The 300 Million Year Stonescape Garden: The Beginning

Today we began an important project. It is actually my project in that I will be doing most of the work for it. But this morning I needed some help getting started.

This is the hillside on the southwest side of our house--beyond the side garden.

It is pretty barren and has a steep slope. After watching arroyo downcutting happen on it last summer during the record monsoon rains, I decided that there ought to be no more delay in taking care of this problem. So last week I checked out five different books from the library about stonescaping. the idea is to build steps across the hillside and make a terraced garden on the slope in order to stop erosion. I am using rocks taken from our land. The Sandia Mountains are topped by Pennsylvanian limestone and there is plenty of this float on our hillsides. When I explained to N. that the stone we are going to use for our project is about 300 million years old, he thought that was pretty cool.

So we are now calling this the 300 Million Year Stonescape Garden. Pretty catchy, eh?

N. was eager to get right out there and begin moving big rocks around, proving his strength and manliness.

But before we could do that, we had some measuring to do. In order to determine the rise on the steps, we needed to know the slope of the hillside. To do that, we used a laser level laid on the ground on the top of the slope. I leveled it and pointed the laser at a plank that Bruce and N. were holding at the bottom of the slope.

The "rise" on the slope was 5 feet and three inches.
N. told us this was the same as 63". He divided 12 into sixty and then just added the three. All that mental math in Saxon is paying off!

Then it was time to measure the "run." N., being quite literal was ready to run up the hill. Bruce explained the run is actually the distance from the bottom of the slope to the top of the slope in a straight line. So N. did run up the slope, with the end of the tape measure in his hand. He held it straight above the laser while Bruce held it at the height of the laser mark on the plank at the bottom.

Here is N. just before lowering the tape measure so that it was even with the laser level.

The run turned out to measure in at 18 feet. N. told us that it was the same as 216". He said: "I even checked it on the calculator, Mom!" He was right.

So then I said: "Hey, N., we need to calculate the slope or percent grade of the hill. You do that by taking the rise over the run. He punched that out on the calculator:
"Let's see. 5.25 feet divided by 18 feet. That would be 0.291666 feet over...feet?"
So we showed how the problem looks by writing it out on the board.

"If you divide something by itself, what does it equal?" I asked him.
"One." N. answered.
"So if you divide feet by feet, then that equals one, too." Bruce said. "They cancel out. We can round off the 0.29 and change to O.3."
"Change?" N. asked in true Aspergian fashion. "Are we talking about money?"
"Figure of speech!" I said. "Bruce means all the numbers after the nine in your answer."
So N. rounded and we showed him how to multiply the slope of 0.3 in order to get a 30% grade for our slope. Pretty steep.

N. decided he was done with math for a while. He took the wheelbarrow off to get big flat rocks.

In the meantime, I calculated the number of steps we'd need if the riser is about 5" and there are about 18" between steps. The number is about 12 steps.


But N. was game for measuring for the cut and fill of the first step.

Since the steps are going to be far apart--more like a rising stepping stone path, and because they will be wide enough for one person, we used a garden trowel to begin the cut and fill.

We found that the soil on the hill was very loose and sandy and yet full of very friable (crumbly) shale that is native to the location, as well as small stones from the gravel in the side garden above, that were brought in by the previous owners of the house.

Of course, as I began the work of cut and full and placing the limestone "fieldstone" steps in earnest, N. got distracted by the sound of tree frogs peeping in the nearby woods. After helping lay the first stones, he was soon disappeared to investigate the frogs. And that was fine by me. The laying of the stones on a narrow path (about 18" wide) is really a one-woman job. And he did give about an hour and a half to the project on a sunny day.

Anyway, he learned a lot! he learned:

• that the Pennsylvanian limestone that caps the Sandia fault block is more than 300 million years old.
• that the notation for that is 3.0 exp 8 years b.p. (3.0 times ten to the eigth years before present)
• to tell the difference between country rock and rock brought in
• to tell the difference between limestone and shale
• that the definition of friable rock is "crumbly" rock
• that the definition of slope is rise over run
• how to cancel out units in setting up a scientific calculation
• that math can be really useful for accomplishing a worthwhile goal

And he was just helping for a "little while."

This is unschooling at its best!

Lightning Leads to Productive Weekend

I suppose I might have got everything done anyway. But you never know.

On Friday evening, as we sat down for a late Shabbat dinner, a severe thunderstorm formed over Sedillo. The lightning was fierce, and seemed to come from all around us. One very close strike--we saw the lightning and heard the very loud crash of thunder almost simultaneously--tripped the circuit breakers and caused a power surge. We unplugged all of our surge protectors, and did not use the computers and television again until we replaced the surge protectors Sunday evening. And did we have a wonderfully productive weekend. It helped that N. was on a campout with the Boy Scouts and MLC was away in Dalles.

On Saturday morning, we took a long walk, enjoying the sunny morning with the dogs. Fog rolled in over the hills, due to the 0.54 inches of rain we received compliments of the previous evening thunderstorm.

We took our time, knowing that we'd have clear weather until late in the afternoon--fog usually indicates a clear day.

We are really enjoying the green!

I know it looks light green to the eyes of those who live in wet areas, but to us, this is really, really green.

Our green roof still stands out across the meadow, but last year at this time, our meadow was totally brown.

Starting Friday afternoon, I got out into the side garden. It was critical.

The amazingly regular spring rains had caused weeds to spring up and grow a foot overnight!

Here are the abundant weeds--some clover, some other stuff--as they looked Friday afternoon. On the left, the Aspen trees are totally out of control.

When we moved in a year ago, I spent six weeks just getting us settled. That, combined with the necessity of taking care of the old house in town until it sold in September, and the early record-breaking monsoon precipitation we got last summer meant that I did almost nothing with this yard!

Finally, I had good weeding weather this weekend and I hit the side garden. I weeded on Friday afternoon. On Saturday afternoon, I pruned the the Aspens and weeded the raised beds behind them. It is amazing, the previous owner had a herb garden in one of them,last planted in 2005, and there is volunteer parsley and purple onion flowers growing there. She had also put a rosemary bush in one corner. I left it for now, but I am thinking of transplanting it to the slope after I finish that project.

Here is the side garden as it appears now!

What a difference, huh? The Aspens look like trees rather than uncontrolled jungle growth.

I got rid of the Aspen suckers growing through the gravel and even in the raised beds.

That is a temporary solution--Aspens are weedy trees. We'll probably have to take them out completely.

Although I removed the large clover and other weeds, I left the clumps of ornamental grass, may they increase and prosper! There are also some wildflowers that I left. They are beautiful this year!

Yesterday, I had been called to do a tahara (ritual care of the dead) in the morning, and then we went to the funeral in the afternoon. In between, I came home and planted the raised beds. I put in dill, more parsley, Italian Sage, and Feverfew in the two beds. Planting is a life-affirming action that brought me balance after the tahara.

Today, I am taking a non-gardening day to complete some indoor chores, like laundry! N. is taking a rest-day after his two-night camp-out. He finished up his "toting chip" (use of knife and axe) requirements. He is ready to start on Kemana II tomorrow.

Our next outdoor project is to deal with the steep slope to the left of the side garden. It began eroding badly last summer. So we are going to put steps diagonally across the slope and terrace it for planting. I want to put a mixed meadow of blue gramma grass and wildflowers on the terraces. I need to find my New Mexico gardening books as well as the hardscaping book to figure out exactly how to do that!

Summer goes by more quickly every year and I have so much I want to accomplish!