One of the bonuses of having a farm plated truck is being allowed in the local quarry to pick up rock, stone and gravel at discounted prices. Brent and I hook up the beat up dump trailer, different than the really nice dump trailer, and head the two kilometres east to the quarry to look at some blast rock.
Blast rock is called landscaping rock at the Garden Centre and sells for big money, but at the quarry it's exactly what it sounds like - the rock that falls into a pile with the first blast off the rock face. It's also called armor rock and slag. The pieces vary in size from one person to the size of a honda. The quarry encourgages you to bring your own heavy equipment to load your truck, but we need to take a quick look first.
After a frustrating talk with the lady that mans the gate we finally make our way back to the rock face and we are delightedly see piles and piles of large misshapened blast rock. I glance around looking for snakes (the lady warned me) as Brent backs the trailer to a large pile. We don our mandatory hard hats, steel toed boots, safety vests and gloves and start to load.
The first few rocks are loaded in a fit of instant gratification as we envision our projects coming to life. We can finish the garden wall with this rock, place these around the pump house and build a waterfall with these enchanting beauties that have captured sparkling of minerals. After fifteen minutes of loading we aren't talking anymore.
The sweat rolls off our faces as we heave rock after rock into the trailer and it feels like each one gets heavier and heavier. I can hear Brent breathing hard as he lifts a two man rock by himself and I find him attractive in his work boots, sweating and brandishing a boyish smile.
I stop and try to catch my breath as I try to place a large rock into the dump trailer without falling over. "think we have enough for now?" I try and break Brent's rhythm before he falls.
We stop and discuss how many rocks and for which projects we'll use these rocks and before long we're losing time. Deciding to work smart rather than hard we chose to stop loading and plan on bringing the backhoe down next week to load.
Back up to the front and onto the scale. We've hand bombed two and half ton of rock and as the exhilateration starts to wain I begin to feel like I've just loaded two and a half ton of rock. Who needs to go to the gym when you live on a farm?
Back at the farm we still need to remove about thirty patio stones to make room for the new patio and somehow they seem to weight signifigantly more than they did when we put them down last fall. Can patio stones retain water? My arms feels like noodles and my legs scream with each patio stone I dead lift.
I'm loading them into the loader part of my little diesel case tractor and relocating them to their new home beside the pond. We'll get to that another day.
We're still excited to build the patio, but realize we need to put down road grade as a foundation before we lay our rocks. It's getting too late and the rocks are getting too heavy.
We really want to put some rocks down somewhere and feel satisfied, but our sore muscles and bruised fingers barely let us place a few rocks around the pump house.
Tomorrow we'll build a waterfall.
The next day: I barely manage to climb out of bed with a burning in my arms and legs that begs for time in a hot tub, but we're on a mission.
We back the trailer to the waterfall area and start sorting the rocks trying to put the biggest ones on the bottom.
It is during the survey that we realize how wet the area we've chosen is as we instantly obtain soakers. Already covered in mud and water we start to unload. They're heavy and sharp and sudden I find these rocks annoying. Who do these rocks think they are anyway? Why are they so heavy? What the heck did they eat? I hate to admit it, but these rocks are really kicking our asses.
Brent has an amazing enthusiam for every project and he brings this energy to the waterfall. He's excited and it shows. I'm sore and cranky, but it's easy to get caught up in his eagerness. Our waterfall is lovely. It's all natural with the water pouring out the top and making a happy tinkling noise at the bottom.
I've got a large bruise under my right thumbnail and a scrape up my arm that may need a few stitches, but it is all about blood sweat and tears. The satisfaction we feel looking at the waterfall we build out of blast rock warms my muscles and suddenly, without pain medication, I feel good.
Brent and I hold hands looking at our waterfall from all sides like excited children. Isn't it great? Doesn't it look lovely? We pat ourselves on the back before darting inside to get ready. Brent's late again, but I understand his need to stop and smell the waterfall.
He takes one last look and says "don't you think it should be taller with more rocks at he base?" I think I may want to kill him.
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