People say faith can move mountains, but more often, it’s men (and women, too, I suppose) in heavy machinery who move mountains. I first realized this when I lived on the western slope of Colorado and watched as a new flat road was built on what used to be a small mountain. To be honest, I doubt the protuberance was high enough to be called a mountain, but it was huge for a hill. And over the months, that hill disappeared. Just . . . gone. I doubt anyone who drives that once-new road even knows they are driving over the corpse of a mountain.
The current project here at my house is nowhere near as extensive as that earth-moving project, but still, a lot of dirt is being moved around, more than I could ever do with my 2-gallon pail (which is what I generally use to move dirt from one spot to another). The dirt being moved came from the right-of-way between the sidewalk and the street. That area was filled with tree stumps, dozens and dozens of small trees growing out of the exposed roots leftover from those stumps, and huge, waist-high weeds. What will be going in that area is rock (yay!! No more trying to stay on top of that mess!) and three ornamental trees.
The dirt is being spread over the yard to fill in holes and gouges that were created by the skid steer that was used to move concrete from the mixer to the back yard when the ramp from the house to the garage was built. I suppose, over the years I could have smoothed the ground myself, but with machinery, it won’t take more than a few hours for all that dirt to be smoothed over the rough spots in the yard. This is all part of my taking care of the old lady I will someday become — I certainly don’t want her twisting her ankles on holes or tripping on uneven ground.
Although it’s hard to get anyone to come here to work — the contractor I hired (and the person these folks work for) always seems to have need of his entire crew at various other job sites — the worker who mostly comes is getting excited about the changes we are making and wants to see what it will look like when it’s all done. Which means, I hope, that he will do his best to stick with the job until it’s finished.
It is interesting how we humans can change a landscape. After the hardscape is finished, the yard won’t look at all the way it did when I came here. The old property lines (or what were assumed to be the property lines) have been replaced by the new surveyed lines and a fence placed around the property. The old garage is gone to be replaced by a raised garden. The old carport is gone, replaced by a new garage. The old driveway is gone, replaced by a red gravel walking path through ornamental rock. Diseased trees are gone to be replaced by young trees. Weed patches will be replaced with grassy areas and gardens. And oh, so many things!
Even if the hardscaping is finished this year as I hope, trees and plants take a long time to mature, so it will be many years before I can see the final project. It’s a good thing, then, that I’m enjoying the process of moving the earth around and creating special oases in my yard.
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What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?
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Bertram's Blog 
July 8, 2021 at 11:41 am
Awesome content.
July 8, 2021 at 1:40 pm
My cabin is located in an area of some of the oldest rock on Earth, apparently some 2.5-4.2 billion years old in places. It was volcanic, with large mountains (~39,000ft) in youth. Over the eons the volcanic activity ceased, the mountains eroded away, and deep bedrock rose from the depths to form what is today just a hilly collection of thin soil over ancient rock. I’ve done some work to make the cabin more comfortable, but largely left the surroundings to be what it wants to be.
Maybe it’s a bit weird, but I find some comfort in knowing that even giant mountains are consumed by the rain and the winds of change. There’s a lot of beauty in what remains, even more so when considering the scale of change that’s gone before.
July 8, 2021 at 6:28 pm
Cool point about the mountains being consumed by rain and the winds of change. I doubt anything around here is as old as your place. That’s not true — some of the biggest dinosaur tracks are not that far from here.
I’m all for leaving things as they are, which is why I’m rather surprised at myself for making all these changes to the terrain. But since I can’t easily go to scenic places, I need to make my own place scenic.