Occasionally, my brother who was 13 years older than me would go to the local abandoned quarry to swim with his friends after chores. Sometimes he would take me along, and those times remain as my favorite memory. He would be swimming, having a good time, and I would be wandering around the quarry, marveling at the stone formations, looking for Fool's Gold and feeling like I was on another planet. The part of the county we live in is very flat, but the quarry was exotic, with hills and deep water- filled ponds leftover from excavation. In retrospect, no, it's not a very safe place for a small kid to be running around in, and today, that same quarry is posted and off-limits to everyone, but back in the early 60's when lawsuits weren't so prevalent, it was the place to go for many folks. Every time I drive by that quarry, I have to fight the desire to trespass, but I've been good, and have stayed away for the last 25 years.

Then, I met a boy from the neighborhood whose uncle owned a quarry 3 miles in the other direction from 'mine'. We got married, bought an acre from my dad and built a house in the alfalfa field. Time went by; his uncle sold the quarry, I became a stay-at-home mom and we became very interested in gardening. Plants and stones go beautifully together, so my childhood collection was put to good use. We exhausted the supply of rocks from my home farm and appealed to the neighbors who didn't care as long as we respected their crops. My father did, though! "What in the world are you doing bringing all that stone home? I've been trying for years to clear this land and you haul it back?" I assured him it wasn't something I was doing to torture him, and he grudgingly gave in. A little.

The stone we collected from the local piles was mostly fieldstone. Then we decided some flat stone walls would be a good idea. There is still one inactive quarry about 10 miles from our home that allows people to pick rocks by hand. Just drive up on the scale and weigh in, load yourself up, weigh out, and go pay. Two years ago, the price was a cheap $3 a ton; this year it took a jump to $20....the employee says stone is more in demand now. We hauled ton after ton home for over 10 years behind the Buick from that quarry and also our local landfill. Limestone is very close to the surface in the city and excavators digging new homes would have to blast and the stone was hauled to the dump. So, every chance we got, we loaded up the boys, hooked up the trailer and headed to the dump. I'm a cheap date.

Five years ago the high school addition was built and the construction crew had to blast for weeks and weeks. We would go there at night and stand behind the yellow Danger: Construction! tape and drool. The police patrolled the area closely, it was a liability. Piles of limestone of every size as far as you could see. The solution the city came up with was to dig a huge hole and bury all that gorgeous rock. Torture!

The boys became fascinated with, what else? Quarries & rocks. They loved to dig holes in the backyard, we gave up on the sandbox, our whole yard is sand. And then we decided to embark on a crazy venture of our own. If you can't go and play in the quarries any more, then let's build a fake one here at home. This saga ain't over yet. I am interested in knowing if anyone else here at the GW has had similar experiences and what you did to obtain your stone. I'll post more about the adventure if there's any interest. Thank you!

By the way, I was always dragging rocks home as a kid too, I guess it was a sign of things to come. :-)

I've also seen other farmers put their haywagons full of rocks out by the road with a 'FREE' sign on them, the rocks don't last long, somebody always takes them.

You're in WI, too...hmmmm....we live near Green Bay; maybe we have picked rocks in the same areas, lol! What part of the state are you in?

I've never picked rocks near Green Bay but we've got relatives in that area....I'll have to keep an eye out next time we're up that way. We're in southern WI.

We called quarries looking for what, around here, is known as ‘blast’ which is simply the rock chunks resulting from the blasting process. Yes, they had some big stuff, but no, they don’t haul it. I called C back. "Hey, what do you think we can do about rocks?"
"I don’t know," he said. "I do work with the quarry eight miles from you, but they’re pretty touchy about who they let in there to dig around. I guess you’re on your own."

I called around, looking for rock haulers. Rocks the size we wanted, ranging in weight from approximately 1000 to 4000 pounds, are incredibly hard on dump trucks. There is a special ‘rock’ box they can put in the truck, but a lot of haulers don’t have them. Finally I found a contractor who said he’d be willing to go to the quarry for us. I told him what we were looking for, he said, "Well, I ain’t gonna handpick the rock for you, whatever they scoop up out of the stuff that’s too big to go in the crusher will be what you get." Ok. The first seven dump truck loads, approximately 100 tons total, arrived in November and on the very first load, the dumptruck box had a hole punched in it from the impact of the rocks. What a mess this stone was! All sizes of rock, from gravel to 4000 pounds.
We got as many pallets as we could find and loaded the smaller stones by sizes on the pallets. The really small ones, I pitched on a trailer, usually 3 tons a day, and dumped on our lane for fill. The really big ones we chained to our 52 horse farm tractor and dragged home down the lane. We have forklift teeth on the tractor, which can lift about 3000 pounds maximum, so each rock the tractor could lift, we took turns driving home the ¼ mile one at a time. Lots of trips! By this time the weather was getting terrifically cold, the days were getting very short, and winter was coming on. Here’s some pics of the process to this point.

It was just like Christmas when I'd pitch off a whole bunch of small rocks and gravel and hit something big in the pile with my crowbar. Hooking up the chain to the exposed end, I'd pull ahead slowly with the tractor and wait to see the size of the rock I was dealing with. When the tractor couldn't pull it, I knew we had a big one! Carl would call home on his lunch hour and ask anxiously how many rocks I found in the pile that day. See, we really should get a life, I know, but these are rocks! Anyway...

Every night when Carl got home from work and the boys got home from school, we'd go out and place rocks in the quarry. Joel was 15 and Dave was 11. It took a long time to place just one; we had to drag the rock close enough with the tractor and then use crowbars and blocks to 'walk' the rock over by hand to the finished position. We'd be lucky if two got placed a night. The days are so short in November, we put a lightbulb up on a pole and worked in the dim light until we couldn't feel our feet or fingers any more. Then it was time to quit. That year was a mild winter for Wisconsin, and the ground didn't really freeze solid until around the first week in December. We had to give up for the year, the rocks were frozen down and the sand was impossible to shovel. It sure was hard to quit, though, this was a dream coming true.

The following spring, late March 2003, we got going again. Most of the big stones were already used up and Carl was starting to get nervous. He substituted with stone from the pallets here and there, but this wasn't the look he was going for. We also knew we didn't have nearly enough rock to finish this thing. I called the rock hauler again; he wasn't as happy to hear from me as the last time; (remember the hole in his truck?) but said he'd probably be able to get at it in about 3 weeks.

As luck would have it, C the Excavator stopped in with his family the next day to see how things were going. "Why are you using such small rocks, Carl? I thought you wanted big stuff?"

We assured him we certainly did want the 'big stuff' but told him about the near impossibility of acquiring it without getting the assorted flotsam and jetsam of gravel and small stones. We paid $3.50 per ton for the 120 tons of stone plus delivery, but alot of the tonnage was in the gravel and small stuff. Still, we felt it was a bargain.

Our 'quarry project' interested C, who has an absolutely palatial home and wanted landscaping to match. He's also a do-it-yourselfer, although he has the big equipment we lack. (When he saw how we moved the stones, he just chuckled, we are an endless source of amusement to him.)

"Well, I've been thinking about this project of yours and I'm going to be needing some big rock, too, for my own yard." (he was building a fantastic hillside garden in terraces) "How about I go to the quarry and load you up some one at a time? I'll just pick through the piles and load up whatever size you figure you can handle. I have a guy who owns his own dumptrucks and works with me; I'll load one for you and one for me. (C lives right next door to this huge quarry, lucky devil, and has done a lot of work for them whenever they need dirt moved off so they can blast again...they know him there)

"If you want, you can come down to the quarry and kinda point at what you want, I guess, but stay in the car. There's rules about people being in there. And, I can use some more trees, how about you pay for the stone and the hauling and the trees will be my pay for loading?"

It was a deal! A week later, the dumptruck pulled in loaded down with absolutely wonderful rock. No more gravel to dig around in, this was clean, big, rock. There was a complication, though. The dumptruck driver was not happy. This was hard on his equipment; he was right, it is. Very hard. C would pick up a very large rock with his excavator and just as gently as possible set it in the bed of the dumptruck, but still, there's an impact from even six inches in the air. His trucks were older and the boxes weren't in that great of shape anymore, and this wasn't helping matters any. C loaded until the rock was level w/the sides of the truck and he had about 20 tons on. It doesn't look like many rocks, really, but they do add up in weight. I picked the boys up after school and drove them to the quarry to watch C load up for us. They were thrilled; I told you, we are all certifiably nuts when it comes to stones. We'd get such a rush when the stone came rolling out of the back of the dumptruck, the noise and vibration are unbelievable. (yes, get a life, I know, ha.)

"How many loads do you want?" the driver asked us. "Six," we replied. "SIX!" he yelled. "I already have a stiff neck from the truck hopping around when he drops them in.....! This is way too hard on the trucks. I'm gonna have a talk with C." Well, apparently, C kept him going, because we got the six loads that day. I jumped up on the running boards and paid the truck driver right on the spot; he seemed a bit happier, but not much. Some of the rock broke from the impact of hitting the ground, but we still had much nicer stuff this time around. Carl was thrilled, we went to work once again. But we were far from done.

Here's a pic of Carl on one of the six piles of rock. More of the 'continuing saga' later. ;-)

We finally found some in a field owned by our doctor who is also really good friends of my wife's parents. We had our excavator haul a dump truck load of boulders that were anywhere from 1.5 ft to 4 ft in diameter. We hired a landscaper to have them placed in our yard where the perennial bed is now.

I've been gradually landscaping more and more of our yard over the past few years. Last summer I started doing the other side of the driveway from where the perennial bed with the rocks is. That side of the driveway was nothing but lawn and looked un balanced from the other side. I put in a new bed and rolled some of the smaller rocks over from the perennial bed, but they looked really small. I posted a picture on the "Design" forum here and was advised that it would be better to have one big rock rather than a bunch of small rocks. I really didn't want to spend a ton of money having boulders hauled in from somewhere, so I just sort of decided that wasn't an option.

Then I found them. I'm a junior high math teacher. The school I work at is just down the road. There's a large field (owned by the school) that isn't being used for anything right at the end of our street. I was taking a walk throught the field one day and noticed two large rocks that I'd seen before but never really paid any attention to. The city owned the property that the school is on before the school purchased it. I'm guessing that the city dumped these rocks there at one time because they were with a pile of old concrete that had been dumped there. When I saw these rocks, I immediately wanted them. After checking with the science department (my wife for one!), I found out that they had no use for that kind of rock. I asked the principal if I could have them and expected her to have to check with someone higher up, but she said, "Rob, I think we need to get rid of those rocks, go ahead and take them." After I picked my jaw up from the floor, I rememberd to say thank you.

Ok, so now it's August and I have permission to take these rocks, but I needed someone to move them. There's a house being built across the road from the rock field and I had noticed a very large loader working there. It didn't take me long to put the puzzle pieces together. I talked to the excavator (is it customary to give them a letter? Let's call him "K"), and we looked at the rocks together. I told him I had a ditch that he'd have to drive through, but he said he didn't need to see it. He told me he'd be at my house the week after labor day. He also told me it would cost about $100 but no more than $200.

So labor day weekend I dug two holes in the yard to place the rocks into. A week passed and no K. After about three I decided to call him. He said he'd be there next week. We played that game several more times through the fall but he never showed up. I had been hoping to do it in the fall when the ground was drier or in the early winter when the ground had frozen but we didn't have much snow so that the damage to my lawn would be less. While I was waiting for him to show up, it snowed a foot or two and I just sort of gave up until spring. Then in February we had a thaw and I started thinking about the holes in the lawn (the neighbors thought we were going to bury someone there I think). I called K and asked him if he was interested in doing the job or if I should start looking for someone else by spring. He asked me if I was available the next day. The next day was Saturday, so I said I was.

The next morning I got up early and dug the snow out of the holes. I re-leveled the ground since my son had been using the area as a sand box for a couple months before it snowed. I got out the snow blower and made a path through the snowbank from the road to the lawn so he could get through easier. I still wasn't convinced that he would actually show up though.

And then he did. Wow.

He had a loader with a 8.5 ft wide bucket on it. He spent a little while getting the rock loose since it was frozen to the ground. He picked up the first rock by slipping about 6 inches of the bucket underneath and putting a strap around the front. The majority of the rock was hanging out in front of the bucket. Then he drove it down the road to my house. He got to the ditch and informed me that if he went through the ditch with that much weight on the front, it would tip forward and he wouldn't be able to get up the other side. Now what?

The only way was to drive on my blacktop driveway. He didn't think his loader would damage it because it was frozen underneath, but no guarantees. I ran to the basement and grabbed a sheet of plywood and a sheet of OSB to protect the edge of the driveway at least. He also had to get the other rock to take in first so he dropped the first one on the side of the road. He got the other one and proceded across the lawn which slopes toward the ditch. He placed the rock and then slid sideways into the ditch. After spinning a hole about a foot deep, he was stuck. In front was a snow covered hill. Behind was a small stone retaining wall around my culvert and that other really big rock. After some walking around and head scratching he left to get another loader. We took pictures with my son in the loader while he was gone.

He came back with a HUGE loader. The tires were about 6 feet tall. It was 12 feet wide. He was supposed to have a permit to even drive it on the road because it was so wide, but of course he didn't have one. I can't believe the power that thing had. He pulled the first loader sideways to turn it around. Then while he was pulling it backwards out of the ditch, he was yelling at his buddy (who was in the smaller loader) to put in in reverse, since the wheels weren't turning as it was being pulled out of the ditch.

When he got done placing the other rock, I was afraid to ask how much this was going to cost me. I couldn't believe that he actually stuck to the price he had quoted me about 6 months before. Two hundred bucks. I was thrilled.

Now we're waiting for spring when we're having our house number engraved in the larger rock. I've been thinking about what to plant around it for the last few weeks.

So that's the story of the rocks in my yard. Sometime, I'll tell you about the stone path I built, but right now my fingers are too sore!

I had to laugh when I read about your contractor waiting process. Your contractor 'K' is like our contractor 'C'...they get around to it when they have the time. The waiting can be agonizing, as you well know. You realize they are very busy people with more on their mind and plates than getting us nutty people rocks to play with, but the sort-of promise statement, "Yeah, I'll get around to that in a coupla weeks" is like telling your kids, "We'll see," or "Go ask your mother" when they desperately want permission to do something.

I do believe contractors have good intentions, I think they are just too busy working all day, construction is very hard work. I know C's day starts out way before dawn in the warm months and ends long after dark. He is always booked far in advance and then the rush/emergency job comes up. The man needs a secretary, he was digging our pond with this huge excavator, directing the dumptruck drivers and talking on his cellphone all at the same time. He dug our pond, loaded up the excavator on the semi and left the machine running, because the next jobsite was only 3 miles away and he didn't want to take the time to restart it. I use his first initial only because he is in the EPP. (The Excavator Protection Program.) "Don't tell ANY more of your rock buddies about me! I don't need any more harrassment from you crazies!"

He's right. I would call him way too often. Wait a week, no word, two weeks, ok, gotta call him.

"C? it's.." I would start.

"Yeah, I know who this is! Karen. Who else? And you want to know when you can get your rocks. I know. I'm three weeks behind due to the rain, take a number." He was just kidding. He likes us. Really.

More later!

I forgot that you asked how much the rock weighed. K's helper just said that it was in the tons, so that isn't much help. When he placed the larger rock, he picked it up from the end so that it was sticking out the front of the bucket the long way with only a little bit of the bucket actually underneath. The rest was supported by a strap. When the loader was loaded this way, the back wheels were bouncing off the ground even moving at very slow speeds. This is the loader with the 8.5 ft. wide bucket. I think K's helper told me it was a three yard bucket.

As for the driveway, it came out of it fine. My nice new plywood has some nasty tire tracks on it though!

Speaking of big rocks & what folks will do to get them:

Jim, a friend of our excavator operator, was about 60 miles from home on business when he came upon road construction and a rock in distress. A gigantic granite boulder had been unearthed by the crew and a heavy crane operator and a quarry truck had been called in to haul it out. (those are big trucks, like your loader with the 6' tall tires) However, one of the truck's axles broke leaving it stranded in the middle of the road. Jim hopped out of his car and asked if he could have the rock. The road crew looked at him oddly, but OK, if you want it, buddy, it's yours, just get it out of here. Jim called a trucking firm and requested a semi be sent to where he was (he has connections that we don't, obviously!) When the truck arrived, he hired the crane operator to load it for him and also to follow the semi back to his house for unloading. So the caravan hits the road, Jim's car in the lead. Sixty miles later it arrives at Jim's house. Ok. Hmmmmm...now where did he want to put this thing? The semi and crane drivers were on the clock, time is ticking. He decided to have it put in the middle of his front lawn, but wasn't sure if he wanted it there permanently, could the rigging from the crane stay on it for awhile so he could move it again? (with what we don't know) The crane guy said sure, for $2000, the cost of the straps. Ok, well, skip that idea. Just put it on the lawn. When Jim's wife heard the cost of this rock (well, he says around $2500, but in reality he paid a 'bit' more than that) she flipped. No one knows the exact weight of this behemoth, it is huge, and only Jim knows the exact cost, and he's not telling. Seven years later, there it is, all alone in the middle of Jim's lawn, surrounded by a small sea of plastic edging and landscape fabric covered w/white marble chips. No plantings of any kind surround it, but thankfully, no pink flamingos either!
Is there a moral to this story? No. I just wanted to let you know there are crazier people out there than us. Sigh.

Is there a trick to moving a rock with a come-along? Do you have a special cable connecting technique or do you just wrap it around the best you can?

In the following pic, we started placing rocks in the water for a waterfall base, our son is in the water directing the rock as it is lowered in place by our wrecker. All rockaholics should have one of these! We found this hand crank 1920's era 'Manley Wrecking Crane' rusting out in a junkyard and bought it for $70, put a trailer under it--one tire off our '67 Buick the other off our old haybaler--and it was good to go. This little wrecker has done more lifting than any other piece of equipment we have. The wrecker is rated for 3000 pounds maximum; we've pushed it farther than that too many times.

Speaking of moving rocks; here's one we found across the road in the woods. The top 6 inches were exposed and my son dug down as far as he could with a shovel, he figured it was a big one. He was right. The guys hooked chains around the bottom and top and connected the two chains to a 150' cable. Then I hooked our tractor up and pulled; the wheels were spinning; we needed our other tractor hooked on too. It took both tractors to get this one out of the hole and thru the woods into the ditch. We couldn't drag it over the road without damaging the blacktop, so the wrecker to the rescue, once again. We estimate the weight of this rock to be 7000 pounds; Carl put a chain comealong from the top of the wrecker to the tractor to lift the stone higher off the ground; the tires on the wrecker were fully inflated, but looked flat, even with a counterweight hunk of limestone on the front of the wrecker to give the tractor traction, it wasn't enough. When we hooked up the comealong the front end of the tractor came off the ground, the only way to steer was with the brakes. We hooked the second tractor back on to my tractor and towed the whole contraption to where we wanted the rock to go. (For once, we actually knew where that location was, a first for us.) We call the rock Iceberg and planted hosta Titanic in front of it.... ;-) Here's a pic:

Anne-Marie, do you have any pictures to share with us? Come on, we showed you ours, you have to show us yours!

Rob

Rob, the rock to the left of the tractor isn't the one from the woods. You know how most women like wedding anniversary gifts (especially the 25th?) to be a big deal, maybe a big 'rock' to put on their finger? Well, my husband bought me a rock so big I can't wear it; it has to sit out in the yard. On our 25th wedding anniversary we went to celebrate by going (where else?) to that inactive quarry we frequent. I told you, I'm a cheap date....anyway, there it was, sitting all alone in a stand of weeds next to a broken down dumptruck. This rock must have been too big for the crusher and was so nicely aged w/no scars, my eyes got all misty and Carl knew he had the perfect gift for me. Between the two of us and the comealong we were able to load it on the trailer. We strapped the rock down and headed for the scale. My Anniversary Rock weighed in at 1800 pounds, take that Liz Taylor! I don't know the equivalent carat weight in diamonds, but I'm sure it is very impressive....;-)

Just an aside here to those folks thinking about hauling rocks for the first time...you know that warning, "Don't Try This at Home" you see on TV sometimes when a guy is going to jump off a 20 story building with a motorcycle into a bucket of Lime Jello? Ok, good. Here's my warning:

To all Rock Addicts: Please, for your safety and those who share the road with you, make sure the rocks you load are secured on or in your vehicle or trailer good and tight. We almost ended up with a one ton granite boulder in the backseat once after a deer ran out in front of us causing a panic stop; the rock slipped the ratchet straps and came forward, hitting the front gate on the trailer and breaking it; the trailer tongue hit the ground, and the Mighty Buick's front end came off the ground. Whew! We were *very* lucky that's all that happened. Now we make certain every rock is tied down with multiple ratchet straps and/or blocked with wood extremely securely. We want all you rockhounds back home safe and sound with your trophies!

No, you're not the only rock crazy person-we're certifiably nuts about 'em here. I'm looking forward to hearing tales of your escapades with your Nissan! Karen

It's fun to meet another rock addict! ;-) Karen

Rob

unbelieveable! what an awesome family project. i, too, have always loved a good rock! keep this thread open, as it's great!

aa

Thought my fellow stone collectors would appreciate the irony! (I am building a wall in the garden along the street--so hope to eventually get all those "originals" transplanted)

Everyone else who has shared their rock insanity - nice to know I've got cousins. If you've ever seen the Lucille Ball movie, The Long Long Trailer, you'll understand why my DH calls me "LUCY" now and then.

Update on the rock mania around here: we finally started buiding that round stone cottage a week and a half ago, oh boy. This is a challenge almost bigger than building the quarry was, at least in terms of 'getting it right'. I'll post some pics as soon as we have something to look at, it's very s.l.o.w.... going.
Thanks again! Karen

krensgarden and butterfly bush - thank you for sharing your pictures. That quarry is amazing!!! hmmm, it's inspiring me ...

The view from across the quarry.

Here's the inside of the building:

And here's two of the most recent pictures of the outside taken the first week in October, I'm in the background searching for a rock and Carl and David are mortaring. When the guys are gone to work and school, I dry fit stone during the day so there's some wall ready to mortar when they get home. It's sort of like a giant jigsaw puzzle with the pieces spread out all over the lawn on pallets. It really is fun, but very time consuming. Now that we are getting the hang of it, we wish we had another six months to work on this project, but I guess all gardens and gardeners need to take a break some time.

Going back to look at these pictures reminds me of the first summer working on this. The gardens have evolved so much but the rocks have stayed the same.

It's good to know I'm not the only gardener who has a dirty car trunk with rock chips in the corners, and a pile of stones in the yard just waiting to find their proper placement. . . .

Laurel

extremegardening, carrying a 100 pound rock and making it look like nothing out of the ordinary had to be an amazing feat, lol. It must have been an extraordinary rock, do you have any pics?

Laurel, good to meet a fellow rocker, wow, you've been busy this year already and have accomplished alot of projects! Speaking of car trunks and the state therein, when I went to the grocery store the other day and opened the trunk the carry-out person gave me the oddest look; we had another pile of rocks in there I'd forgotten about. (for better gas mileage, I have to remember to unload the car) It's really fun when the kids get involved and excited about collecting stones, too. Two weeks ago our youngest son was hired by the neighbor farmer to pick the stones off his farm fields (500+ acres) and he brought all of the stones home to our 'stash'. We have some really neat specimens again. Now we need another project, hmmmm...

A quick update: we just finished remodelling the front yard with some bigger leftover quarry project stone because we lost some large trees and it needed a new look. It turned out fairly well. As soon as the gardens are weeded and planted, then we'll turn our attention back to the stone cottage construction. Thank you all for your kind comments! Karen

Karen, your quarry garden is absolutely outstanding. Amazing. You could charge admission. I've never seen anything like it. I am stunned.

The pics of the forest river garden are outstanding too. Looks totally natural.

I'm so glad to know that I'm not the only one who has been picking up and collecting rocks all her life. I have rocks all over the house and yard. I have carried rocks in my car, rocks in my suitcase (although never a 100lb one!) sent rocks UPS, had friends bring me rocks. I love rocks.

My rock projects are very small by the standards of this thread.

That quarry brought tears to my eyes. Your descriptions of your adventures are so well written. You should publish a book, complete with color illustrations. You write beautifully and you have such a story to tell.

I will be awaiting updates, and I will often think of you and your family as I work on my (lame) brick and stone projects.

Thanks to each of you for your rock stories. I enjoyed every one of them.

p.s. Thanks for the reminder about the gas milage -- I have rocks in my trunk right now.

I know that you already started. but have you ever read about the 'trulli' built by southern italians. they built
round stone cottages, with conical roofs-- interlocking
circles form the various rooms to mitigate damage from earthquakes.

diggerb

blacky1

-jasper

We hauled more dirt back from the pile one yard at a time and gradually built up the area. The pictures show our progress from September 06 to the first of December.
Here is the way it looked before we removed the trees.

krensgarden
Removing trees:

krensgarden
Below we are moving rocks out of the way after the trees were down.

krensgarden
More dirt hauled back in:

krensgarden
Views of the new wall taking shape:

krensgarden
Finally, the view as of our last construction for the year:

krensgarden

krensgarden

I built a low but long retaining wall this summer that turned out nice. I also finished the path I started last summer. I tore out the lawn on the other side of the path and planted more shade plants.

Your retaining walls are beautiful and your entire garden looks like a botanical paradise, so lush and cool. Are you still getting stone from the area around your home? You have some beauties there and an eye for rock placement; everything looks so natural. Thank you for sharing!

I'm going to try to take a break from major additions to my yard next summer and try to just enjoy it. I'm pretty sure that won't happen, but that's the plan.

I have said it before, and I'll say it again: This is the best thread I have ever read on GardenWeb. Thank you for your generosity.

And Jugglerguy -- Your stone wall is just like something I am going to be working on this Spring. I very much appreciate the pics. You did a very nice job, and I am only hoping for a similar result.

Thanks for the compliment. I should warn you that it was harder than I thought it would be to build that wall. However, I'm more proud of that wall than anything else in my yard.

Here are a couple things I learned:

I think the wall looks better with big rocks, but big rocks are heavy and much more difficult to work with.

Get rocks with a flat side for the front. I tried to have fairly flat sides facing outward.

The more rocks you can have around, the easier it will be. I gathered my rocks in a Jeep Wrangler, so I could only bring a few home at a time. You'll have an easier time building if you have 20 or more rocks to choose from. I built and rebuilt parts of the wall many times before I got the rocks to fit together just right. I also started in the middle and worked both ways to I'd have two places to try to fit rocks to. The more options the better.

The first two rows of rocks are the easiest, because the bottom row can be lowered into the ground at any angle or depth. You might want to put your less than perfect rocks on the first layer for this reason. Bury the bumpy parts that wouldn't stack nicely.

I didn't make a base of gravel, but I probably should have. The ground here is pure sand, so I didn't think I would have a drainage problem. I also didn't use any landscape fabric behind my wall, but that might be smart to do. I chinked the wall from behind with smaller rocks and the small holes are stuffed with cedar bark mulch from under my kids' swings. A neighbor kid worked for a landscaper last summer and told me that's what they did between rocks. Good idea? I'll let you know in a few years. So far it's working.

I hope some of that advice helps. I'm just winging it here, so please realize that I'm not giving professional advice.

Rob

gardenscout, gosh, thank you for the compliments; I'm glad you're enjoying our ongoing antics. It's great to know other people share the same addiction; wouldn't it be fun to visit each other's yards and discuss rocks and projects?

The stone house is something we're talking about a lot so far this winter. Once again, we have no blueprint really, it's just a picture drawn out on paper and we've yet to commit to the finished look which will also depend on the amount of rocks we have leftover. We'll probably end up hauling some more stone from the nearby quarry again, but the Mighty Buick ain't what she used to be and my contractor friend is always busy (gee I wonder why?) Carl saw a dumptruck for sale on the side of the road and I managed to talk him out of it...yes, it would be great... but it needed all new tires and neither of us has a license to drive one, lol. It is fun to dream, however!

PS we all look forward to hearing/seeing more this year.

We got involved with finishing and remodeling the quarry garden and a whole bunch of other stuff, like moving the little 'barn' again (for the 4th and final time--at least, that's what we told our son, who wasn't amused!)

Last fall, our furnace gave out, so we installed geothermal which meant we had to tear up the entire west side of our yard (about a half acre) and saw down trees, dig up hundreds of hostas and perennials and relocate as many as possible.

The bright side of this was the opportunity to change the entire landscape of the front of the house, AND to get more rocks! Our 'digger guy' "C" is still around, too, and he was instrumental in the geothermal excavation and in loading another 130 tons from the local quarry for us. We had "C" make a berm close to the house and that's where we started the new rock garden. We're not sure if it fits in the landscaping or not, and we jokingly refer to it as 'the elephant burial mound' which is kind of self-explanatory. :-)

The first pic shows one of the four trenches:

Below is a picture of Carl & I after two of the six loads of rocks were delivered.

By December 2009, this was as far as we got on the Elephant Burial Mound:

I have to take more updated pictures of this garden, especially after the dwarf conifers and flowers are planted.

I started a blog about the garden with lots of pictures and all the other goofy stuff that goes on around here which goes into much more detail, if you're interested, the address is:
http://krensgarden-karen.blogspot.com/