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Over time, I have come to the conclusion that no rock is ever in the right place. I'm pretty sure every rock in our yard has been touched by me at least four times. Rocks are uppermost in my mind because, around here, the last few weeks have been extremely rock-oriented. We've spent time moving rocks, getting rock delivered, and spreading it around.
People who visit our house often notice that every walkway, gravel path, garden bed, and terraced area is lined with rocks. Plants don't grow in rocks; they grow in dirt. All of those rocks that line our yard came from within the yard where we now have plants. We have many photographs of me with the pick and James with the tractor, chipping giant stones out of the yard.
This week, we moved some more of our many rocks around because James flattened out an area near our house where we are going to put a new portable outbuilding. During the great flattening project, James removed many hundreds of rocks with the tractor and by hand. They were all piled up on one side of the area. Of course, where they really needed to be was on the other side of the area where the soil might erode.
So one day this week, we embarked on the great rock relocation program, which entailed throwing rocks into the bucket of the tractor, driving them around, and dumping them in a new spot. Since we were in a rock-moving mood and the tractor was out, we also relocated some seriously enormous rocks near the new terraced flower bed I created a few weeks ago out of still more rocks.
You'd think we had enough local rocks, but no. Here in North Idaho, gravel driveways and roads are the norm. So we had two dump truck loads of 1-1/4-inch minus rock delivered. James jumped on the tractor yet again and moved the rock around. At long last, the spot for the building and the driveway are perfectly contoured, the rock is where we want it, and life is good.
For now anyway.
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