When you want to see the stars, find someplace dark
Being home for a while has let me finish up the ongoing landscaping project in the back yard. The last earth moving is in process with the area taking on the final configuration, just stacking rocks and some more planting to do.
Also need to get more mulch from the county green waste facility, at least three trailer loads.
The wall building project is now well along, with sections of completed wall and the outline what it will look like when I am done now apparent.
At this point there is 18 ft of completed wall, another 52 lineal feet of various height walls in various stages of completion from first course laid to nearly topped out. Another 11 feet will be started shortly to complete the first phase of wall building.
To create this much wall over five tons of rock has been loaded, driven 19 miles, unloaded, and hauled to the back yard. Twelve wheelbarrow loads per ton. About 70% of that rock has been stacked into the walls, the remainder in piles awaiting use.
Continue reading “Stacking Stone”
With the big wall completed along the driveway, and a bit of a break over a hot muggy summer, I am again building walls.
This is not the sort of wall between people, I detest those, but rather a real rock wall, terracing the backyard to make the space available for landscaping and other projects. This puts into action a plan that has been brewing for years.
Part of the impetus is that I have a source of rock secured, a very large pile of very nice rock found in a Waimea backyard. One of my co-workers casually mentioned he needed to rid himself of a pile of rock, to which I quickly asked… How much rock?
Continue reading “Building More Walls”For weeks now I have been digging. Pickaxe, shovel, wheelbarrow, hard manual labor, and it just gets harder.
I am digging away at the slope behind the garage, solving longstanding drainage issues, creating a nice level walkway, building a small retaining wall.
The first stage was digging out all along my garage, reworking the slope, pulling the soil away from the foundation, giving the water somewhere to go other than right along the wall. This involved a couple dozen wheelbarrow loads of soil and rock removed and about thirty feet of two foot retaining wall… Done!
Continue reading “The Last Load”Seymour Narrows is a bit of water one approaches with caution. This narrow passage north of Campbell River provides the shortest route between Vancouver Island and the mainland for transiting vessels. This passage is also subject to dramatic tidal currents of up to fifteen knots.
The strong currents create large areas where the water seems to boil, dotted with whirlpools and debris swept along by the rushing water. The result is what explorer Captain George Vancouver described in his logs as “one of the vilest stretches of water in the world.”
The passage was once much worse, a large rock named Ripple Rock lurked just under the surface at low tide. This mid channel rock created huge standing waves and vicious eddies as the current ran over it.
I have often noted how much many of the boulders around Waikoloa look like animals. There is one rock along the upper road that looks precisely like a cow when seen from the side at any distance. Just a natural remnant of these old Mauna Kea lava flows.
It is no surprise that most folks have the same observation, some of these rocks just look like cattle, all they need is horns?
A serious laugh-out-loud, try not to drive off the road, moment when I first saw them. Someone had indeed added some horns to the rocks. Not little horns either, but big Texas longhorn style horns. Halfway from Waikoloa Village to the Mamalahoa Highway, you can see a herd of a truly unusual breed. Perhaps the rare Waikoloa Basalt Angus?
Closer examination of the horns reveals that they are well made. Heat worked PVC pipe for the horns, tightly wrapped with rope and painted at the center. The horns are held on with heavy cable neatly crimped around the boulders.
Another surprise, the artists have signed their work, the names Ed Vasquez and Bill Bezona melted into the plastic. We have seen Ed’s art before, birds and other odd creatures appearing along local roads. We had seen nothing for a while, this is the first installation I have seen in about a year.
Nice job guys! A little fun along my morning commute.
