05-21-2017, 05:31 PM
Due to a slope in my backyard one end of my deck is a few feet higher than the other. I had to re-do and old flowewr bed that ran along the edge of my deck and I thought it would look better to build up a small rock wall on the low end so the flower beds would be more parallel with the bottom of the deck. It would only be about 2 feet high and the slope of the yard would run it down to zero in about 5 feet. So I looked at it as a pretty small job.
My first mistake was the idea to use large flat rocks that weighed approximately 15 to 40 lbs. I used them because i had access to a pile of them nearby. I figured it would not take many and fewer joints would make the wall more stable. But I did all of this work either sitting on the ground or squatting. It is amazing how hard it is to reach over and pick up even a 15 lb rock if you can't use your back/legs and have to fully extend your arms. If you use little stones it is no big deal to move them around several times to get them to fit together. But trying to get these big rocks to stack neatly turned into a major workout. If I had just used a little common sense I would have realized that big rocks are going to have bigger gaps between them than smaller rocks. So not only were the much heavier to handle they also needed to be moved around many more times to get them to fit as closely as possible.
I also learned how hard it is to simply mix concrete. When I was younger I worked some construction jobs and at one point I even carried mud for block layers. But they had a mixer. I probably could have mixed a larger batch in a wheelbarrow easier because i could have used a shovel to mix it. But I was just making a small batch in a metal tub and mixing it with a hand spade.
So what I planned to do in one afternoon has now taken part of 3 weekends. But that is not unusual with me when I try something for the first time. It is always more complicated and time consuming than i thought.
My first mistake was the idea to use large flat rocks that weighed approximately 15 to 40 lbs. I used them because i had access to a pile of them nearby. I figured it would not take many and fewer joints would make the wall more stable. But I did all of this work either sitting on the ground or squatting. It is amazing how hard it is to reach over and pick up even a 15 lb rock if you can't use your back/legs and have to fully extend your arms. If you use little stones it is no big deal to move them around several times to get them to fit together. But trying to get these big rocks to stack neatly turned into a major workout. If I had just used a little common sense I would have realized that big rocks are going to have bigger gaps between them than smaller rocks. So not only were the much heavier to handle they also needed to be moved around many more times to get them to fit as closely as possible.
I also learned how hard it is to simply mix concrete. When I was younger I worked some construction jobs and at one point I even carried mud for block layers. But they had a mixer. I probably could have mixed a larger batch in a wheelbarrow easier because i could have used a shovel to mix it. But I was just making a small batch in a metal tub and mixing it with a hand spade.
So what I planned to do in one afternoon has now taken part of 3 weekends. But that is not unusual with me when I try something for the first time. It is always more complicated and time consuming than i thought.
