move to build, build to move

I am sore today. Lying in bed this morning, I tried to stretch out my left leg and realized that I couldn’t straighten it all the way because my hamstrings were like taut rope. I spent most of my day yesterday gardening and landscaping—or should I say wall scaping, as I continued to build and rebuild the found object wall that surrounds our garden area.

When I first began constructing the wall, I made one rule: all materials used to construct the low, windy perimeter of the garden must be found, i.e. no money for materials could exchange hands. I love old concrete, the kind made with big colorful rock and pebbles that was used all over this part of Denver when the streets and sidewalks were first laid. I also love broken brick and chipped pavers and chunks of field or flagstone that have been weathered by decades of storm and baked in the Colorado sun. All of these materials, including some random ones that I came across entirely by accident, litter the roadsides just north of my neighborhood in an area where salvage yards and trucking companies and defunct railroad tracks coexist (seemingly) peacefully.

I set out yesterday with my handy work gloves as my sole companion, looking for discarded pieces of rock-esque flotsam to integrate into the wall. I was looking, specifically, for good flat pieces that would serve as the foundation for the southeast corner, which had initially received the short shrift of materials and now, with that section being one of the focal points of the new and improved view from the our remodeled kitchen, was in need of an overhaul. Last summer I’d come across a motherlode of red concrete chunks in a back alley and used those to finish that corner, but those pieces lacked the uniformity I was looking for.

There was an ulterior motive to this search, as well as the subsequent wall de/reconstruction—I was looking for some exercise. There was talk of taking Daisy for a hike, and I thought of a bike ride too, but my back was a little tweaked from Friday’s long stint on the elliptical, and Saturday morning was spent drinking coffee in bed and perusing the Gardener’s Supply catalog, thus precipitating a yearning to be in my own garden. I figured that, between moving heavy pieces of stone and concrete and all the raking and weeding that would ensue, I would get a decent workout somehow.

It was a gorgeous day. I rolled the truck window all the way down and cruised the back alleys north of I-70, winding an area known as Swansea. This too is included in the wide swath of Superfund site designations that came as a result of smelters improperly disposing of their tailings for well over half a century, much of it finding its way into the waters of the South Platte river. (My own neighborhood, Cole, was designated a Superfund site in the early 90s, and many lawns in the area have been mitigated and replaced with sod because higher than normal levels of lead and arsenic were found in the soil. We had our soil tested when we first moved here, and miraculously escaped the bulldozer. Regardless, we plant edibles in raised beds.) The houses in Swansea range from rehabbed Victorians that once had a full view of the Rockies from their grand picture windows to low slung ranches with RV pads taking up half the lot to trailer parks bordering the railroad tracks. It’s a part of Denver many never see. For me, it often means cool shit dumped and forgotten by the side of the road.

I pass three salvage yards with brightly painted 12 ft fences and weave my way through what looks to be a block long receiving dock where semi-trailers awaited their next shipments. Out of the corner of my eye I see a pile of rubble between two trailers on the outskirts of what looks to be a brownfield. I back the truck up between the trailers and go and inspect the pile. It’s just what I’ve been looking for. No sooner have I loaded three rectangular chunks of concrete into my truck bed when a minivan pulls in. I wave, walk toward it. The passenger side window rolls down, and in the driver's seat I see a woman, about 60, wearing a security guard uniform.

“Hey there,” I say.
“What are we up to?” she responds, putting the van into park.
“Well, I was just getting some concrete for my garden,” I say. “Is that alright? I figure it’s just going to sit out here and rot.”
“Yep it will,” she says.
“So it’s okay?”
“Sure.”
“Great. Um, thanks for stopping.”

I go back to the pile, imagining what the woman’s name is. She looks like a Vera, or a Bonnie. I’m actually glad that she stopped because now I didn’t have to worry about pissing off the owners of the property, or some trucker getting my license plate and the cops showing up at my door accusing me of stealing what amounts to someone else’s trash.

The more I look at the piles—there were three out there—the more excited I am. There are concrete blocks that had been faced with beautiful old brick in tones of red and purple, and a few random pieces of flagstone, and a ton of these squat pillar-like pieces that, laid side by side, would create the perfect foundation for the southeast corner. The brick pieces are incredibly heavy, as the block holes had been filled with mortar, and I'm only able to get about 5 of them, but I load as much as I can into the truck bed and slowly zigzag my way home.

The next three hours are spent unloading & stacking the new wall materials, raking out the beds, dissembling sections of the wall and rethinking its construction. I uncover tender iris shoots, baby sweet woodruff leaves like tiny celadon stars, the beginnings of this year’s stonecrop. The allium are up, and the crocus and mini daffodils have bloomed in the front bed. I turn the compost, add more leaves that are still wet from our last snow, and mist the entire pile. Chickadees flit around the refilled feeder. Daisy chases the resident fat squirrel who taunts her from the top of the fence. If I could work like this every day I would, and leave the ellipticals of the world behind.

Who knows how many calories I spent working in the garden yesterday, or how many points it translates to in Weight Watchers terms, and frankly, it doesn’t matter.

So back to the working on the wall I happily go, tight hamstrings and all.