Field Stones

One of the many tedious jobs that a farmer has is picking stones. Each year we tease each other that if we'd only pick all the little stones we wouldn't have to pick as many the next year.

You see it's a joke around here about whether or not stones grow. As a young girl with two farming uncles, I was told that stones grew. And yes, I believed them for about 20 years - no that's not a typo. It wasn't until after Wayne & I were married and we were picking stones that I mentioned, if we would pick all the little ones, we wouldn't have as many to pick the next year. Well, first he just looked at me, then he laughed, then, he tells me in no uncertain terms "that stones do not grow". Of course knowing that my dear uncles would never lie to me, we argued and disagreed for quite some time.

A few years ago I found an article in the "Rural Voice" about stones.

Stones multiply and grow. It is not known exactly how, but it you leave a stone long enough it might become a boulder. Stones are probably male & female - the male stones would be the darker heavier ones and the female stones the sparklier pretty ones. How they mate is not known for sure.

As I show this article to him, I declare that "HA, I was right!" with a mischievous grin on my face.

But in all sincerity, I really do like stones. In fact, as the boys grew older and helped their dad pick stones, they would begin to see which ones I would like and began saving them for me. So while my stones might not grow any bigger, I keep collecting them and find it amazing how becoming the landscape is when their put all together. Blessings