Jaci Dawn

This is not about herbs. I know I promised to write about herbs, but in typical ADHD style, I got sidetracked. Again. Subconsciously I think I am avoiding writing about herbs and my “new” adventure in growing and using them. I mean, what do I honestly know about herbs except how to use them in cooking?

This post is about rocks. Rocks, my back, and being 68 years old doing things as if I was still my younger self. Because, Baby, I am going to sleep well tonight.

I’ll blame my husband on the digression: it all started when we went out to lunch for a belated anniversary date on the 14^th. We had been tossing around ideas for a walkway made of flagstone, but how far would we have to travel to find the rock now that the local rock and gravel place is shuttered? We were traveling south on I-205 with a destination just off Stafford Road and I thought to myself that there used to be a rock place there… Great minds think alike (so they say) because Don said, “Didn’t there used to be a rock place right there…?”

Well, it is still there. And we stopped there after lunch to browse. GEM Rock and Landscaping. Quaint place with little wood buildings, lots of chickens, more pigeons, and plenty of rocks for landscaping. One can purchase sourdough bread when it is available or a dozen eggs, all on the honor system. The woman working when we arrived also grows and sells heirloom vegetable plants (we picked up one tomato and two dill plants). The whole vibe is laid back hippie which is quite unexpected from a place selling landscape rocks.

We returned on Thursday in a friend’s big ¾ ton pickup and loaded up 219# of “Pennsylvania blue” flagstone at $0.44 per pound. The men did most of the heavy lifting on Thursday, but the actual lay out and creating was left up to me. And today, I set out to put the puzzle pieces together.

We’re short about 5-6 rocks. And I want some smaller pieces to put around a water feature I am building, so – another 5 or six smaller rocks. We can just use my car to make that load.

Since that was a dead-end and I was all set to work with rocks today, I decided to just finish the retaining wall. The portion left is outside of the vegetable garden, in full shade, and in the part of the yard we do the least with. We still have tree stumps and branches stacked there from the big ice storm of 2021. The pallet of rocks that have been sitting in our driveway for the retaining wall have been there almost as long.

75 rocks. I already had ten in the yard, and I made two trips with the wagon before taking a break and having lunch. I could only manage one more trip before I simply could not pull that damn wagon another forty feet with a load of rocks in it, so I asked my husband to please make the last trip for me. I did all the other work, just not that one last wagon pull.

And then I fell into my Adirondak chair and just sat. The wall is done. I have about 45 rocks left over. Don brought those into the yard, too, and I helped a little bit with that just to get the pallet off our driveway. It’s only been there for three years.

My only other gardening act today was to put up one more homemade birdbath: a tin bowl glued to a funky stand someone else welded together (I got it for free at a yard sale last year).