Have you ever had one of those moments in life where you were living with the horrible implications of a very simple statement? Like for instance, when you are out on a beach in the middle of summer with your friends and no one brought sunscreen and your skin was burny, hot and itchy all day. And then you tell some smart ass who says something like 'well, the sun is very hot.' I experienced the same thing for past the past three days. My simple statement?
Rocks are fucking heavy.
We are building a retaining wall. You know those things the keep steep embankments from just loosing there shit and falling the fuck down? And to make one that works, you have to use very big rocks. Huge rocks. Motherfucking as much as I can do to lift the damn thing rocks.
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| Only a shit ton more to go! |
My back hates me and everything I stand for now.
The highlights of this motherfucking rock triathlon are as follows:
Climbing down a near vertical embankment because that's where all the good rocks were. I would grab onto a tree root and gently lower myself down until I could get my foot onto something. Have you ever done the thing where your footing goes and you just pedal madly as dirt runs under your feet like a fucking treadmill? 'Cause I damn well have. But I got that rock. It was a sweet rock you guys. If you had seen it you totally would have understood.*
Pulling so hard to get a rock loose that the pick slipped and I fell into a brier patch and cut up my right arm.
Getting stabbed in the thigh, arm and hand by a prickler tree. **
Almost getting my boot ripped off by the mud while getting backfill.
Getting my hair caught in a pine tree.
This is just the icing on the cake here people. It's been three days of shoving backfill and backhoeing a ditch and moving heavy rocks. Everything is pain, now.
Everything is pain.
* This might not be true. I might just be crazy.
** Okay, so I don't know what their called, but they have like two inch spikes. WTF kinda plant has two inch spikes outside of a goddamed desert?
Want more retaining wall adventure? Here's part two.
King sounds awesome and I would love to play with him - but building a stone wall.... :-( not so fun sounding!
ReplyDeleteOf course, I'm sure it will be a proud moment once it's done! ;-)
Oh ouch! I hope you are doping up on aspirin or aleve before bed every night so your muscles don't tighten up in your sleep!
ReplyDelete...and "Lift with your knees!"
I'm reading "Notes from a Small Island" by Bill Bryson; he's a travel writer, and in this case the book is about England. Anyway, I cam across a passage which I just have to share with you:
ReplyDelete"Across the way, a farmer was mending a stretch of fallen wall and I stood and watched him for a while from a discreet distance, because if there is one thing nearly as soothing to the spirit as mending a drystone wall it is watching someone else doing it."
Oh I love building dry stone walls. Love it. Because the rocks are a sensible size unlike a retaining wall where all the rocks are HUGE. I always think of Robert Frosts poem, where he states 'good fences make good neighbors.' Where him and his neighbor are repairing an old dry stacked stone wall. There is something so timeless and wonderful about stone.
ReplyDeleteI really should read more poetry. I'm very much out of the poetical loop :-)
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