These Rocks Speak Dust

This is what 1000 pounds  or $130 worth of gravel looks like after I made a path to the road. The planned task is not complete but a spare $130 it will bring it closer to finishing.

Wore a breathing mask when I poured this last 360 lbs. Hosed the rocks to keep the dust down. Still inhaled some gravel dust, but less than before, and this time was further educated when I saw the coating of gravel dust over the car. The whole car, back to front, a thin even coating. I understood the nature of this dust now. These rocks speak dust. And feeling gritty all over meant I should shower it off right away and wash the clothes.

This project hallowed this June that slipped away so quickly, and will recall this hallowed month whenever I look at it.

360 Pounds Later, With No Lipstick

I forgot when buying 12 more 30-pound bags of Viagra stone this morning -- loading them onto the orange Home Depot cart myself -- that I'd woken with the dryest throat and realized only then I had, yesterday, while restoring the Divine gravel apron, inhaled invisible gravel dust, and only after I'd lifted, dumped and combed 12 more bags of the apron-to be did I recall that I ought to be wearing a breathing mask.

Yet I had fun sailing out early this morning until I realized I forgot lipstick. When no men offered to help me load and push the cart, in itself hefty, with 360 pounds of stone on it, I remembered that without lipstick and with short hair, wearing shorts and tee (but the tee was bright pink!) I am, in the eyes of the people out here, probably a man-hating feminist bulldagger who'd sneer at their offer of help. Well, f---, then I'd do it alone, and I pushed it as far as the checkout. I asked there for help loading the car and a teenager materialized,and said "Ma'am"; he filled the Honda's trunk and I stuck a wad of cash into his Home Depot apron pocket.

Was it the lack of lipstick or -- and I so regret this, want to weep -- that on my way in, in the parking lot a woman much older than I was slowly pushing a shopping cart holding among other things a huge bag of potting soil, but I did not stop and say "Can I help you get that into your car? I know I would need help." Now I'm crying. How wrong of me. Karma.

Wearing my neoprene lower-back belt, I bravely unloaded at home and made visible progress, but now, coughing and hawking and with pounding in my head, decided this was plenty for today, and thunder and changing winds made decision final. Here's a photo. Note how far I've come and how far I have yet to go to restore the apron.

I Travel for Gravel

Before

240 pounds later

The gravel apron in front of the Divine Cabin over the years has been scraped and washed away and grass grows there now hiding ticks and chiggers that bite me, and for four years we have asked the landlord for fresh gravel, because the road needs some too, but it never came. In despair I phoned the gravel mine and they'd deliver a cubic yard for $215, $75 of that delivery charge, and dump-truck the gravel in a pile as tall as I and I'd have to hire someone with a spreader or spend years spreading it shovelful by shovelful, alone.

So every summer more bugs bit me and I didn't even have to go into the woods but simply step outside. Mowing helped, but now I haven't a mower and have asked the landlord to supply one as the lease requires. They don't want to. Phoning mowing professionals got me estimates I felt ashamed I could not pay.

It occurred to me, in my misery, to buy and spread my own gravel and choke off the grass, solving at once the chigger and the mowing and the apron problem, and went to Home Depot, a 30-mile round trip, because they would load my car for me, and bought 8 bags of 30 lbs. each for a total of $31. I thought it was named "Viagra stone" (a dirty mind is a perennial resource). Said nothing of this to the teenager dragging the 240-lb. cart out to my car and loading it, as I could not. As an employee he may not take a tip. But I said, "You're not taking it; I'm giving it," and dropped money in his apron pocket.

Doesn't it look like Viagra stone?

With my own labor I could buy five more such loads before hitting $215. Hefting each bag I dropped them at strategic intervals on the apron, slit the bags, dumped and raked a while and was pleased as heck with my result but there was much more apron to cover.

Now I had big plans. About to return to Home Depot to reload I thought to try the nearby Walmart. An elderly employee said to go to the checkout if I wanted their bags of gravel, but the garden area checkout, at 8 p.m., was closed, and the young employee said he did not work in this section and could not cashier, so I just went home.

I thought it would amuse me to shop at every gravel-selling retail around here and score them on how well I was served. My work on the apron is satisfying as a long-lasting solution to a frustrating, expensive problem.