Summer projects

They say that the living is easy in summertime, but to me there seems more than ever to do now!

We have so many Summer projects going on to put our little Orchard House back into tip-top shape. (Well, tipper-topper shape anyway. Little Orchard House has need of owners with lots of love. And time. And money.)

This week’s project was to dig stones from an neglected old garden near the cottage, a garden wholly overgrown. We took turns digging and digging and at last my husband hauled away sixty or seventy stones with the help of the tractor, lining the rocks up beneath the honey locust. I called him my rock star!

Many of the stones were the local sandstone from which our river valley’s hills are made. But there were all kinds of rocks buried there... chunks of marble and granite, lots of cobblestones, porphyries and pieces of basalt, large slabs of slate, and others. There are old bricks here, too, from the early brick factories of our area. Those could certainly be useful.

Some of the stones are quite lovely with beautiful striations and coloring. Other have dappled lichens or mosses growing upon them. I find mosses unaccountably charming. They seem like tiny forest worlds to me.

This rock has what must be a drill hole through it. Was it blasted from the hills here when the county road was made?

One larger piece of the beautiful burgundy sandstone that is ubiquitous around here is even carved. I wonder what is its history?

Our little Orchard House is full of wonders. And our work to make it more wonderful goes on.