Rocks

A few weeks ago or so, Adam had an idea that he would clean up underneath the pine tree in the front yard.  Despite the rocks and early summer weed pulling, there were a load of weeds under the tree again and he wanted to vanquish them.  His thought was to take the rocks out, lay down new landscaping carpet, and put the rocks back on.  Three hours, maybe four hours tops.

It only took us about an hour to shovel out all of the rocks.  But that is when the trouble hit.  Years of pine needles, weed, and leaf decay had turned into dirt in the rocks, so even though we found that there was already landscaping carpet under the rocks, it didn’t help because the weeds were growing IN the rock bed.  So, now we simply had a large pile of rocks and dirt.  Scooping them back into the bed was going to be counterproductive without cleaning the rocks.

This is where a three to four hour project quickly turned into a nine and a half hour project.

We first tried spraying down the pile, but quickly realized that wasn’t working.  That is when we turned to scooping rocks into the kiddie pool and washing them off and then putting them into the bed under the tree.  So.

Time. Consuming.

Very. Dirty.

I’ll confess that while I didn’t mind helping, trying to watch a baby and two big kids and trying to help and knowing I needed to work a few hours that afternoon was becoming overwhelming pretty quickly (see my anxiety post from near the same time frame), so I made lunch for the family (homemade burgers and corn and beans – yum!) and then I cashed in on the project.  Adam was able to get a hold of our friend Dan with whom we’re in church small group, and Dan was willing to come over and help, even after described the project.  (more on that to come)

Dan is also an engineer and had a few other ideas to try including a dry cleaning technique of dropping rocks over an old fridge rack and shaking, and he was such a great big help to Adam.

I think the best tools of the day ended up being that fridge rack and an old gym locker basket.

And the colander. 

Aren’t our rocks pretty?

Right.  Next time?  We’re buying new rocks.

erin