Reverend Ref +

STAGE 2

So here's what I figured out so far: It takes alot more rock than paint to put together a 40' labyrinth. Rick showed up at the church at 8 am. I gave him the run down on what this thing is going to look like and off we headed to the slag pile.

We loaded rock for about an hour, then unloaded and placed rock for about another hour. After which time I said, "Wow, we got alot further than I thought we would." My excitement and optimism were, however, short lived.

Back to the slag pile for another load of rock. We got detoured by the Sheridan Days Parade (which was, in my opinion, a better event than the Ennis parade). So Rick, The Kid and I watched the parade go by. The Kid collected a fair amount of candy. After the parade, we unloaded and placed more rock. I don't think we hauled as much on Trip 2 as we did on Trip 1, because we still had a LONG way to go. This time around, however, The Kid and Mrs. Ref helped place the rock. That cut down the labor time somewhat.

Then it was back to the slag pile for our third load of rock. I think we loaded about the same as Trip 1 this time. I was having trouble lifting the rock by this time. Not so much in the shoulders, chest and biceps, but my forearms were starting to hurt. It takes some effort to grip rock, and the old forearms were starting to wear down. We headed back to the church where we now had Mrs. Ref, The Kid and Rick's wife, Dena, helping to unload and place rock. Then we called it a day. It was darn hot and we were all hungry. So we took Rick & Dena to the park for the festivities of Sheridan Days and bought them lunch.

Now, I'm no optimist, but I'm pretty sure that we'll be done with this thing after two more loads. Dena and Rick are going to come over either tomorrow evening or Monday evening. We'll bbq dinner and (hopefully) finish the job.

Right now though, my forearms need some attention. Other than the spinach thing, I wonder if this is how Popeye got those forearms . . . by moving rock.