Like a tonne of blocks

Actually, not like a tonne of blocks but a tonne of blocks: all 44 of them. Ten years ago, when I used to teach remedial math, I set some students a task to calculate the volume of a bale of 44 x 4in-solid concrete blocks. The data were given in mm [because that's how blocks are reported at builders' merchants] (100mm x 215mm x 450mm) -- and requested&required an answer in cu.m. [because that seems an appropriate metric for something that fills a small farm-trailer]. Few of the answers were correct and some of them were hilariously wrong. hilarious? I was careful not to laugh at students who'd just ground through the appalling Leaving Cert math curriculum which teaches by fixes and tricks and rote learning while Not developing a feeling for numbers and their relative size. I was otoh delighted to share the results of my speculation about why 44?? which hinged on the density of concrete [2⅓x the density of water] and that 44 blocks weighed exactly 1 tonne.

Well, I don't teach no more because I R retire. otoh, although there is no money in it, I try to do some work every day: use it or lose it. If I did no exercise, my limbs would atrophy and visitors would find me a mere skittle prone upon the sofa. It is also obvs that I'm not 25 anymore: when I was fit for 8 or 10 hours of pully-hauly a day and ready for more the day following. I am contracted to run the chain-saw for the full of one tank of gas . . . and then stop and clean up. Dangerous, dopey, things happen when I'm using a chainsaw at the best of times; there's extra hazard in there if I'm tired or fussed or under time pressure. 

Last week, we had two brilliant back-to-back dry sunny days and I knew I'd regret failing to make progress on the outdoor chores. As a change from working my upper bod with the chainsaw, I decided that I would salvage and move a bale of concrete blocks [result! L]. Those blocks formed the perimeter of a raised veg.bed in the top garden, which was assembled in Apr 2o2o nearly 5 years ago One edge of which you can see ◎ in the pic.  Much earlier, before Dau.II had left home, the two of us had created a few raised beds inside and outside the polytunnel. They were constructed by a) levelling out the ground, b) laying out sides of horizontal 4in-solids c) surmounted by overlapping vertical 4in-solids d) the blocks fixed in place with a 4:1 sand:cement mix.

Block beds were a fabulous improvement on beds made of {timber | election-posters | pallets} and the same for compost bins. But y'have to be confident that the bed/bin is going to useful where it is built for twenty years. In Apr 2o2o, I had no such confidence; I didn't have someone to help; but I did have a lorra blocks. Accordingly I made a lazy-bed by piling 3 layers of horizontal blocks atop each other and filling the basin with compost and top-soil. Now we're going solar, and the panels are scheduled to be installed where that 'temporary' bed was located. 

It took me more than one hour but less than two to salvage the tonne-o-blocks and stack them out of the way of Team Solar when they arrive for their site works -- soon we hope. For reasons, it didn't happen last year, despite me filling a valise with folding money and shaking it enticingly at solar contractors across the sunny south east. The trend nowadays is to pay money to a 'gym' to lift weights to develop abs or pecs or upper body strength. Whatever the solar costs, I know I'm ahead by doing weight-training for free at home rather in a gym in town.