To Build A...Wall

Now that we have settled on an interior design, the new challenge will be to create curb appeal on the exterior of the house. But let’s face it – the economy is still in the toilet, and we are in no position to break ground on a project. The desire to improve our house still consumes me, however, so for now I am moving on to greener pastures. Or in my case, greener projects. This past weekend was an exceptionally pleasant one weather-wise, and the outdoors beckoned until we all ended up out back – the girls playing, the dog sniffing, and me, well, I found a little corner of the backyard that needed some TLC.

As I have mentioned before, the neighbor behind us is the proud owner of a gigantic rock formation that provides a beautiful natural buffer between our properties. On the actual property line, many of the rocks that were uncovered when digging our foundation have been strewn about, but mostly in the two back corners. The back right corner is home to most of the larger boulders, whereas the back left corner has two boulders and a messy heap of smaller stones of various sizes. At least, it HAD a messy heap until we set to work transforming it. Now, it has a beautiful little wall which will soon provide the backdrop for a lovely flower garden!

I found myself back there perusing the scene while my daughters played by the wild cherry tree that currently serves as their “Nature Clubhouse”. My original intent was to create a compost pile that would not be visible from our house. Last summer I had begun to throw vegetable and fruit waste behind the rock heap, just to “see what would happen”. Nothing really happened, which I saw as a good sign. No animals came, other than a deer or two to nibble at some cauliflower. I thought this year I would dig a deeper hole and see if I could actually derive some benefit, such as soil for plantings. As I began to pull out the vines (of which there were MANY), I noticed a significant number of interesting rocks that were easily moved. Unfortunately, in the process of removing these rocks I disturbed quite a plethora of insect homes, but my daughters eagerly transported many of the refugees to new homes around the yard. Whether or not the bugs were appreciative of this effort, we’ll never know. I did, however, witness a fair amount of little girl screaming (some joyous, some in disgust), which helped me to understand that the girls were having a lot of fun with this new responsibility. All of a sudden, after about half an hour of work, I had a huge pile of rocks!

Just as I was finishing the clean-up portion of this project, Hubby returned from his “errands” (getting coffee, looking at cars, stopping by Home Depot, etc.) and immediately joined the team. After donning his work gloves, he went right to work moving some of the larger stones into support positions. We spent the next ten minutes or so matching up rocks to pile on top of each other until we had exhausted our supply. It was too early in the season to plant anything, but we will be at Home Depot soon to find flowers for our newly minted garden. Friends came over Saturday evening and admired our handiwork. We are pleased with the results, and encouraged to know that sprucing up our property can be an interesting family activity that costs $0!