We are now the proud owners of sixteen tons of Madison Gold 4-8" rip-rap, and forty tons of Table Mesa Brown 3/4" gravel.

For those of you playing along at home, that thirteen hundred dollars worth of ROCK - and that's not counting delivery costs (four round trips for the dumptruck).

Yep, here in Arizona, we don't have enough rocks in the yard - we go and buy extra.

Since you folks from the temperate zones have probably never seen any such, here is what sixteen tons of Madison Gold Rip-Rap looks like (with a 6'3" lummox standing next to it, to provide a sense of scale):


                               

Since there are sixteen tons of rip-rap, I would filk "Sixteen Tons" but I'm tired of that song - it's been going through my head ever since Ethel told me "They just dumped sixteen tons of rip-rap out front." - and, besides that, there's a total of fifty-six tons, and that doesn't fit the scansion.

 Instead, let's play with this one, sung to the tune of "Wells Fargo Wagon", from the musical "Music Man"¹, It will help if you time your cadence such that the word "gravel" in the filk takes the same beats as "is-a" in the original, like this -

Oh-oh   the Wells Fargo   Wagon  is      -a           coming down the street
Oh, yes,the big     honkin' gravel    dumptruck's  coming down the street


                   The Big Honkin' Dumptruck

Oh, yes,the big honkin' gravel dumptruck's coming down the street
You can feel how the asphalt shakes -
Oh, yes,the big honkin' gravel dumptruck's coming down the street
Grab your wheelbarrows and your rakes! 

He brought sixteen tons of rip-rap for the washes
And forty tons of Table Mesa Brown
It's time to stop the oohs, the ahhhs and goshes
And get that stuff spread all out on the ground!

(chorus)
Oh, yes,the big honkin' gravel dumptruck's coming down the street
Grab your pen and write out the check -
Oh, yes,the big honkin' gravel dumptruck's coming down the street
Gonna make our front yard a wreck!

Cause we'll be loading up the Bobcat and the shovels
And working in the Arizona sun
We're sprucing up the yard around our hovel -
And we're not gonna quit until it's done!

(chorus)
Oh, yes,the big honkin' gravel dumptruck's coming down the street
The neighbors will all complain!
Oh, yes,the big honkin' gravel dumptruck's coming down the street
All our backs will be bent and strained!


Here's a short video of a dump truck dropping the second (of three) load of Table Mesa Brown:


                                             


It's occurred to me that, perhaps, those of you with lawns and gardens (and rain, and dirt) won't know why we would buy fifty-six tons of gravel; it's so that we can gravel our yard - i.e. xeriscape it. This is what we do in Arizona - we work really really hard, just once, and then we never have to mow or rake or water.

We'll take the rip-rap and use it to line the wash that has eroded across our yard from where rain forms a small stream when it hits, and we'll also line the hills beside the outside of the negative edge of the pool² - and we'll use the brown gravel to cover the yard 2 inches deep; this makes it look nice and even and single-colored (we Arizonans aren't into diversity so much).

Silas has some work to do with the wheelbarrow this week - taking gravel into places that we won't be able to reach later; the "later" being this weekend, when I'll be renting a lil' Bobcat bulldozer to distribute the piles of gravel around the yard. Should be a fun time.

Feel free to stop by and help us. No, really :)



¹If you've never seen the movie "Music Man", then stop reading now and go rent it and watch it. Forget what you're doing right now - you don't need that job. Go watch the movie.
²Yes, there's a pool that is, supposedly, going to be built, someday. It's been five months since we signed the contract, and four months since we've given them the check. Ethel won't admit that the folks have left town with our money - she's still pretending that they're gonna show up Any Day Now(tm) with backhoes and concrete; I'm not going to disillusion her.