26 September 2019

You’ll recall (I’m sure!) that on 5 February 2016 Jim Ploof moved a mountain of “excess” rocks from by the house out to what became three large piles on the edge of the woods by the road.  We used up the first pile building the stone walls along the south side of the driveway and southwards along the road.  Much of the second pile was used earlier this week.  However, as of yesterday, if the wall along the road is built any further northwards, access to the second pile will be blocked. So, when Nate appeared today at 8:30, I was busy moving the rest of that second pile from in the woods to the road side of where the wall will be built.  Nate fired up Tammy’s Kubota and we attacked the pile in concert, salvaging several bucket-loads of prime topsoil, which we used to backfill behind the wall on the north side of the driveway.  That mostly done, Nate and I continued building wall… ever higher, ever longer.  Tammy and Jake pulled in mid-morning and went to work building the gravestone steps outside the Shop door.  Shortly after they finished that job, it started to sprinkle; then it started to rain.  Time for lunch!  By the time lunch was over the rain she was a pouring!  So Tammy and her crew packed up their tools and the extra gravestones, then departed, as hoisting heavy, slippery rocks onto a stone wall is simply a great way to get hurt.  Since I had a raincoat on (and am not too bright), I then spent a delightful (sic) hour completely cleaning up the area where rock pile #2 had been.  After that, I gave the Kubota a much-needed hose bath and headed for the showers myself.