So today I started clearing the area where I want to put my garden. It is in the middle of the Chicken Fort Knox rotating runs. (I have three runs, one of which will be the garden, and I plan to rotate which areas the chickens have access to so they don’t completely clear out the runs, and have some enrichment activities when a new run is opened. Or go hog wild when I let them turn over my garden. Hehe.) I started with the hoe, chopping out the weeds and grass. This is great exercise, let me tell you what. Suddenly I feel a “clunk.”

I had hit a rock. No biggie. Turning over dirt in a place that has not been turned over before, that can be expected. I dug around the rock, lifted it up, and carried it over to the retaining wall I’m setting up by the side of the house.

Clunk. This time it was a brick. Easy. Bricks are easy to dig out.

Clunk. Are you kidding me? Clunk, clunk, clunk. How big is this thing? This is how big:

Ok, so it is hard to tell from that picture. How about this one?

That in the wheelbarrow is leftover concrete that was dumped in the field, probably when the house was built. It is approximately 2 feet by 3 feet. I can’t estimate the weight, but it was fairly thin (2-3″?). But in the middle of my garden. Now we have a few large rocks on the property that are native stone. Picking up large stones is not realistic or safe, so I tip them up using levers, and then tip them into my handy-dandy-favorite-wheel-barrow-ever, and roll the thing where I need it to go. Still hard work, but not back breaking (literally). I have been slowing moving rocks and making a path by the side of the house. This is definitely not native stone, but the back was nice and flat, so I hauled it over to the side of the house and shored it up with some of the dug up bricks, and it is now a stepping stone.

So when life hands you rocks, make a path! (Or a retaining wall. That works too.)