An old joke:
The first time I stood on the edge of the meadow where I planned my garden, I tossed a rock as far as I could.
When I began to prepare the garden I was amazed at how quickly that little rock had sprouted, and how productive it had been!
I have been long-accustomed to the rock piles that accumulate as I open up new beds or planting areas. And I've developed a a familiar, even practiced approach to extricating the rocks and stones I encounter. My "new ground kit" includes two shovels (wide blade, and narrow, angled, and pointed trenching shovel), a mattock, a pick, a pry bar (that's only rarely been needed.
The kit and I have dealt with everything from run-of-the-mill(stone), palm-sized rocks, to grapefruit sized stones. Some offer more resistance than others, but few resist for long.
But we may have met our match.
And I don't even remember planting it.
When my shovel blade, about two inches into the ground, first encountered what I have come to think of as "Bartleby the Boulder," I dropped into what I assumed would be my familiar pattern —
- find the edges
- find the depth
- excavate until a bottom edge is located
- pry out
- add to pile
Still working on the first three, and am doubtful of the fourth, have abandoned the fifth. Bartleby will have higher purpose than just being part of a pile, or even a pile unto himself, once I remove him from his lodgings.
But I may leave him there, expose as much of him to the sun as possible, and work around him. My garden stone, Bartleby.
The more I think about it, the more I think that Bartleby stays in place. I have (next to) no doubt that I could move him. But, as his namesake said more than once, "I would prefer not to."