This afternoon I was slaving away in the lower yard and feeling amazed at the number of rocks that seem to have appeared out of nowhere.  I got rid of wheelbarrows full of them last spring, and yet here they are, as if those rocks were able to reproduce.  It’s spooky.

I have such an aversion to picking up rocks due to the hideous job that I had to do for my dad when I was a kid.  My brother and I often talk about our experiences of picking up rocks for dad and both of us are sure we’ve been affected negatively by it.

We both remember being forced to do it a few times during our teen years.  Both of us remember the same things.  There was the steady speed of the tractor as my dad sat at the steering wheel.  The poor kid had to walk behind it, picking up rocks of a certain size and heaving them onto the trailer.

Dad was constantly peering right and left like an old whale fisherman.  When he spotted a rock, he’d point at it saying something like, “over there, over there!”

Neither my brother nor I could ever find anything under the pressure of dad’s expectations.  So the rock pick-up days were also fraught with terror as we could never see the rock to which he was pointing.

Just like when he’d send us on a mission to the garage to get “that blue-handled axe” or whatever he wanted.  As we walked to the garage, we knew we were doomed.

On top of that, it was always stinking hot, and you were walking in the dust kicked up by the tractor.  Then there was the bending and picking up of those disgusting, huge rocks, and throwing them onto the rapidly-moving trailer.

Perhaps the practice of having kids, especially in their teen years, picking up rocks would do wonders.  My brother and I often wonder about it, and both feel that once you’ve done what’s basically the equivalent of working on a chain gang, you can pretty much do anything at all.

Or better yet, get the kids to become veterinarians.  I just paid $565 to have Ricky’s teeth cleaned.  The dog weighs just 12 pounds, so imagine how little tooth surface could’ve been involved.  But the vet shamed me into having it done by saying the dog had one of the worst cases of plaque he’d ever seen!

After that I simply can’t afford to hire any landscaping help, so am thanking my lucky stars that I was hardened up by dad for life on Hall Road.