After hurricane Irene had nearly safely passed by us, a rather small branch fell across the supply wires shutting down our electrical power. With so many others without power, we waited for nearly four days for repairs. Only 49 customers are served by our line. We have a small pull start generator but Ed has lost some of his power to pull. We will not be without electric power again. The stone pad is preparation for a self starting, propane powered, automatic transfer generator. Our gravel bank is providing the fill to secure the pad.
When a small load of gravel was pulled uphill by our small lawn tractor, Ed excitedly announced that he had uncovered the largest rock ever. Since we discovered that our abandoned farmland contained too many rocks to be farmed, our fear has been that a unearthing a rock larger than we can move would stop a project. So far we have been able to handle all that have come our way.
Gravity rolled the undermined rock out where we could see it. Glacial deposition had broken this rock. The other half may be far away. Cracks showed where to place the chisel. A few well placed blows from the hand sledge hammer caused the rock to create an audible crack. One rock became two. Two became four.
On occasion the newly revealed surface is smooth enough to be used as a sidewalk stone. That was not the case with this monster. These pieces will likely be used in the next stone wall project. We usually build with much smaller stone since small stone is what we have in abundance. Long flat chunks could make the wall visually interesting. They will wait at the gravel bank till we want to use them. One thing we have here is plenty of rocks!
2 comments:
We grow rocks like that here in Pennsylvania, too! What were the dimensions of that monster?
At ten inches thick and twenty-seven long, this one is at least in the top ten. Its triangular shape and missing piece made it smaller than I expected. Those expectations will bite you every time.
Post a Comment