Posts Tagged ‘rocks’
New Backdrop
We are creating a new back drop for Cyndie’s wildflower perennial garden near the spot where soil from the neighbor’s cornfield has been pouring over our property line. This will obscure the sight of our less attractive silt fence and hay bale barrier installed to stem the flow of hyper-fertilized sandy topsoil that comes our way with every heavy rainfall event.
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We started collecting a wide variety of branches for the project last year, not exactly sure what the method would be, nor what the ideal branch would look like. Though the added character of misshapen gnarly pieces seemed like a good thing, I quickly discovered that the perfectionist in me was more strongly attracted to a precise diameter of very straight young trees.
I also figured out in rather short order, we are going to need to collect a lot more raw material to complete the project.
Off to a fair start, though, and have, at the very least, proved the concept. The vision I had involved a more dense positioning of branches than I am achieving, but given the material I am working with, the result is more open. In the end, I think this will work out well enough.
It’s certainly easier to accomplish.
For all the places around our land where we fight to squelch the growth of vines, I’m thinking we should try to encourage some to climb this. That would fill in the gaps nicely.
My favorite part of yesterday’s effort was actually the successful digging out and moving of a rock that was once again on the outer limits of my ability. With Cyndie’s assistance, we used a pry bar to tip it up and force dirt back underneath.
Alternating back and forth to opposite sides, this raises the rock up to the surface without leaving a hole in the ground. Once at the surface, using the pry bar, we can get it to roll into a desired new position. The rock is visible on the right, in front of the new fence, in the photos above.
I expect there will end up being an additional rock balanced on that one sometime in the future.
It’s a challenge to tip rocks up when they weigh more than me. There are limits to how much leverage advantage I can achieve. There was another rock uphill from this one that was over twice the size. I would have loved to raise that one to the surface, but I wasn’t strong enough to tip it more than a fraction.
Cyndie couldn’t push enough soil beneath it to make any appreciable progress. Given that our primary goal was to build the fence, we left the boulder for a future challenge, should we ever be so inclined.
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Many Hands
From the moment we arranged the two boulders in the center location of what was to become the Rowcliffe Forest Garden Labyrinth, I envisioned a third stone resting upon them. The first challenge to fulfilling that vision was finding the right stone.
It needed to be the right shape and size, which I knew would mean the perfect stone would be too heavy for me to lift.
My quest for the specific stone was complicated by the fact that, without significant disruption, I couldn’t use trial and error to decide. Dealing with a such a heavy stone would mean the first one placed in that spot would likely be the only one placed in that spot.
Over the years, I experimented with light-weight objects to assist my eye for identifying what size and shape of rock I was looking for. Perfection proved to be hard to come by among the rock piles around our property, but last year I finally found one that had good potential.
It was buried in the woods, located conveniently close to the labyrinth. Using a small piece of woven fence panel and a strap, I created a sling to move it. Then I enlisted Cyndie –back when she still had two strong shoulders– to see if two people could do it.
It worked, enough to prove the concept, anyway. We stopped after getting it to the edge of the trail. There it sat for most of the year, because I wasn’t sure how to safely get it lifted high enough to position it atop the two boulders.
Yesterday, I realized we had the many hands of adventurous strong guys available to make the work light.
It’s a whole ‘nother story that we hosted a gathering at Wintervale with the families of Cyndie’s late aunt, Joan Brolin, to celebrate Christmas in September. That tale will likely get told in coming days.
I hadn’t thought about it in advance, but conversation somehow led to the topic of my wanting to figure out how to lift the heavy stone and place it. Cyndie’s brother, Steve, shared a video about a man who could move heavy objects by himself, using simple aids.
Cyndie’s cousin, Tom, thought we had enough hands and wanted to check it out. I grabbed a tape measure for one last confirmation that this stone would be the right size for what I was hoping to accomplish.
With little in the way of complications, five of us were able to move it, lift it high enough, roll it into place, and then rock it into a position that was stable.
It was an extremely satisfying triumphant moment for me.
Thank you to Cyndie’s brothers, Ben and Steve, and cousins Tom and Mike for helping fulfill my dream. And thank you to my daughter, Elysa, for capturing the event on my phone.
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Making Peace
It is getting to a point where I think I just need to make peace with the fact that water runoff on our property will carve its own path no matter what feeble attempts I make to direct it.
We received another short-but-robust deluge from the rain gods yesterday afternoon, which generated eroding runoff flow digging ever deeper into all the existing rills and washouts that had already evolved from the last few downpours this summer.
While standing on one of the spots inside the small paddock where our insufficient attempts to establish a direct route to the drainage swale had long ago spectacularly failed, I tried to envision what a successful solution might look like.
I picture a much more assertive effort along the lines of what you would see done to create a drainage ditch along a roadway. If we dig an unmistakable ditch, we could dump the material we scoop out of it to fill the washouts we’d rather not have.
The big challenge with a serious excavation is getting planted grass to sprout and hopefully hold soil in place before rainfall gets a chance to wash it all away. If money were no object, maybe we could line the ditch with enough river rock to form a creek bed.
Aw, heck, why stop there? Let’s just line it with a rubber pond skin first, and then pour on the rock. Wouldn’t that make a sharp-looking dry creek that’s always ready for a flash flood. It’s called Rainscaping.
There are a lot of images out there depicting some incredibly artistic solutions along these lines. Fifty dry creek ideas right here! But there is one thing missing from all photos I saw: weeds.
If we tried any of those solutions, in a very short time, you wouldn’t be able to see the beautiful rocks through the 3-foot tall weeds that would happily take root.
Maybe there’s a happy medium in there somewhere. I’m thinking I need grass to grow to hold soil in place, or rocks. How about grass and rocks?
It would be a hassle to mow, though.
Back to reality. The rocks to cover the distances I need would be an awful strenuous effort to accomplish, in addition to the cost of having them delivered. Grass seed is something I can afford and plant easily myself.
It doesn’t cost anything to dream. I like picturing the possibilities. In the mean time, I am stuck looking at the ongoing and frustrating erosion that has had the better of me for the last five years.
I want to work on making my peace with that.
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Beyond Me
For me, building our chicken coop was a stretch. I’d never tried any construction project of that magnitude before, and I was choosing to work from found materials and without a blueprint. It was a small miracle it turned out as well as it did.
Now, Cyndie is telling me we need to modify it to have a divider that will allow us to introduce unfamiliar birds to the existing flock of three. Today, a functional version of her vision is completely beyond me. I have no idea how I will secure all the nooks and crannies with chicken wire to a point where two unfamiliar flocks of birds will co-exist for a while in that one coop.
On to something I can do. Yesterday, I put the old F150 to work doing double duty. First, it was a road trip to the cities to pick up a load of unwanted used pavers from a staff member at the day-job. Drew was nice enough to offer them up for free if I would go to his place and make them disappear.
I had a plan to use them on one of the muddy spots on our trail through the woods. Before I could get to that step, I needed to reclaim a pile of rock that I had stumbled upon when creating a path to the new chicken coop last year. There was an old rusty box stove in the woods that I believe was used to boil syrup. It looked to be generations old, and the area around it had some old busted cinder blocks and a pile of landscape rocks.
Those rocks would serve nicely to fill a spot in the trail that tends to puddle, so before setting the new paver pieces in place, I wanted to transfer the rocks.
The chickens showed up to help, but were almost too eager to get after the creepy crawling creatures revealed when I scooped a shovel-full. They were more interference than they were helpers, but they sure are cute to have as company.
While the hours of the day vanished, one after the other, I hustled to get the pavers moved out of the truck. We had an appointment to pick up a load of hay around dinner time.
Hoping to minimize the handling, I wanted to transfer from the truck to the ATV trailer so I could deliver pavers directly to the path in the woods.
After a cursory two trips of distributing pavers, I had a good start on the trail, but needed to stack the rest up by the shop for use at a later time. The appointed hay hour was fast approaching.
Given this morning’s new assignment with the chicken coop, I am thoroughly enjoying the mental ease and physical feasibility of yesterday’s projects. New hay is stacked in the shed and pavers cover the muddy trail.
Next time it rains I’ll be excited to walk the enhanced surface of the trail at the bottom of the hill.
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Another View
I have been known to tip a few rocks over the years. It is simultaneously both invigorating and calming, if that is possible. An energizing meditation of balance. It’s unexpected, sometimes mind-boggling, captivating, and often photo-worthy.
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What’s not to like?
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Well, quite possibly, several things. I can totally understand another way of thinking about this topic after reading a post by Brent McDaniel for the Friends of the Smokies blog.
Titled, “Don’t Move Rocks!” it provides a perspective from the “leave no trace” philosophy, offering many very logical reasons for consideration.
The simplest might be, “If every one of the 10 million people who visit the Smokies every year decided they should build their own cairn, do you think that’s a park you’d want to visit again, up to your ears in stacks of rocks?“
Think about it. If a little is good, more must be better, right? It’s art. Who doesn’t want more artistry in the world?
Going forward, I have decided to be more thoughtful about the places where I choose to move rocks.
I’m also now inspired to want to walk in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Thanks for that alternative perspective, Brent!
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Almost Ready
This is our fifth spring of reworking our Rowcliffe Forest Garden Labyrinth after the abuses that winter throws at it. It’s got me questioning our decision to make it as large as we did. Aesthetically, it is just the way I envisioned, so that’s very rewarding. The downside however, is that maintenance ends up being a VERY large chore.
Here’s something I don’t get: The freeze/thaw cycles tend to push rocks up in the farmer’s cultivated fields, where they are totally unwanted. The rocks we positioned to define the circling labyrinth path are all moving down and getting swallowed by the earth around them.
I spent time re-balancing the double-stacked rocks at the U-turns last night. There were areas of the paths where I could barely find the rocks because they had settled so deep in the soft turf. My long-term goal was to keep adding rocks every year, to form little rock wall barriers defining the trail.
At this point, it is more like starting from scratch every spring, trying to define the pathway from almost nothing.
I’m probably exaggerating a little bit, because after a reasonable effort last night, we’ve gotten close to feeling completely ready for tomorrow’s big event.
World Labyrinth Day is Saturday and we have opened up our 11-circuit Chartes style labyrinth to host visitors in the “Walk as One at 1:00” event. There is going to be a global wave of peace flowing tomorrow afternoon.
If you don’t make it out to Wintervale to join us, pause wherever you are during the one o’clock hour and send some peace out in the world.
Then take a moment to absorb the wave flowing along.
Namaste.
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Intriguing Finds
Imagine this: Delilah and I were on another walk around our property. How many times have we done that before? Regardless the frequency of our travel on the variety of paths available, there is always something new to discover. Yesterday in the quickly fading light of day, it was snow and marks in the snow that caught our attention.
Well, my attention, anyway.
In both cases, I had almost entirely passed by the beauties when something caused me to stop and fish the camera out of my pocket. Despite the bitterly cold temperature and the low light, I came up with images that work for me.
The first subject was a couple of balanced mossy rocks that the snow had frosted with a flair. It flowed down from the top of the upper rock and circled perfectly around it as it settled over the rock below.
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The second find was even more fascinating to me. At first glance I assumed the marks in the snow were probably from George and Anneliese’s dogs, but one mark didn’t make any sense. My brain processed it as if a bear had swung a clawed paw.
Probably not.
Then it occurred to me. That was the shadow of a passing wing! These were the tracks from a predator snatching up prey. Wow.
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I had to halt Delilah’s progress so I could get out the camera again and position myself to capture the shot. I couldn’t reach because she was pulling against me toward something more interesting to her.
I called her to come back toward me and then quickly pleaded with her to stop and stay, in fear she would come barreling all the way back to me and stomp through the scene. Luckily, she stopped.
Just another walk around the property. Yeah.
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Eight Weeks
How long has it been since I wrote about the fish that appeared and then disappeared from our landscape pond in the span of one day? I checked last night and found it was almost 8 weeks ago. Why do I care now?
When we got home from our glorious celebratory weekend at the lake, I noticed the filter on the pond pump intake needed serious cleaning. The waterfall was down to a trickle and the overall water level was a little low. I got out the hose to clean the filter and add some water.
I don’t see it.
While moving the pump in order to slide the filter back over the intake cage, I was startled by movement in the water from behind the pump. A somewhat lopsided, fat and ghostly goldfish made a surprise appearance from beneath the rocks behind the pump.
When I was done, it immediately darted back into hiding beneath the rocks at the edge of the water.
Really? All this time there has been a fish hiding in our pond and it has successfully remained out of sight until now?
Apparently so.
I wonder what it has been eating all this time.
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Making Changes
On Sunday, in our 4th spring on this property, I took on the annual re-installation of the pump and filter in our landscape pond. For the first time in all those years, I went so far as to re-engineer the tubing that had been left by the previous owners, which is what I had used all the other times. Even though I knew little about it, I always felt there was room for improvement.
Initially, the pond was just one more thing on top of a multitude of issues with which I had little experience. Slowly, year by year, I began to gain confidence as I grew more familiar with the minutia of tending to our animals, acres, machines, and nature.
For the past 3 years, I simply connected a pump to the existing hose and filter and turned it on. The year we moved in, I left the filter sit, with water still in it, all winter long, not even knowing what it really was. The second year, I opened it up and figured out the charcoal media deserved to be replaced.
Sunday, I was smart enough to pull the filter out of the garage where it had been stored all winter —clean and dry— and assembled it on level ground, before connecting to the hoses below the pond and filling it with water. Got it sealed on the first try, which never happened any of the other years of putting it together inline.
Setting Stones
With the extra tubing removed, I wanted to rearrange the rocks on the back side of the pond to accommodate a shorter route from pump to waterfall, and then cover it from view. There is an aspect of this creating that goes against my natural inclination to leave things the way they are.
To build up the rocks enough to cover my latest setup, I needed to go find them from other locations, and something about doing that feels to me like breaking eggs to make an omelet. I initially found myself hesitant about removing rocks from existing locations and leaving holes in the stony landscape bordering our house.
However, after 4 years, I am getting better at seeing how quickly the landscape scenery adapts to our alterations. It will only seem like a hole for a short while. I might know it, but others walking past probably won’t notice the difference.
I’m about halfway done toward achieving what I hope to create. The plumbing appears to be all in working order, so that just leaves a few more stones to turn before I’ll be ready to cross this off the project list.
Not that the list will notice the difference of having one less thing on it.
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It Toppled!
The big rock I stacked upon another last July, on the topped-off pine tree trunk, lasted more than 3 months. It toppled over last weekend.
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I think I heard it, but at the time, mistook the crash for butternuts that loudly fall onto the metal roof of the shop garage. Although, I don’t know what made the big crashing sound when the rock fell, as it landed on soft ground below.
I’m unsure about whether I want to put it back up, or not. I’m going to think about it for a while before doing anything.
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Relative Something 