The Great Wall - Day 2

3 Hours.

4 Pallets.

176 Trips.

600 Stones.

7500 Pounds.

By. Hand.

*flex*

They look a lot bigger than they did on the magazine. Also a lot heavier.

Yesterday we received the delivery of the stones to build the Great Wall with. Helpfully they were delivered right into our driveway. That meant 7500 pounds of stones needed to be moved, by hand, before we could park our cars again. No rest for the weary, home from work and onto manual labor!

Tried to contact this group for help but I couldn't find their number in the yellow pages.

Why by hand you ask? Well because I needed to get the stones down the house, then down a 2 foot drop from another retaining wall, then over to another pallet near the Great Wall. I could have used a wheelbarrow but that would have involved filling the barrow, moving it 20 feet, emptying it, moving the barrow down the terrace, refilling it, moving it 10 feet, emptying it. That seemed like more work at the time, so I opted for 176 trips back and forth with between 2-10 stones in my arms.

Halfway through pallet #2 I started rethinking a lot of the life choices I've made that got me here.

The exciting thing about these stones is that they, like I keep telling the wee one, are pretty much big boy Legos. They are all different sizes, but the dimensions add up so that you can just stack them in different directions and get a nifty design. I got some of your large rectangles, your small rectangles, your flat rectangles, and also some of your traditional square type rocks. Not sure what quarry they found with these magical beasts, but nature is amazing.

I've been training for this project as well. Play more video games kids, they prep you for life.

All in all, I did not accomplish much. An entire day of the project, well only 3 hours, spent entirely on moving the supplies. Moving them a grand total of about 10-15 meters. On top of that I ache. Not like a great workout type of ache, or when your high school sweetheart breaks your heart type of ache. The type of ache where sleeping hurts. Driving to work hurt. Even my hands hurt typing this. All that pain and suffering just so that I can have the stones closer when I have to build the wall. Pain and suffering and it didn't even lead to dark side Force powers. :( Had that happened, moving the rocks would have been a ton easier.

I'm no structural engineer, but that looks safe enough to me.

Assuming the forecast is incorrect and it doesn't rain for the next few days, this wall is going up. Of course if, for once, they got it correct... I'm fairly confident that rain combined with 7500 extra pounds of weight on the terrace are going to topple over lawn into the neighbors. It will be the fastest land grab in history.

- The Porter -