Why It’s Called Labor Day Weekend

Ten yards of two and a quarter inch river rock, eighty-eight feet of driveway, three shovels, a lawn tractor/trailer and three slaves I gave just happened to give birth to.

My Farmers know how to work a shovel.

And drive the "tractor" around the yard.

They even got to practice backing the trailer to deliver the load.

Then it was time to shovel even more rocks! What strength...

What technique...

What determination!

And more rocks to haul. Devin is teaching his brother how to drive. Something about that sentence strikes fear in this mother's heart. He told me earlier today that he wants a blue and white striped Mini-Cooper when he gets his license. "Good luck with that, Son."

Miss Is wasn't too thrilled to learn that she was not allowed to drive the tractor by herself so she wore her patented, 99.8% result-producing pout and hoped Dad would cave, unable to resist such a pathetically sad face.

Back to the rock pile that never ends.

Completing - and passing - Big Brother's Drivers Ed. class, D.J. took the 'wheel' and the attitude of a bad-biscuit, street racing, farmer brat.

Full-throttle, the wind in his hair. I can faintly hear Steppenwolfe in the background, D.J. was born to be wild. His shirt is rather fitting, it says This is what trouble looks like in the shape of a large, yellow arrow just in case the average reader is a little slow on the uptake.

Apparently, D.J. aced the lesson on shifting gears and driving in reverse with a trailer no less.

So you might be asking yourselves, "Why so much rock?" and honestly, I asked myself the same question, then a knot twisted in my gut, my fingers curled inward and my back 'went spastic' remembering how much time was spent this summer bent over and pulling noxious, tree-like weeds from the eastside of the house and the garden spot to the west.

We dug out the dead sod and virulent weeds, lined the edge with brick, added the extra protection of landscaping fabric and dumped somewhere around fifteen loads of rock. It was F-U-N FUN!! But it was the garden that nearly killed me.

My job, besides running around and taking pictures, was to spread all the garden rock between deliveries. It doesn't sound so terrible, really... until you do it. I wore holes through the fingertips of my work gloves from gathering and pushing rock, filling buckets to dump behind the raised boxes and pulling - for one last time - God's "other" plants that we decided not to like. Can you see me?

Oh, look. There I am. Just so you know, this prize-winning photo taken by my dear, darling husband, has been severely cropped for the good of all who innocently happen upon it.

My back is aching again, finger's gnarled.... I'm not sure if I like Labor Day Weekends any more.

Labels: Home and Garden