Posts Tagged ‘labor of love’
Sculpting Soil
The main order of business for the foreseeable future involves rakes, rocks, and lots of black dirt for us. On Tuesday, we raked out the drainage swale in the back pasture to pick up rocks and debris from the dirt dumped in the field. I think the load they brought for the field was deemed undeserving of the good-quality dirt.
In addition to the many rocks, we came upon trash that included a piece of wide ribbon with the words “buried cable.” Not far from that, I raked up a damaged short length of electrical cable.
We filled a wheelbarrow with the rocks and dumped them where the ground has been washing away beneath the footbridge I built.
I pulled out a select few that will make nice additions to our labyrinth and set them on the bridge.
Yesterday, we spent our time on the new slopes of the driveway, starting with the portion behind the hay shed. It looks great after giving it a thorough raking and final shaping. As rewarding as it is to see the long-awaited improvement, getting that short length done provided a reference for how much work lies ahead to give the rest of the driveway the same degree of attention.
Thankfully, it’s a labor of love.
We rewarded ourselves last night with a showing of the two latest episodes of “Reservation Dogs” season 3, followed by (for me) more hours of US Open tennis matches. Cyndie prefers a book over spectator sports.
Watching more matches in a row than ever before has taught me the importance of capitalizing on break opportunities and avoiding hitting the ball into the net. Finding a way to shift momentum in one’s favor goes a long way toward helping, too.
I think I’ll stick to landscaping and keep tennis as a spectator sport.
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Heavy Lifting
For our Labor Day holiday three-day weekend during this pandemic, we have chosen to stay home but we wanted to spend some time together working on a project that was as much fun as it was a productive accomplishment. With no negotiation required, we both felt an equal desire to put some focus on collecting more rocks for our labyrinth.
There are several very old stockpiles of rocks in our woods from past farmers clearing their fields that we periodically mine for ideal specimens. It is difficult work because the adjacent wooded acres have expanded to swallow the piles and years of accumulating sediment have buried all but just the top portion of some wonderful rocks that need to be excavated.
Since the extra effort it takes to get rocks from these locations tends to limit progress at any given time, we expanded our range yesterday to piles on the edge of our neighbor’s property so we could make a bigger impact on the labyrinth enhancement. It paid off handsomely.
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It was quickly apparent how much the previous rocks defining the labyrinth path have settled into the earth, some almost disappearing from sight.
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I don’t know why I would choose to wear a white shirt to wrestle rocks all day long. That’s an image of a guy who hugs dirty rocks.
By the end of the day yesterday, we were physically exhausted but emotionally energized to see a least two rows improved one step closer to the vision we share of how we’d like the borders to look someday. It will continue to be an ongoing project that advances in fits and starts.
Like building a jigsaw puzzle, the urge to make progress arises in proportion to the progress recently made. This morning, all I want to do is go back down there and add more rocks.
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Relative Something 