Daddy, where do rocks come from?

Homeownership. What a marvelous concept and “hobby.” Since moving into the new house heather has been all aflutter with making improvements. Much like the North Korean army, I too have been conscripted into service. After bumbling my first few tasks, forcing heather to redo my work, I have been banished to yard upkeep (right where I wanted to be anyway).

My first objective was to obtain some color, other than brown and yellow. To this end, I bought a new tractor. Since this is my lawn, after all, I had to buy the best- a John Deere. I’ll tell yah, I caught even more heat over this puppy, but after explaining to CinCHouse the overall benefits of having this kind of horsepower at our disposal, I won the day. I ran the tractor non-stop for a few days. Success. A pale shade of green began to show, but I also notice a little green in heather’s face after a water bill in the $200.00 range, I was again chastised by the boss, but retained my role as yard guardian.

(that's right, it's a 4010!)

Now that I have been rationed in my watering, I turned to using sweat to increase the green in my yard. After an extensive survey of the yard, I located no less than three “dead-spots.” Upon further investigation I learned that these locations had rocks under the surface, and were so close to the surface that the grass could not take root So after another trip to Home Depot (Hope you kept your stock Dave- their margins should be up about 17 points this quarter based on our spending habits), I was the proud owner of a 6lb mattock, a 2lb hand mattock, and a junior spade.

It was a cool July morning when I stepped out onto the lawn to evict with extreme prejudice these rocky interlopers. For back-up I brought two highly trained yard hands, Kyle and Nathan. I armed Kyle with the 2lb mattock and Nathan with the spade. I, of course, took the full mattock. We descended upon the infected spot with haste and began chopping away at the earth surrounding the rock with great zeal and enthusiasm. I was certain this chore would be completed within a few minutes.

I often wonder how Captain Edward Smith, of the Titanic, felt when he first realized the size of the iceberg his ship struck. Well, now I know. As the sun crept higher into the sky, and our enthusiasm slump lower into despair, I realized we had discovered the land version of an iceberg. Hours passed by, and the boys retreated to the house to find relief in the air conditioner from the hot sun and humid air. Heather made an occasion token visit with ice water, and a few highly observant comments such as, “wow, that looks like a big rock;” and “how are you going to get that thing out of that hole?”

But with the sheer determination and guts, likely only matched by John Henry, I pressed on and eventually pulled two H-U-G-E [must be read with Donald Trump’s accent] boulders out of my lawn. By this time the team had been reunited and we all danced the happy dance.

(I am guessing this little puppy weighed in at about 90 pounds)

(difficult to tell from this picture, but this fat boy is about three times larger than the little one pictured above)

I now have a rather large creator in the middle of my front yard, and, in lieu of the previous relatively small “dead-spots,” I am debating if I made the right choice in taking the rocks out. Only time will tell…

(the little one came from the close hole, which i already started to fill in with dirt from the "mother of all rocks." Also, check out the collateral to the left...)