The View from a Drawbridge

I never thought I’d buy something that weighed over 900 pounds unless I was planning to drive in it or live in it, but the other day we did just that. We kind of had no choice. People love to do u-turns in our driveway, not realizing how soft the ground is if you leave the paved area. And they always leave the paved area. We have the deep, muddy trenches in the lawn to prove it.

We tried putting several cantaloupe and watermelon-sized rocks there, but they’d just drive over them or shove them aside. We’d just look away and shake our heads as these people sped off with nary an apology for their destructive natures. But now we have our little free library out front, and there’s the fear that some fool would slide up in there and take out a pedestrian or the library itself. So it was time to get serious.

So we went rock shopping. Now that’s a sentence I never thought I’d type. Who goes rock shopping?

You don’t realize just how much rock variety there is out there until you start looking. All different shapes and sizes and compositions. You kind of have to have an open mind when making this sort of purchase, because you’re never going to find one that is exactly the right shape and size for your purposes. You can’t be inflexible. You can’t be rocklike when rock hunting.

Personally, I fell in love with a thick granite slab with golden streaks through it. It was beautiful. It had a nice flat top, and when the sun hit it just right, it sparkled. I could have gazed at that rock all day long. Images of kids sitting on it to read books from the library. I mean, I really, really, really wanted that rock.

But dear husband made a good point. It was too low to the ground. Our neighborhood truck driving fools would probably just drive right over the top of it, or a smaller car wouldn’t see it in the dark and would rip out their undercarriage.

Well, shoot. There’s nothing more annoying than practical observations when you’ve already fallen in love. But yeah, I had to reluctantly turn my back on that gorgeous boulder. I will remember it fondly.

There was a better option. It was ugly compared to its golden-streaked neighbor. I was just a lopsided chunk of basalt. It didn’t speak to me, really. You might even say it maintained a stony silence. (Sorry. Had to.)

But it was the right size, and tall enough so that it couldn’t be overlooked or driven over. And basalt is a very dense rock. Nobody is going to move this sucker without some heavy equipment.

In fact, they had to use a forklift to get it over to the scales so we could find out how much it would cost. This place prices their rocks by the type and by the ton. And it turns out that this particular rock weighed 900 pounds.

Think about that for a moment. The average male deer weighs about 150 pounds, and we all know what one of them can do to your car’s front end. This boulder is one to be avoided. It’s your basic working class, utilitarian rock. I became convinced that it was what we needed.

So, we bought ourselves a rock, and it was delivered a few days later. There was much conversation with the forklift operator, because as he said, once this thing was off the pallet and on the ground, it wasn’t going anywhere. There would be no tweaking its position. Welcome home, rock, you’re here to stay.

I had grown up around large rocks in Connecticut. I used to love climbing on them. Then we moved to Florida, the land of sand and limestone. I missed the rocks of my youth. It’s lovely to be in the Pacific Northwest amongst rocks again. But I never thought I’d own one.

It’s kind of sad that we’ll never know for sure where our rock came from originally. Boulders, as a general rule, don’t come with certificates of provenance. But I can’t imagine anyone would bother to transport it very far. It may not weigh a ton, but it weighs a lot.

But the bulk of the Columbia River Gorge right here in Washington State is made up of basalt. So I’d like to think that this rock was once along the banks of that mighty river. It’s kind of romantic, if you think about it.

And just like that, I became attached to the thing. So that’s how we bought ourselves a boulder. I’ll say it now so that you won’t be tempted to clutter up the comments section: Yes, we rock.

My book rocks, too! Check it out! http://amzn.to/2mlPVh5