I had visions of landscaping with Missouri rocks. Just a vision, mind you, but I decided to implement my capabilities of landscaping using rocks which seem to erupt from the ground every spring. Some are small, some round, some flat, some very big or any composition of all.
The first task was to remove the grass and put some newspaper down, or in some case use the unrecyclable plastic bags you accumulate from shopping. I don’t particularly care for them, as people at the stores who know me can tell I prefer to take my purchases without a bag or bring my own cloth bag with me to store the items as I get them to the truck.
The reason for the paper or the plastic bags is to avoid any new growth under the rocks which can create an impossible removal of said growth. Great idea, but very difficult to implement.
After several months of doing the work on my knees and in small areas as I went along the design I have in mind, the work was finally taking shape.
Then, Grumpy decided to dump some very large rocks on my unfinished work creating an obstacle to walking, mowing or edging around the creation. It took several more weeks for me to get the stamina to tackle the rocks one more time, now complaining under my breath every time I had to dig deeper and deeper as the rocks were extremely large and heavy.
In order to get them into place, it took all my strength, blood, sweat and tears; I had black and blue marks on my legs, arms, feet and hands after handling the extremely heavy rocks, but the job was beginning to take shape.
After a fall caused by tripping over a box I left on the floor of the laundry room, my left knee was black and blue, eventually purple, yellow and grey on top, underneath and on both sides. The swelling of the knee did not allow me to kneel anywhere, so the landscaping work needed to be delayed one more time.
To my horror, one morning I spied Grumpy dumping compost on my design, trying to level it with the tractor and up ending all the rocks I had painfully placed on the ground. I screamed for him to stop, to no avail as he is hard of hearing. By the time I was able to get his attention, the damaged was done. Then, he had the nerve to ask me where else I needed compost. You know what I told him to do with his compost.
Today, after the shock wore off, I gave up and ask Grumpy to dump more compost on the rocks so I could bury them and forget about my creation. He grinned and was more than happy to comply.
Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. This time I lost several months on a work never completed but hey, at least the compost was put to good use. I hope Grumpy finds a good place to put his compost.
Elva Weber – for more articles go to www.elvaweber.com