Mini-glacial Erratics, the bane of New England farmers.

When colonists from Europe first settled North America, coastal communities were magnets for settlers. By the hundreds people arrived to start a new life in an untamed wilderness. To sustain the growing population, farming attracted many to the fields and hills of rural New England. Acre by acre farmers cleared the land to raise crops for themselves and neighboring towns. Not an easy task given the rock strewen condition of potential farmland. The plows routinely met with boulders deposited 18,000 years ago by the massive glacier that covered a good portion of North America. As thick as a mile, the mighty glacier made the great lakes, carved off the tops of mountains and left terminal moraines like Cape Cod. The countryside is a patchwork of rock walls from the colonial era, a testament to the fortitude of farmers in the 17th and 18th centuries.


Mini-Erratic ( photo / image / picture from Jerry Sullivan's Garden )


Fast forward to the 21st century.....Jerry's mini-glacial erratic:
All I wanted to do was weed a flowerbed that really needed it. I found one rock that farmer Smyth missed. Unlike the 500 lb. one that I met up with when digging the foundation or the 1 1/2 ton behemoth the building inspector let me keep as part of a footing for the deck, this 80 lb. pebble was easy to move. It will become a 'feature'. I don't need to build a rock wall.

Jerry

 

I sure wish we had some rocks around here. They wouldn't even have to be super old or "neato" like yours. :-D

 

The 500 lb. stone encountered while digging a foundation hole for an addition was not about to be raised up out of the hole. I dug an even bigger hole and with the aid of Mr. Fulcrum and Mr. Lever I coaxed the rock into the hole. With a resounding thud the rock fell into the pit and was promptly covered with dirt.

As for the larger rock, when the building inspector saw it he agreed that it was not about to move and would provide the necessary sound footing the deck needed. The concrete column footing was pored on top of the bolder and has never moved.

Jerry

 

Much of our garden is full of these glacial erratics, sadly though the majority are no bigger than ones fist. They have been used for paths for hundreds of years. All the rocks in my garden have come from within our boundaries. We had a visit from a geologist once and it was fascinating to listen to him as he detailed the origins of the rocks we looked at.

 

Odd shape it has. We have an abundant amount of rocks, too. I just did not understand why anyone would "pick" rocks. When I joined last year there was a topic about them and "do you pick them?" and I was totally clueless that people did that for real. We have rocks by the loader bucket full. Our piece of property used to be 50' higher than it is. When FIL excavated it out he ran a gravel pit from here and lowered the elevation to make this piece level with the two lots on either side. We have one HUGE rock left in our front yard and it is not what I would chose to have for a yard ornament. I do feel for you having to use mr. fulcrum and mr lever to help you out. They do help, but you are left with the sweaty muscles part of the job. They just lie around waiting on you to start everything. Glad you were able to get the job done, though.

 

When we lived in upstate New York, there were cobblestone homes. Houses, fire stations, etc. were built of cobblestones in the mid- to late-1800's. Attractive, and you never had to paint the building.
I volunteered at a local museum, and we were in the final frantic stages of getting an exhibit up when another volunteer came in carrying a rock and said, "This rock looks really old. YOU ought to get an archeologist to look at it and see how old it is." (Notice the YOU, not WE). I told him all rocks were old, new rocks were called sand!
Jerry, we had a boulder in our basement--too big to move so our house was built around it in 1870. They make great foundation pieces. Let us know what you do with your singleton rock (perhaps you can use one of your tractors to move it.)

 

dr and I dug a piece of petrified wood out of the creekbed road the other day. I don't know what it weighed but together we couldn't pick it up to put on our yard wagon. It's 22 in. x 20 in.x 9 inches. Two younger men from next door came over and put it on the wagon. dr says it's sandstone which makes sense since that's the soil type we have here. I'm thinking we'll see if the rock club wants it. If now, it will stay right where we dumped it. The nice young men even filled the hole in the road for us.

dooley

 

I have rocks all over my flower beds. Farmer Friend use to drop them off at end of driveway. He had $$$$ tractor and bucket. I had one of those 2 wheel Refrigerator cart .One of reason thinning out flower beds. Tripped and about went face first on big one.

 

I have a lot of Kansas rocks, limestone. New housing developments would go up and rocks would appear in piles in these neighborhoods. The contractors were more than happy to give these rocks away, at least 20 years ago they were. Maybe not so much now. Rocks would fall off the limestone walls into the country roads (and highways), and you could just stop and chuck one into the back of your truck (at least back then). They were just everywhere. It's been a long time since I've lived in that area, not sure if they allow that kind of thing anymore. As long as you're not trespassing or taking from a park, might be okay. We'd always ask permission from the construction crews before taking anything off a work site back then. It was almost always "sure, go ahead!". Usually they'd be piled up with the trash pile, one less thing for them to have to haul away.

When I have contractors do work on our property, I never let them haul away the dirt they excavate. I always find a use for it somewhere. There's no rocks to be found where I live now.

 

The farmers did make lovely stone walls though, I grew up in NH and always loved the look. You have a lovely one there! My gnome would love to stand on it.

At our current house there is a huge stone about 50 feet away from the house. At closing the girl told us it was blown out when they dynamited the foundation and her father said it could stay where it landed. It took me a while to understand that they were apologizing for the rock! It was one of the pluses we appreciated. Funny how one persons headache is another's spirit rock!

 

i love rocks...and as marlingardener said...this area is loaded with cobblestones...a few years ago a neighbor gave me about 60 of them...my son had to drag them across the alley 5 or 6 at a time for me..and i've used most of them to border my front flower bed. always on the lookout for unusual rocks & stones!

 

There was a recent article in one of the local newspapers about the 'disappearing' rock walls of New England. As land is cleared for new houses they are often devoid of landscape features. Others just look for a free, convenient source of aged landscape material. Old rocks from walls that criss cross woodlands are prime candidates for filling the void. After all who guards a wall in the woods, at night?

Jerry

 

Mr. Fulcrum and Mr. Lever do a fine job on the smaller stones, but Mr. Dynamite is a good, and fun, way to clear up problems with those bigger rocks.

 

Ooooh!! Mr. D. for the big jobs. Blast mats!! Sirens!! Fun stuff. 30,000 people saying, "What was that??" after he does his work.

Jerry