One of the things that quickly becomes apparent is that this part of the coast is primarily glacial till. What this means is that as you dig into the ground you find a lot of rocks. And I mean a LOT. Some small the size of basketballs, plenty that can’t be moved without the assistance of machines and some bigger than a bear (see below). The rocks seems to come from different source materials as the colours vary, some are square and jagged, others are rounded boulders. While the rocks are manipulated and put into place, they also get interesting “graffiti like” scratches and tears.
We have been fortunate to have a builder running this project who is both technically proficient, but also has the eye of an artist. He made sure that we hired someone to run the large equipment that would level the land to his requirements, but would also have the skill to build us an eye catching wall using the endless supply of rocks that presented themselves. That’s how Eddie came into the picture.
Mitch and Eddie hit it off immediately, since they both have an instinct for introducing fun into their environment. We had always planned a circular driveway that would encircle and contain Mitch’s train garden. However, once the land levelling started, it became apparent that the circular driveway would have to follow a path that dipped down to the house level and then rise up to the level of the entrance off Twin Eagle Road. Essentially, one half of the circle would be about seven feet lower than the other half. This made the building of a rock wall inevitable and Eddie was able to put to good use the abundance of rocks. True artist that he is, he also incorporated the really big rock and created three little gardens at different levels in what is almost a 100 foot long wall. Mitch’s train garden will go into the middle of the circle at the higher level, so anyone walking by on the lower level will be right at train level. I’m excited to see how the plants and train garden evolves.
