The Avant Garden

Of all things, I had an attack of Vertigo recently and have had a difficult time adjusting. It's a touch ironic that someone whose hobby centers on balance would lose all sense of it. Before that malady struck, however, I had some fun.

Sunday, Oct. 16 I went to Bent Creek Experimental Forest to explore a new rockpile I had found. I did a trio, starting with this flat-earth guy:
One good breeze and he is rubble ...

and stayed around long enough for this photo:

T'was about as tall as the village stacker of rocks ...

Later I went down to the Bent Creek Sculpture Walk  to find a nice woman and her daughter there, and she was so sweet. She said, "Are you Rockman?" and I replied affirmatively and she said, "We love you, Rockman." She told me they go there often to take photos and hang out, which was music to my ears. Part of the Prime Directive is to have fun leaving things for other people to find that will make them smile and think. It's a win-win for everyone, as they say in Clicheville.  Anyway, Independence Circle: was down and I somehow could not get the magic working and did not get him fixed. Meditations on Thominator (upon whom I have been meditating lately as Thominator lives in South Florida):
Beaten Branch and Bent Creek ...
was down as well, and I could not work any magic on it, either, so I went home tired, hungry and discouraged. Well, not really. I knew I'd come back next time and they would stand first drop of their keystones. You know how rocks'll do.

 My baby brother (he's 29) and his wife (Donald and Kara) came up for the weekend. Saturday morning we went out to Bent Creek to check on the gang and fixed them all up. Donald is a pretty good manipulator of rocks.

I've also been busy getting some stuff ready for this auction to help my friend Tall John Short I heard it went well, but have not heard if my entries sold. Probably not. This was a sophisticated audience (Atlantans). But I did what I could. I had a pair of framed prints up for bid and the "Tall John, Short Stack" with which I took this self- portrait on Sunday morning:
Halloween around the rockpile ...

January's weather came flying in with a vengeance yesterday. It's cold, wet and windy out there. I waded in the River barefoot for the final time on Sunday. We've had lows in the 30s ever since. The good news is I'll wade barefoot again in March -- only four-and-a-half months away -- we have plenty of firewood and wool is wonderful.

in at least one way. When rockstacks are down, I know how to fix them. This guy: , for example,

now looks like this:
The Nikon kicks arse ...

I did some interesting homeowner stuff over the weekend. Like this handrail for the steps that lead down to the River behind our house:
Tested at 34 Feugenauts ... that's pretty sturdy ...

Later I added a bench:
Seats three comfortably ...

I got that big rock up  there by dragging it upstream about 30 yards using a rope around one end. Rocks are lighter underwater, so it wasn't that hard. Then I flipped it end over end to get it up to there. It weighs more than 10 pounds.

Sunday I went back to Bent Creek to find everyone healthy and happy except Jilted Serpent. He  had completely fallen apart. I did my best to pick up the pieces and when I left, he was heading off downstream, I think. 

The RoadsideSerpent stood:
Top shelf rocks, aye?

and I finally got a good photo of IndepenceCircle:
This is the third incarnation ...

When I arrived to visit these guys:
I'm fonda this site ... 

only one was knocked over and in the course of fixing it, I knocked another over and in the course of fixing it knocked another one over and so on until I had rebuilt six of the eight  and some of them I had rebuilt twice, and one three times, but in the end, they all stood. That's really the only talent I have that other people do not when it comes to doing this stuff. My talent is that I will stay in that cold water as long as it takes and stack and re-stack until it stands when I think most folks would give up already. My talent is obsession. And cold doesn't bother me too badly.

Yesterday I went out to the herb garden, where the Avant Garden Meets-middle-class-suburbanite-yawn-yawn-snore-snore and did this:
Is this good enough for "Suburban Rockstacker" magazine?

I am going to have another blog to work on soon. A work-related blog about current events that I hope will not interfere with this blog, because it sure won't get between  me and my rocks.

Do not get your SLR film developed at Wal-Mart and get the picture disk. It's very aggravating and puts one not in the mood to blog.  We had our first bit of reasonably heavy rain (Hurricane Tammy leftovers?) in quite a while and the arch-on-a-pedstal behind Rob's house:

 looks like this now:
Photo courtesy of Rob Quayle ...

which I think is way-cool. As I have said before, anytime rockstacks move without falling completely it's a cool thing, because for the most part, they are an all-or-nothing proposition. My guess is that once the river level goes down and the current does not push on the upstream side of the pedestal, it will fall. The weight on the shelf is no longer equally distributed as it was when the arch was standing.

Monday, after I picked up Matt at school and before I cooked dinner, I went downstream and did this:
Not spectacular, but fun ...

It looks really cool right now because the River is high up on the rock and very orange-red, about the same color as most of the rocks in the arches.

This thing:
I'm quite fond of this ...

is totally underwater except for the black rock sticking up on top. I just went down to the River to see the high water. It felt even more like fall today than yesterday. Today, I put on my Dutch Army surplus raincoat for the first time in the Dutch Army surplus raincoat season.

I am not ready. I have been playing in the River all week and looking at HazMat suits on the Internet to see if I can play in the River all Winter. While in the River, I worked on this idea for a newspaper story I want to see if I can pitch to one of our local columnists. Check out the basic idea here: click this

Yesterday I went down to Rob's and harvested a buncha black rocks to take over to some neighbors' house to build them something. They had a gray slab o' granite making an appearance in the front yard, and I thought an arch that was all black rocks save one would be cool. I did this one:

just in time for their big deck party later on that evening. This morning I went out to Bent Creek and did the Bent Creek Sculpture Walk, and found it to be in tip-top condition. Also went to Upper Bent and found everything there still standing: , so on further upstream I trudged to a great new rockpile, where I did this:
Big rocks abound in this place ...

which took me a long time. I don't know why. Back home I went down to the River and did this thing I have been wanting to do for a long time. Since I did the Father's Day Arch, I have been intrigued with balancing a shelf on an arch and then doing an arch on the shelf. Today it all worked out:

with a little help from my wife, who dropped the keystone for me.

Later on I went down to the River one last time before my weekend was over and I sat down to write some postcards to friends and sat down too hard on the log that holds this thing up and it fell, so back to the drawing board. Just kidding. Neither drawing board nor measuring device has been used in the creation of the Avant Garden.