Rock Picking Up

There are many pieces of great advice that I got from my mother. One of which was to really think about saying that you hate something or someone. She went on to say the word hate is a powerful one and not something one should throw around without a moment’s pause. Well, I have thought about it and I can say without a moment’s hesitation that I completely and unequivocally hate picking up rocks out of my fields. I can also say without remorse that I hate fixing equipment broken by rocks not picked up, so I guess picking up rocks is a necessary evil.

When I was a kid picking up rocks was the worse form of punishment my parents could hand out. I would have rather received a beating than to be forced to pick up rocks for a day. I learned at a very young age that you never told Mom or Dad that you were bored and there was nothing to do. There were always rocks to pick up.

It always amazed me just how many rocks there were in our fields. Every time Dad worked the ground another crop popped right up out of the same ground I had just went over. Back in those days Dad would work the ground two or three times before planting and each time meant another round of rock picking up.  Sometimes we would look back on the ground we had just went over and it looked like we had never been there. Rock picking up is a frustrating job. If only I had a dime for each rock I picked up in those days.

Back then it seemed like a pointless job. One that was never done and one that seemed to have no point. Now that I must pay for the equipment broken by those rocks the job does at least have a purpose. That does not mean that it is any less torture, but I am pretty sure I am a lot more thorough and do a much better job of removing the rocks.

Rock picking up is not the job it used to be either. Thankfully we have gone to complete no-till farming and we bring up many fewer rocks than we used to. This year we had to rebuild a few terraces and a whole new crop of rocks came to the surface. I am pretty sure they were making up for lost time and punishing me for not tilling the soil and turning them loose sooner.

I asked Jennifer if she wanted to help me collect the rocks on the new terraces. That approach worked when we were first married. She is a good western Kansas girl and had never experience picking up rocks. One year and she had experienced enough rock picking up to tell me that no where in our vows did it say anything about picking up rocks. She flatly refused my offer of a romantic rock picking up date.

I then offered it to my kids. They were both young when we started no-tilling and really had never experienced rock picking up. Isaac suddenly had his calendar fill up on one day and conveniently forgot to show up the next day. He claimed to be busy and forgot. Tatum didn’t play any games and told me that she just wasn’t going to help me. I blame the internet for tipping the kids off about the horrors of rock picking up.

I offered to run the planter, so Dad could pick up rocks and he reminded me that he was the senior partner and I was the junior partner and as such he was pulling rank. He reminded me that someday I might get to be senior partner and I could assert seniority then. Suddenly I understood how Prince Charles feels. I also would guess that the whole seniority ploy won’t work when it is my turn.

One of our neighbors stopped and I asked if he was going to help. He picked up a rock, tossed it in the bucket and instantly became the most helpful person so far. He then laughed and told me that was the extent of his help. He mentioned that they made a bucket for a skid loader that would go through the ground, sift the soil and the rocks were picked up. Since the planter and the senior partner were in the next field over that was also not an option.

To make a long story just a little bit shorter, after a grueling three hours of loathing, cussing and sweating I got most of the bigger rocks picked up and deposited in a ditch near the field. It was a good reminder of just why I hated picking up rocks and that reminder lasted for days each time I tried to straighten my back out. It did give me an idea. I am going to advertise a “U-Pick Granite Countertop Patch (some assembly required)” on the internet, who knows maybe that will work there are a lot of gullible people out there.