Dad's Dream Yard, My Back

Two weeks ago before my dad went on his 10-day China trip, the two of us went on a shopping spree at Home Depot. My dad had been wanting to buy these large 6-sided stones, each weighing just a tad over 20-pounds, to build a wall and a walk way down into our back yard. We ended up purchasing 5 palettes worth of stones in addition to some concrete and garden feed. The delivery date was set for today and after two phone calls in the morning, the stones finally arrived around noon.



Now that the stones were in the yard, we had to decide how to get them down to where my dad needed them. The thought of hiring some 'cheap' labor courtesy of Home Depot crossed our minds, but we decided to do it ourselves. As you can see from some failed attempts (circled in red), and some lost stones that escaped (rolled) into our ravine, we decided to build a wall. Once built we started rolling them from the top of our yard towards the bottom, hoping that the wall would stop the rolling stones momentum. Most were stopped but some just kept on going. We 'un-loaded' 3 palette's (360 stones) today with 2 more to go... yeah for Super Bowl Sunday...



Straining my back: pain
Stubbing my toe: pain
Scratches on my forearms: pain
Breathing in stone (dust) particles: pain
Lifting 6,000+ pounds: pain

Standing there with my dad trying different methods to get the stones from the deck down to the bottom of the back yard and eventually deciding on the most ridiculous method:
PRICELESS