Tag: rock

Rock painting

On By CarynIn Craft

Here is a nice social distancing but still connecting activity: rock painting. The idea is that you paint a rock and leave it for others to find, in hopes that it brightens their day. The finder can keep the rock or hide it for someone else to find. There are groups all over participating, but if you don’t have one in your area, The Kindess Rocks Project has tips and instructions.

Washed rocks laying out to dry

We paint in flurries. I’ll wash a bunch of rocks (I usually buy a bag of decorative rock at the hardware store), let them dry, and my eldest and I will paint one or two, and my youngest will paint 10. I’ll then go back and on the rocks that she painted a near solid color, I’ll add some inspirational (hopefully) words. Doing our part to reach out, but not touch anyone!

Rocks painted with acrylic, one on right sealed with Helmsman Spar Urethane

I like painting eyes on rocks, especially using the color of the rock as the skin tone. I’m not sure why I seem to only paint left eyes. Default setting maybe. Hmm. Maybe as the social distancing continues I will use my time to paint more right eyes.

When life hands you rocks…

On By CarynIn Garden

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:

rock in the garden
Rock in the garden

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

wheelbarrow with large lump of concrete
leftover concrete “rock”

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.)

When life hands you rocks, make a path.