221118 Rocks

‘Rocks That Don’t Roll’

This is a story from 2007, just after Litton closed its doors and put us all out of work.

I’d been out the last two or three weeks looking for a job, not finding anything I wanted nor any that wanted me.
I spent my remaining time on the farm, hauling a few tons of rocks. Southern Missouri farms always seem to have an abundance of rocks and this one is no exception. I’d spent the last 18 years piling up rocks on this place and propping them by an elm tree that was just a sapling when I started. That sapling was now almost 35-feet tall and the rock pile had grown to huge proportions. I had another six smaller piles of rocks collected that I moved before tackling the big one. My years here have been spent picking up and moving rocks from one spot to another. But now I’ve come to the end of the line. This is the last time I’ll move them. I’ve said that twice now, but this time I really mean it! When the job is done we will have moved 26 cubic yards of rocks, or to put it bluntly, that’s a lot of darn rocks! I don’t know the formula to convert cubic yards to tons or I would.

The project started rolling as many of my great missions start, with an idea from Joyce. She told me that she read an article in a magazine about Feng Shui. The piece spoke of using large rocks at the entrance and exit to one’s home to anchor wealth at the door. Many western people of sound mind would scoff at such logic and with good reason; but to people from the east there are many such beliefs that are followed with religious zeal. Many businesses in Japan would not open a new store without the blessings of a Shinto Priest. Many Chinese businesses are set up following the rules of Feng Shui. Years ago we in the west would chuckle at such things, but who’s laughing now? The economies of both Japan and China are booming! So why then should we pooh pooh the ancient wisdom of the Far East?

We were having a conversation about opening up the southern view from the dining room and the front porch at the time the Fung Shui item came up. I went out that day and cleared some shrubs and tree branches to open the view. I completed that, and noticed the piles of rocks were now in full view. “So where do we go with the rocks?”

Joyce said, “We’ve been talking about putting some white gravel around the front and side of the house,” . “Lynda told me it’s best to put some larger river rock down before putting the smaller rock on top. That will help keep the white rock from sinking down into the soil. Why can’t we use those rocks in the piles?” “Good idea,” I responded. “That way I can clear the view I want and save myself some money on smaller stones that would otherwise just sink into the ground. Besides if just having four big rocks around the entry and exit ways might bring us newfound wealth, wouldn’t having a few extra tons of rock under them add to the wallet?” So began an odyssey of epic proportions.

These are the rocks at the front of the house on the north side, note the large stones to being us wealth.

These are the rocks on the south side front of the house.

The first six piles of rocks were moved with great vigor, and being slarger they hadn’t sunk as deeply into the ground under their own weight. My energy had begun to wane by the time I got to the big pile out by the elm tree. The first day I tackled the big pile it seemed to decline in size, but by the next morning when I looked out it was as though the weight of the rocks removed from the top allowed the rocks buried underneath to pop right out of the earth and rise right back up to the original height of the pile. I set forth on that mountain with renewed vigor, but by the end of the day I had uncovered many of the old concrete blocks that were buried inside the girth of the pile and the mound seemed to grow once again. The following day I loaded the truck with all the busted blocks and broken concrete and moved them down the hill to a storage area surrounded by a dense growth of trees. I sat on the porch and had my beer that evening and at last the pile wasn’t visible from the front porch. It was still there, but the curvature of the land and the weeds growing around it had made it invisible at least from the house. I had more work to do, but at least the end was in sight. All we have to do is take the top one-foot of rock plus whatever has been driven into the ground by its sheer weight and move it to its final resting place. I only hope the task at hand doesn’t move me to my final resting place!

This picture was taken on the south side of the house, all carefully laid in a zen manner.

I made this path to the garage with flat concrete paving blocks. I liked the curvature of the pathway. Hailey and I had fun skipping from one block to the next one out to the garage.

As if the natural rock wasn’t enough to deal with, Joyce asked if I could use the old bricks from the pile to create an entryway on the back side of the house, so I did and here’s the results.

These old bricks came from Saint Louis a century ago and were used in the chimney of the one-room house that was the anchor of the old barn. The old bricks remind me of Saint Louis. There are so many wonderful old buildings made of brick there and some streets were at one time made of brick. There may be some still left that were made of that great old Saint Louis building material.

I was overjoyed with my moving and placement of all those rocks, until the next spring. That was when I discovered that the field mice had moved in under the rocks by the house. The heat from house kept the mice nice and warm and when the snakes came out from hybernation in the spring they were hungry and mice were their favorite meal, so there were snakes all over around the house. So began the removal of all those rocks I had painstakingly put in place and the rocks went right back where they cmae from around the elm tree and down the hill. That was the final time I moved rocks.