ROCKS! | HCA #1

I love rocks. And I didn't always - honestly as a younger man I underappreciated stone and preferred mostly to build and work with wood. I am an arborist at heart anyway, trained since I was 11 years old - so this perhaps is a natural starting point for me.

I remember my grandpa showing me a "rock pile" on the back 40, a pile of rocks that were tilled out of the fields long ago and piled up, if we ever "needed them". It was long grown over with weeds and situated off the path between tended corn rows. A bunch of rocks - that we never used for anything. Mostly because, I realized later, that the pile used to be three times as tall before someone built berms all over the property with these large limestones!

But living on our own homestead for so many years has given me time to appreciate "rocks", and their uses, more. I got a chance to live without berms made by a previous generation, and our farm Buena Vista is much less "rocky" than glacial south eastern Wisconsin. I have moved a lot of rocks around at this point, and I have almost always found a use for them. Big rocks, small rocks - I have even had to purchase tiny rocks (called gravel, or triturado) for many reasons, including throwing them on the ground.

Seriously. This patch never gets muddy anymore, so the cluttery of bamboo leaves never gets slippery and dangerous.

But beyond pathing, bigger rocks are bigger fun, and I found somewhere along the way of my "journey" that I have the manual and artistic patience to build things with big rocks, and by that I mean things like Rock Walls. Our topography is quite steep, and even "flat spots" in our Andean Mountains are really undulating and sloping hills within hills, on top of mountains. In order to "build" (with wood, metal, cement or otherwise), it becomes increasingly necessary to have something like a "rock wall" in your tool kit.

This is the same principle behind terracing, except there is no need for a continuous contour, just patchy miniature bluffs wherever you need them, dotting the landscape even.

Backfill while Stacking, interplant for stability

This particular rock wall was made to support our second, and now main, meeting area where teams can come together to meet, plan and activate in person on projects, enjoy recreation or a little bit of both - such as the legendary aviturismo or "birdwatching". Nowadays Citizen Science platforms such as eBird and Merlin can make birdwatching enjoyment available to all ages and knowledge levels. And having a "safe space to set your bag down" is an important element to a site such as ours - utilitarian spaces within the green mass.

And don't sleep on steps, where a rocky organization of selected stones can serve both function and fashion. Just watch out how you swing the machete around stone steps, ask me how I know 😅

Rocks

Piedras have become a big part of my life. It sounds funny, but also rock has a special power in land transformation - its permanence and age. Bamboo falls apart. But Stones stay. And its a super power!

Freedom and Friendship

PS - join my Mom's Hive Community Activity if you think that part of "having a community" means doing stuff together. It will make my Mom @snook happy, so do it now please.