Introduction
I sprained my wrist, I have some old injuries from a previous job, and I have been doing a lot of dirt moving over the past couple months trying to get my garden ready, so I have been trying to come up with some projects that don’t require as much strain on my wrists.
I was unsuccessful… but what can you do? We have an old stone planter that was here when we bought the house in 2018. It was put together brick and mortar style with large and small stones, and at one point I am sure it was super cute. But years of neglect and weather have eroded most of the top stones and I have taken dirt out of it repeatedly for projects, so it was time to level it. Little did I know the small stone planter I thought it was turned into an iceberg project.
Tackling the Top Layer
I started by laying a tarp out next to the planter that I could throw the rocks on so they didn’t end up in my lawn and then into my lawn mower. Then started removing all of the loose rocks on the top layer, this was mostly done by me kicking the rocks and then tossing them onto the tarp (so not resting my wrist at all!)
Breaking the Rock
Once I had all the loose rocks out of the way I went and found my husband’s old rock hounding hammer which is just a small hammer with a pick end. I started hammering at the mortar that was holding the rocks together to try to separate them and make the rock moving a little more manageable. I had to stop halfway through and put on safety goggles when my husband got home and reminded me that I would indeed be angry if I got a piece of concrete in the eye. So, remember to wear your safety glasses when breaking rock!
A Titanic Level of Frustration
Once I got down to the dirt level, I brought out the shovel, this is when the project took on a titanic level of frustration. The rocks that were below the dirt line were no joke larger than my head. So, I slowly started unearthing them with my shovel trying to get underneath them to break apart the remaining concrete to at least only have to deal with one rock at a time, instead of the huge conglomerates that were coming up.
The Final Pile
The pile of rocks was much larger than I had originally anticipated. Thus, I am calling it my iceberg project. This is the final pile on the tarp, after I had gotten all of the rocks out of the planter, I started scooping the excess dirt into the wheel barrow to use for another project. I got about two and a half wheelbarrows of fill dirt out of the planter to get it down to a somewhat flat surface.
From Planter to Septic Fill
We had to dig up our septic a couple of weeks ago and fully replace the piping due to incorrect parts having been used when they repaired it before we bought the house. So, the extra dirt that I took out of the planter was reused to fill in the hole we had created when digging the septic up. It was much nicer dirt less rocks in case we need to access the septic again it will be a walk in the park to dig it up rather than fighting with all the fill rocks.
A Walk in the Park
I will be planting grass in this area as soon as I get to the store to pick up grass seed, there are a couple other places around the property that could use some grass seed as well. It will be so incredibly nice not to have to mow around this area anymore and have a better end point to the patio we are hoping to build soon. Stay tuned for a couple fun projects we are going to try to do with the remaining rocks left over – including one involving lots of painting.
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