So THIS is Rockin Out?!

Our latest landscape adventure involves the creation of our new guest parking area and entrance to the yard/house. The goal is to get it covered in rock and gravel before the rain hits. For 8 hours, 4 people (thankfully two of them were teenage boys...) moved 10 tons of rock to the area and that's just a fraction of what's to come. Luckily the bulk of the rest of it will be dropped from a dump truck and spread with a tractor instead of moved, moved again and placed and stacked by HAND. Imagine, if you will, a gracefully curved slate curb and walkway that leads to the house where it is met by a half-moon staircase leading up to the wrap around deck. As of September we will have one less patch of mud here at the Wall Street Farm! Only one left to go around the house and that will become the deck. This, of course, will just free us up to make more.

The hardest part will be making the puzzle fit just right when it comes to laying out the rock. This will take a couple of weekends (read months) at least. I always was good at jigsaw puzzles though. I once spent an entire 5 days passing the time on jury duty by doing a 500-1000 piece puzzle per day. I guess the only lesson there is that I'm old enough to have spent a full 5 days on jury duty!!

Here's a panoramic of the project as it sits today.

Sadly, as I look at this photo it does not translate well the sweat equity invested. Maybe it's the funky angle, or the distance. However, this, among other projects, is a good barometer of how much work all this takes to do it yourself. 2 days of tractor work removing dirt and grading, 3 days of edge cutting and prep, 2 days of rock transport. We did finally break down and buy a pallet of pre-sorted curb rocks to save everyone's backs and some time. You know when the young ones start to show real fatigue it's a serious job. Half the fun is designing it on the fly and watching the boys roll their eyes as I ask them to move the same rocks 2 and 3 times! Luckily, everyone is very good natured about it.

If anyone has some extra lottery cash laying around that they are looking to pawn off I'd be happy to take it off your hands... Just think, I could hire THREE teenagers!

More to come.