One thing I really like is my rocks, and I HAVE rocks!
I have them in the house and outside.
This pile is roughly 25 feet long and 3-4 feet high. These are mostly from wet-weather streams and creeks. I used these for edging flower beds and making paths.
I carried in all these sandstone rocks for a reflexology path, and bought the river gravel.
I had several more gardens when I was younger. I even had a Kid’s garden for families and school groups.
My two remaining gardens (moon and butterfly) are plenty to keep me busy now.
Notice how clean these stones look? That’s because they’re a little further from the highway, and are under a pine and a hackberry tree.
We live on a busy highway just outside of town. It wasn’t so busy until a few years ago when they started mining coal just three miles south of our house. There are two other mines in the area. One of them also hauls coal past our house. This translates into 24 hours a day of trucks “running” the highway. They do take off on weekends from Saturday afternoon until Sunday afternoon.
A tarp covers the bed of every truck. Apparently plenty of coal dust gets into the air anyway. Our old cistern and the rocks on it are turning darker and darker from coal dust. The cistern is 56 yards from highway with the end our house in between. Rocks from a stream my mother and I used to hunt are on the cistern and are dark now.
Notice where the lower part of the rock chipped off, and what the natural color of the rock should be. All the rocks around it are also a matching dark gray color.
I took this stone in the house and scrubbed it with soap and a tooth brush.
This shows how the rock won’t return to its natural state.
I do counts occasionally of how many semi’s drive by in an hour. I count them for 15 minutes and multiply by 4. The lowest number was 128, and the highest so far has been 164!
This stone is farther back in the backyard. I’d be sick if it got covered with coal dust. It’s always looked like a Monet to me.
And then there are what I call my “prehistorics.” They look like the faces and heads of prehistorics creatures. I have about 50 of them at the base of my moon garden.
Now, I’m thinking what to do about this situation. Where do I move my stones to that might also be affected at some point?
I want them where I can enjoy them.
