Rock Collecting | Keppel Croft Gardens

Stoney Keppel

Rock Collecting in Stoney Keppel

Bill loves rocks. He has harvested our fence rows, bought rocks from quarries, created garden rockeries, built a henge, and constructed numerous stone walls. When he turned fifty we celebrated and each of our guests brought him a rock, some wrapped up in boxes, some on the forks of front end loaders. Buying a farm in what was called stoney Keppel Township was a perfect choice for Bill.

On our farm we have just two very large glacial erratics which is strange if you are familiar with this part of Grey County, famous as Stoney Keppel. An older visitor who spent time on our farm as a young man told us all the large rocks were taken and used to shore up the Big Bay dock many years ago. That explained the dearth of large rocks.

Bill has used the rocks found on the farm throughout the gardens.

Local rocks were also used to construct the Memorial Wall at Big Bay Cemetery built by Bill and some neighbours..

Two rocks have tantalized Bill for years by poking above ground just a little and suggesting there might be much more below. This fall he hired Paul Jones who sent his operator and a backhoe. The Big Dig began. Soon the first rock was pried out of the ground and pushed along to the gardens.

After this success Bill asked the operator to unearth another rock. An edge of this rock has poked up in a pasture and defied all attempts to remove it for more than forty years.

The job was too much for this piece of equipment. The rock wouldn’t budge! Bill was pleased to know that Paul would come the next day with a high hoe, a larger digger. You can see by the green lichen patch how much of the rock was protruding above ground level.

The next day the larger high hoe was successful in getting the rock out of the hole. Paul carefully nudged and dragged the rock across the field to the gardens. Paul commented that this was the largest rock he had ever moved.

Getting the rock moved into the garden meant that Bill had to temporarily take down two sections of a rail fence. The rock will become an integral part of this portion of Keppel Croft Gardens.

Here's the rock, newly relocated. Bill landscaped around the rock which we now call Connor. Once it was cleaned off by the rain we could see lots of colour in the rock.

We have decided to call this the Lewis Rock as it reminds us of the rocks we saw in standing stone circles on the Isle of Lewis. Bill created a mowing edge around the rock and oiled a stone mulch up to the stone.

Thanks, Paul, for that spectacular effort! The new additions to Bill's rock collection have finally seen the light of day after thousands of years.

Bill gave Mother Nature a hand in cleaning off the big rock. He brushed off the clinging earth with a corn broom and rinsed the rock off afterwards.

The large rock is multicoloured. There are a number of little crevices that Bill plans to use as mini-gardens. He'll plant these up in the spring.

Viewed from this side the rock takes on the look of a creature's head. Its wee smile makes it seem that it is somewhat bemused to be above ground.