Plans for the Big Carry

I've been asked to participate in The Researcher's Night back at the McMaster Innovation Park on the evening of October 25, 2014.  My immediate response was that I was not going to carry all of that stone back again.  However, the theme for the evening is "The Sustainable City", and the spirit is to get the people attending involved in the research and art on display.

I could rent a truck to get all of the stone back to MIP, but that doesn't feel right.  So far, this stone has travelled over 4 km being carried.  Why not try to add to that total?  If I can recruit lots of people to help, we can carry the stone back in one "Big Carry".  Here is the stone that I have ready to go now.

Most is the same stone that made the previous round trip.  I've used some to make that greens garden, but have been adding back to the pile with other stone that I dug out of the yard when planting some trees, and can add even more if I take some stone from other areas of my garden where the stone structures need to be rebuilt anyway.  The pile that is ready to go now is more than a metric ton.  If each person helping me carry it back to MIP carries 10 kg, then I'll need to recruit more than 100 people.  If I allow people to use wheelbarrows, dollies or wagons so that they can carry more, we could do the job with fewer people, but will still need a pretty good crowd.

All Home

It is now more than a year later.  Like many bloggers, the discipline to keep on blogging was something that I let slip.  I did, however, complete the project as planned.

I needed all the time that I had available to carry all of that stone home again.  Since it was the middle of winter, the stone was just piled at the side of my house.  In the spring, I used some of it to turn part of my front lawn into a garden for greens.  I set it back deep enough that the risk of walked dogs peeing on it was low and planted it with arugula, chard, kale, radicchio and mesclun mixes.  It has been a beautiful and delicious addition to our property for two seasons now.

The rest of the stone was built back into a rectangular pile, and during the summer we often saw chipmunks scooting in and out.  I enjoyed having it just waiting for the next stone project.