Last Wall And Testament

Someday, Julian, all of this will be yours....if you want. Okay, now that I've got my last wall and testament out of the way, let's get down to the facts of my rock wall building year.

It all started back in May or June. I decided that I wanted to build two walls on the property. I enlisted Julian to help as I wasn't sure that my back would be able to do the heavy lifting. We built the two walls (thank you, Julian) and it didn't kill my back.

Julian retired after those two walls but I decided that I could build them on my own so I kept going. I built twelve more walls! I would estimate that I made 60 trips to the rock pit and I carried about 750 pounds of rock in every load. That's 45 000 pounds of rock. When you think about it, I had to lift this rock into the car, then I had to lift this rock out of the car and into the wheelbarrow. Finally I had to lift the rock out of the wheelbarrow and place it in a wall. Doing the math: 3 lifts x 45 000 pounds = 135 000 pounds of rocks lifted. Julian probably lifted 10 to 15% of the total so that still leaves me lifting over a hundred thousand pounds of rocks <insert thunderous applause>.

Building rock walls has not killed my back, it's saved my back! No one is more shocked than me. My back, though far from perfect, feels better than it has in 10 years, plus my yard looks better than ever. Today's image is of my latest rock wall. It's the last one I will build this year and since I'm selling the Ford Focus wheelbarrow, it may be my last wall period. Too bad, because I loved doing it. I was born to do manual labour. I'm a grunt.  I eschew the suit, tie and office.

Here's another look at The Last Wall....

I built it to raise a flower bed that was in a low spot on the property. During heavy rains or the spring melt, my perennials would almost drown. With the newly raised beds they'll prosper.

So what will I do with my life now? In the next few days I'm going to be raking leaves like a demon. Beyond that I really don't know.

Before I sign off, I want to say a massive THANK YOU to Harold and Joan Jones. Harold owns and operates the rock pit where I got every single rock. Harold wouldn't take any money for the rocks, though I did manage to give him a gift certificate to one of his favourite stores. He didn't really want any compensation for all of the rocks that I took, and he tried (unsuccessfully) to give the gift certificate back. Harold's donation of rocks to my property was an incredibly generous gift, and I've thanked him profusely for it. He's a class act. Harold even went out of his way to use his excavator to make more rocks available to me. A lot of people try to keep up with the Jones'. I effusively thank them.