Rocky times ahead in Lincolnland

Hah! You thought this might be about the terrible economic problems of our state. Nothing so boring as that. The lily pond on our estate is over 80 years old, and it needs refurbishing including the installation of a circulating system of a sufficient volume for its size. The old one was too small and too cranky doing too little too seldom. Our enthusiastic pond refurbish-er has just called to alert us to the delivery of much rock while the ground is still frozen hard. OK, this makes sense from the lawn perspective, and from the relief perspective because you don't want a heavy truck to harm the creeping charlie and because you want to add some relief to provide splash and a nifty place to hide all the filtering/circulating hardware. In case you don't know, relief does not come cheaply or easily in this part of the world where interstate overpasses, and the adjacent borrow pits provide the highest and lowest points around. So some portion of the state of Misery (having lived there, this is the correct spelling) is coming our way, and this is painful to contemplate primarily because when bought by the pound you have a new appreciation for the weightiness of rocks. Our pond refurbish-er has to be held in monetary check because while some splash will be nice, a visual and aural delight, what is not needed is a water park flume ride or a scale model of Niagara Falls. Ah, but since the Phactors don't play golf or tennis, and don't drive fancy new cars, and don't have kids in private schools, and don't believe in providing inheritances, we get to spend our "make ourselves happy" money on gardening, and art, and wine. That much rock should be make us very happy, as long as there's enough wine.