How It's Going: New Rocks!

As Charlie promised, on Friday afternoon, our new rocks arrived right on schedule.  Click on the arrow to view the action!

There was only one glitch; Charlie thought there would be approximately four loads, but unbeknownst to him, the contractor for the new house being built decided to use most of the rocks for back-filling the basement, so by the time Charlie got there, only one load was left.  (I don't think I'd want big rocks for fill around a house (and can you imagine trying to dig a hole to plant a tree?) but oh, well, us beggars can't be choosers.)  We got the biggest rocks, though, and that was great, though we mourned the burial of the other beauties we saw at the construction site on Monday.  

There's Carl, up on top of the pile right after it was dumped with Joel in the background.  Joel and Allison were here in time to see the spectacle of the rocks being dumped.  It is really something to see and feel; the earth literally moves when the stones hit the ground and the noise they make sliding out of the steel dumptruck box is akin to a whole mess of fingernails scratching a chalkboard.  Music to my ears and a delight for the senses.  (Ok, so you have to love rocks to know what I mean.) 

This is so easy compared to bringing rocks home one at a time.  We have been known to poke around in road construction sites, especially up in Waupaca when they have to blast to get through their beautiful red granite.  The road crews leave piles of it everywhere, and we have hauled many a rock home on our trailer after come-alonging it up the deck.  Having stone delivered feels like cheating, but it sure is fun.

Of course, Ma and Pa have to pose on top of the pile.

And, of course, Joel had to climb the windmill tower to get a good aerial view.

Right away, Carl and I pick out our favorites and start to dream about what we will build with this new stuff.  There's everything from flat limestone to round granite boulders in this pile, so it will be alot of fun to explore the contents as we pull it all apart. 

But, we interrupt this pipe dream and return to our previously scheduled project:

Do you see it there, in the middle of the picture?  

Ooops....where did it go?  Joel decided to take a look around the east side of the farm....looks like the corn is ripe, doesn't it?  Our farm extends all the way to the next road on the other side of the corn field,  ninety-eight acres total.  This is the east forty pictured.

Oh, there's Castle Aaargh.  We plumb forgot about it for minute there while we were basking in the joy of new rocks.  But duty calls: Dutiful Carl went back to work on the job at hand. 

I didn't.  I wasn't done basking just yet.  Did you ever see the pictures of people posing with their dead deer/moose/bear/trophy-sized carcasses in the paper?  Did you ever hear of the 'Boone and Crockett' records?  I think if you shoot an antler-y thing, you have to have an antler-spread with more than fifty points, or if it's a bear or some non-antler-y thing, it has to weigh a ton or something to break a record (ok, I exaggerate) but anyway, I was goofy again and told Joel to take my picture holding one of my trophy rocks:

Seriously, this is a trophy and I done killed it.

The trick is to Look Serious as you hold your trophy's head up off the ground, usually by it's antlers.  Well, this rock didn't have any antlers, but I did my best to look serious anyway.

Ok, Serious Looks don't last long with me...

It would look more impressive if I had the biggest rock in the pile on my lap, wouldn't it?  And doncha just love them happenin' knee pads??

Charlie told us about some more rocks a lot closer to home than these were, so that night we took a quick ride over to see the new candidates just before dark.  We're not sure, but we think we may be getting some more rocks, so maybe I'll have a chance to get into the Boone & Crockett record books yet with a trophy! 

In the meantime, Castle Aaargh is calling our name.  

Quit dreaming and get back to work!  The castle won't build itself, ya know.

I sure hope there's more of this in our future, though.

A girl can dream, can't she?