Some people hate ’em, and some see them as a natural resource waiting to be put to work. When it comes to rocks in the garden, I fall firmly into the second camp.

A Wild Ozark Weekly-ish

A lot of what I do and when I do them is dependent on weather and the seasons. Sometimes it’s fully dependent on urgency, and a task is done regardless of the other things on the list to be done. Here’s a summary of life at Wild Ozark for the past week or so.

If you find reading this sort of thing interesting, I’ll try to remember to post something to this effect every week. I haven’t been very regular with making posts, but it’s an ongoing issue I’d like to remedy.

Fence Repairs

This little job is from a few weeks ago. It fell into the ‘urgent’ category, so everything else went on hold to cow-proof the fence by our gate. To keep cows OUT, not in. With only 2 strands of barbed wire, it worked great as it was to keep my horses in (as long as the gate stays closed).

But not so good for keeping cows out.

Don’t laugh – I like to use whatever’s on hand to at least temporarily solve a problem. What I had on hand at this moment was hay string and branches, and I didn’t want to run all the way back to the house to get actual fencing supplies. This works, though – seriously!

It has successfully deterred the wandering, roving herd for a while now. But I’ll either need to use some fresher sticks or mend it properly eventually. For now, though, it’s doing the job.

Berry Time!

When the berries are ripe, it’s time to pick them. They won’t wait until I feel like it, at least not for long. This was last week. Wineberries (an invasive Asian version of wild raspberries) and blackberries were plump, ripe, and I was hungry for a cobbler.

For the past several years the berries dried up with drought, but this year we’ve had regular rains and they looked scrumptious.

I probably ate more of them than I brought home, though, and I felt like a browsing bear in the bushes, lol. However, I did manage to get enough to make a small cobbler and it was good.

Rocks in the Garden

In addition to using rocks for my paints, I also use rocks in the garden. They’re one of my most valuable Wild Ozark players! My garden is on a hillside behind the house, and so it’s terraced.

Most of the beds are terraced with rock retaining walls. Many of the rocks were already there and just needed to be moved into place. But now I’m having to haul rocks INTO my garden. I realize this is the opposite direction of travel when it comes to most people and rocks.

Building a Pathway

The goal is to have a sturdy, LEVEL-ish, path to the water spigot. For the years since the garden first began, walking up the hill to the water was a practice in sideways walking. So, over the years I made the steps to the upper level. Now I’m finally working on the path over to the faucet.

Hauling Gravel and Rocks in the Garden

I’m working on this in 1 to 2-foot segments. That’s about all of the energy I have for the day for this task.

For each square foot of the path, it takes a 5-gallon bucket of gravel to make the bed. The gravel is in the creek. When it rains hard enough, we get deposits of gravel – very handy, except that it’s always where the tractor can’t reach it. So I take the 4-wheeler to the edge of the creek and fill the bucket with a shovel.

Then it’s a job to get the bucket up out of the creek and over to the 4-wheeler. It’s too heavy to lift to the basket, so I put the bucket on the floor board (opposite side of where the shift is) and steady it with my foot on top of the gravel, inside the bucket, all the way back to the house.

Getting the bucket up to the worksite is another labor of love. I lunk it one step at a time up the hill to the part already finished. Then dump it into the waiting spot. But the spot has to be ready to receive it first.

To make it ready, I make a low wall of rocks to retain the gravel. Once the gravel is dumped, I’ll put a flat surface rock on the top and twist it around to level it. Sometimes I need more hand sized rocks to make it work, but in the end, it’s close enough.

As of today, I’m not quite halfway to my goal.

Art on the Easel

Unfortunately, when I’m working on a project like the pathway, I’m not working on my painting. However, yesterday I did to a little more work on it to correct a spot that’s been bothering me.

The treetop on the left looks as intended, when I’m looking straight at it. However, if I look from an angle I can still see old brushmarks and a darker color. If I can’t mask that somehow, I’ll have to live with it, I guess.

That’s a Wrap

I’ll try to remember to make a summary post next week. I did a lot of other things this week, too, but didn’t keep a record of it. So, of course now I can’t remember what I’ve done.

What did your week consist of?