Rocks

Well I don't suppose anybody would be surprised that we have lots of rocks here in Boulder. We actually have a great many of them in our yard, and many of these rocks stand between our dreams of raised garden beds and reality. The rocks largely reside within the earth, lots of them an inch under the weedy turf that we call "grass" out back, and some of these rocks might be considered to be small boulders if one were a little generous in the use of the term. As far as I can tell, the folks who put down sod when preparing this property for the market the first time about 15 years ago, must have tossed down a few yards of construction fill (aka "rocks"), added on a little bit of "soil" (we call this stuff "clay", "sand" and "what's that, it can't be natural!") over the rocks and rolled out the turf. The problem with our garden is our perennial problem- drainage. As our yard does not drain well from South to North, we have a couple of sections of the yard best described as Swampy. So, we have managed to tunnel out to the open space behind us, but must now add a perforated pipe drain in a gravel-filled trench that runs the width of the yard. This will go right under the garden beds so that they don't turn into rice paddies on particularly rainy, thunder-stormy days in the summer. While we're at it, we'll add irrigation pipe and a faucet in the garden itself.
So, in order for us to achieve our goals, we must roll up our sleeves and have at it. Fortunately we have amoung us, one who has made rocks a particular subject of life-long study, and who is also quite adept at jiggering rocks out of tight holes in our gradually deepening trench.
Here he is, preparing to tackle a
particularily nasty specimen
having been called in to provide
assistance.
Notice that he's well prepared (minus socks, but with
properly laid back foot wear apropriate to the location).
He's still smiling..
O.k, we've got the shovel-lever action going:

Some more prying and generally putting pressure on with the garden tools. You can see the rock now:Russ had to go for the pick-axe for this part. Persistance paid off in the end. Here he is rolling the darned thing out of the trench. Russ wasn't able to pick this one up. We had to get John to come pick it up.
Russ went on break after this.