Memories......That's a Song Title, Right?

Memorial Day weekend, extended joy, fun, and relaxation. Gotta love the thought. To get into the festivities I decided to kick off my Friday with a tad of light yard work, before packing, watering the garden, pulling a few weeds, playing in the dirt, oh, and of course, hauling rocks. (Dissonance, cue minor chord, or whatever it is).

I didn’t wake up thinking, I feel like moving large rocks today. I didn’t plan it, but when I was outside the impulse imp reared it’s head and said, “Wouldn’t that be cool? And it would use the rocks…”

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but we have a LOT of rocks around the Home Ranch. My Grandma used to collect them. I’m not sure how or why it started, but as she told me “every rock has a face”. A lot of hours were spent finding faces. (Side note: Mom never quite got it; depending on the color she tended to see deserts. No joke, one of my favorite conversations was Grandma Alvernaz trying to show Mom the face and Mom just seeing a piece of cheesecake because of the color). Over time people brought her some real cool looking ones, but most of them are just plain river rocks that we don’t know what to do with.

Friday I was outside, looking at the new flower bed area, (not my doing, I came home and the work was done), trying to figure out the best way to a) contain the dirt from flooding the asphalt again, b) level it off, c) keep the weeds from our budding bed.

And I knew the answer, ROCKS! So without consulting my Aunt, I rashly decided to lay the basis for a retaining wall.

May I just state the obvious, rocks are heavy! Since I’m lacking in upper body strength, (as the nurse said when I got a flu shot, “because you have little arm’s you’ll probably be sore.” WHAT!?! I mean I know but really?) and really didn’t want to bend over all morning and roll heavy objects I needed a creative solution. The wheel burrow was out because, let’s face it, pushing it around with heavy things isn’t much better than carrying them, and then the heaven’s parted and light shown down. Well, not really, but I did get a brilliant plan, my Subaru.

Load the rocks into the back, drive the Sube over to the new location, then drive it back and load up more, comfy seat included. So that’s what I did. (My poor car, it’s been commented on before now that I treat it like a truck…..Don’t worry, she’s had a bath and been vacuumed since). All things considered, it worked great. The only down bit was the lifting rocks part.

Tada, several hours later, a wall is formed. We actually had less big rocks than I thought, which was both a relief and a tad sad, since I’d had visions of Jericho. But considering how things turned out for that city…

Thankfully Aunt Judy did not hate it, in fact she had had a similar idea. What can I say, great minds think alike. Does that mean we have rocks in our heads, prbably, but crazy does love company.  

 As to the rest of my vacation, what can I say, I got sick on day one away from home, and fried my face dozing on my back for two hours, (can you blister a zit?) but it was still fun.  And honestly, what else are vacations for?