dirt, manure, compost with little kids hitching a ride on top. Trying to break up huge clumps of clay with hand tools. He was chopping branches, felling trees, stacking firewood and fixing all the fences. Yes. ALL of them around over 12 acre property needed some work.

Each night, we would fall into bed exhausted, throughly spent & well worked. We would sleep like babies and then get up in the morning and it would hit us. The moaning and groaning began as we tried to get ourselves out of bed.

“Honey can you just massage my shoulder here a little?”
“Do you know where the Aleve is?”
“My flabs hurt” (aka flabby abs)
“Oh, child, please don’t press that. Mommy hurts there”

Even bending over to the crib to get Ms P out for the day hurt. Lifting her to the change table hurt. Everything hurt. But on a farm, there’s still more to do, and there are chores that need to be done every day. 

We’re in our early-30s, but this was just too much for our bodies to handle. Our answer was to shake out just one Aleve for up to 12-hour pain relief from the daily pain and stiffness. It is an over the counter pain reliever that you can use on your sore farm muscles, headaches, toothaches, or backaches or whatever else your old body wants to throw at you. We can’t be slowed down by this daily pain and stiffness, because our summer in Alberta is always a really short season. We need every day we can get.

Disclosure: I am part of the Bayer Influencer Campaign and I received compensation as part of my affiliation with this group.  The opinions on this blog are my own.