Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2005
Dear Diary:

I call it Mount Marn.

Mount MarnSo as I mentioned earlier, Calvin came about a month ago and did the Insanely Over The Top Landscaping that I have been dreaming of for years upon years. Nearly 30 dump trucks worth of forest loam later I have my very own escarpment in front of our house.

I know. I can feel your envy from here. I don't blame you one bit.

Almost 30 years ago when we built the road up to this house, we had to have all the black forest loam bulldozed off the road route, taking the road down to the more stable clay base underneath. Said black gold was piled in big banks on the other side of the road ditches where it sat. For decades.

I would pass it constantly as I drove or walked to and from our home, watching it sprout ferns and raspberries, fully aware of the incredible gardening potential just sitting there.

Taunting me.

On and off I saved for my big landscaping dream, to cart all this glorious potential up in front of our home. I imagined serpentine stone walls and elaborate plantings, but life had a way of getting in the way of these dreams.

There were unforeseen emergencies. Work for the spousal unit dried up. Time and again, money meant for dreams ended up being spent on the prosaic.

But I never stopped dreaming.

Rocks I got yer rocksThis being the Eastern Townships of Quebec and all, that beautiful forest loam came with a buttload of rocks. As he moved the soil into the dump truck, Calvin sorted out the truly huge rocks, but a fair number of very big rocks came up and much time had to be spent either burying them or dragging them out of the way. Rocks were a major headache in this project.

By late afternoon the escarpment was built. The spousal unit sent me down the road below our house to look up at the job from there, to make sure I was truly satisfied.

I wasn't.

For a moment I hesitated to voice my problem because I was afraid that it might induce a life ending seizure in the spousal unit. Frankly, I'm getting on in years and finding another spousal unit probably wouldn't be an easy matter. Plus, I've practically broken this spousal unit's free will. Imagine how much work would go into browbeating acclimatizing another man to my charming quirks.

But then I figured that what with the way I've cleaned up our diet and got us both exercising more, his heart probably could take the stress of what I was about to say.

Probably.

"It needs a rock feature," I yelled up to the spousal unit. I think I mentioned earlier that one of the big headaches in this project had been dealing with rocks.

And now I wanted to actually bring a rock up the hill. And not any old rock. For years I had been contemplating a ginormous rock just below the house. It was long, kind of flat and kind of crinkly. That rock. I wanted That Rock.

The spousal unit and Calvin exchanged a look. I think the words "women are our cross to bear" pretty much sums it up. The two them walked down the hill and the three of us contemplated The Ginormous Crinkly Rock. Calvin said there was no way that his back hoe could lift it, but if it would budge, he might be able to flip it end over end up our road, through our yard, and down the hill in front of our house.

Maybe.

I looked wistfully at the spousal unit. He took a deep breath. The project had already run over our budget because of the time it had taken to deal with the buttload of rocks that had come with the soil. Now I wanted to bring a rock.

Insanity.

Just tinkering to see if the rock would budge would run things further over budget and then heaven only knew how long it would take to move a ginormous rock one flip at a time into place below our house.

Pure extravagance.

We are two people who can't afford extravagance because we're both self-employed and at the best of times we just percolate along. Plus, because we've known very tough times, it's not in either of our natures to be extravagant. The more Calvin discussed the potential problems with moving the rock, the more I realized how frivolous and expensive it would be.

One flip at a time."Let's not bother," I said to the spousal unit. "Things look great." And they did. The spousal unit turned to Calvin. "Try moving the rock." Calvin walked back up the hill, there was a throaty roar as his backhoe came to life and then the soft rumble of the behemoth grinding down our road.

Experimentally, he tugged at the ginormous rock. It budged.

The hour that it took Calvin to move the rock, one flip at a time, was one of the longest of my life. There were some hair raising moments when it tottered as if it was going to fall off our road.

There was a particularly tricky and difficult stretch where he had to coax it down the very steep hill in front of our house without losing control of it.

One flip at a time.But he did it. When he was done, it was almost dark which is why this picture of me and my pet rock is a little hard to make out. I can't begin to tell you how happy this rock makes me.

Yep, some women want diamonds. Some want a fancy wardrobe. Me, I want dirt and rocks. I am fully aware of how ridiculous that is.

At the moment my new escarpment is sheathed in ugly plastic to keep it from being eroded by the amazing rains we've had. The hill will get at least eight months to stabilize before I start scaling it to plant it with hostas. The enormity of the hill has sunk in and I doubt I have enough hosta to do it in one piece. I may have to buy half a pound or so of nasturtium seed to fill in what I can't plant while I keep propagating hosta.

You have no idea how giddy the thought of half a pound of nasturtium seed makes me.

After that, I'll be spending months and months hauling and stacking rock to build an enormous dry laid stone wall in front of the hill.

You have no idea how giddy the thought of hauling and stacking tons of rock for months and months makes me. It is fueling my weightlifting workouts because I will have to be in the best shape of my life to build a wall this huge.

I am fully aware of how ridiculous that is, too.

Occasionally I go outside and lift an edge of the plastic and touch the dirt of my new escarpment. It is rich, crumbly, black and almost pure composted leaves. There is so much life in this soil, so much potential that it is insanely sensual to feel it against my palm. I can hardly wait to plant it. Only the tiniest shred of decorum keeps me from ripping my clothes off and rolling in it.

This morning before I was leaving for the gym I decided to shift the place where I feed the cats. The spousal unit is building kitchen cabinets and the place where I normally feed the cats has an enormous pile of pine in front of it, pine he will shift into his workshop in a few weeks.

Despite the fact I was saving them the hassle of scrambling over a big pile of wood, the cats were very disgruntled about this change because cats do not take well to change. They all watched me move the bowls and the water and they all moseyed back to their old feeding spot and nosed around, making it clear that this was a far, far preferable dining experience than the new place.

I mocked them for their inflexibility, told the spousal unit they were being big sillies.

So then I drove down to my gym only to find that the power was out in the small Vermont town where my gym was located and my gym was closed for the day. I was extremely disgruntled because it is my habit to go to the gym on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and now, suddenly, I had to change my habit and work out on a Thursday which, as we all know, is completely wrong.

When I came home and grumbled to the spousal unit about this he started to laugh and said, "And the difference between you and the cats would be �."

Hmph. I hate it when he does that.

--Marn

Mileage on the Marnometer: 1161.23 miles. 10 per cent rubber duck10 per cent rubber duck10 per cent rubber duck10 per cent rubber duckhalf way smooch10 per cent rubber duck Over half way there. Oh, man, please let this be over

Goal for 2005: 1,250 miles - 2000 kilometers


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