Working Up To It (A Guide for Women and Men)

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Now, however (after that initial sobering attempt and another more successful try), I know that homesteading is worth every bit of sweat and toil that goes into it ... but I also know what I can accomplish and which goals are merely the stuff of fantasy.

Of course, the thought of slowing your work pace might well make you anxious. If so, take a moment to examine the benefits of sensibly paced effort. Any seasoned worker will tell you that two of the most important ingredients making for a tiptop project are timing and organization. Professional carpenters and such don't rush frantically here and there. Instead, their workdays are calm and orderly . . . and yours should be, too, even if you have only weekends to devote to your farm-to-be.

Conditioning is another important consideration. If you spend five days out of each week hunched over a desk at a city job, you'll very likely injure yourself trying to plunge into a weekend marathon of farm work. Most new homesteaders—men or women—simply aren't fit, initially, for rigorous activity. Therefore, before going at hard physical labor full steam, you'll want to build up a basic layer of conditioning . . . and then gradually accustom your entire body to the demands of the job.

FITNESS AND PACING
In the workshops I conduct on preparing people for strenuous tasks, I've noticed that women often mention the frustration of trying to keep up with their male coworkers who—in general—seem to be stronger and able to work more quickly. Men and women are (obviously!) physically different, and these differences affect our working patterns. However, what's important isn't the proportion of fat and muscle on the male versus the female body, but rather how each individual uses and develops that muscle. Proper conditioning can improve the circulation of blood throughout the body and thus increase the capacity for sustained physical labor. In addition, although most folks aren't aware of this fact, improving one's flexibility by stretching can actually increase a person's available strength, as the muscle fibers can then slide past each other without "catching" and are thus able to contract fully.

So regardless of your sex, the first step in setting up the homestead should be to get fit. Two excellent books for anyone interested in improving his or her general condition are Tolal Fitness in 30 Minutes a Week ($2.50) and Maximum Performance ($2.95) by Laurence Morehouse and Leonard Gross. Both paperbacks are available at good bookstores or libraries, or can be ordered—at the prices listed plus 50¢ shipping and handling per book—from Simon & Schuster, Dept. TMEN, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020.

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