Ever since I moved to this hilltop, there have been two vacant lots across the street. They are generally less desirable lots than ones like ours that have ocean and Mountain View’s in every directions. They are nice suburban lots and they do get some partial views of surrounding hills, but they are simply less special, which is why they are, as yet, not built on, even though this development got launched 30 years ago. One of the lots is smaller and tucked quietly to one side. My one involvement with that is that I’ve planted purple ice plants along the roadside, a look which characterizes this neighborhood. When I first planted them five years ago, I tried to contact the landowner, but she is a local woman who wants nothing to do with that lot and prefers to just left it for her heirs. The most I see of her is her gardener, who comes to cut down the roadside weeds a few times a year (he seems fine with my ice plants). The other lot is far more prominent because its a corner lot that’s very visible to anyone driving through our part of the hilltop. Our original neighbors, Mick & Mary owned that lot and Mick made a project of trying it into a lovely open park-like lot with tall Cyprus trees on the border and some low squat palms scattered in between. But when Mick died, Mary sold her house and the lot separately. It was bought by a man who told the neighborhood that he had plans to build a nice house for himself and his wife.
Over the past five years the man’s story has shifted over and over again, most recently that he says he now owns the lot jointly with his adult son. Meanwhile, he and his Peruvian wife (who seems to have only minimal English capabilities) have rented one of our other neighbor’s ADUs to live in while they do their construction. They have done some horizontal leveling of the proposed building site and occasionally do some random gardening on the lot, but have otherwise done nothing. While stretches of time pass with nothing but weeds growing to chest height. It’s become the talk of the hood, and none of it is very positive talk. Then, starting earlier this year, there was suddenly some activity around a very large boulder (probably about a 15’ diameter granite boulder, like so many we enjoy on this hilltop). The man’s son (who no one knows) began drilling holes in the boulder and using an expansive demolition agent (also known as expansive grout or a soundless chemical demolition agent, SCDA) to break up the boulder. To do this you drill holes into the rock, mix the powder with water into a slurry, and pour it into the holes. As it cures, it expands and generates tremendous pressure (sometimes cited at 18,000+ psi), which cracks the rock without the noise, vibration, or flying debris of explosives. This method is popular for controlled rock and concrete demolition in residential or urban areas where blasting isn’t practical. Mechanical alternatives like plug-and-feather wedges or hydraulic splitters work on a similar wedging principle but use physical force instead of chemical expansion. It seems that the son is using both chemical and wedge methods and doing it on his spare Sundays…so very slowly and gradually. No one can figure out why this is being done since the boulder is a mere 6’ from the boundary line of the lot against the smaller vacant lot.
It seems that the lot owner (the man, the son…who knows who) wants to build a garage up against the lot line, where only a 6’ setback is required. Over several months, that beautiful natural boulder got broken into huge jagged chunks of rock that fall away from the boulder wherever gravity leads them after they are cracked from the mother boulder. We are told through the local gossip channels that the lot owner has received a notice from the County that their request for a permit to build the garage where the boulder sits (or partially sits…what’s left of the massive stone) has been rejected since the County now wants a thirty foot setback against property prone to wildfire, which is how they adjudge the smaller vacant lot. This week we are seeing the owner and son directing a local neighbor with a backhoe (the owner of the ADU, who tells us he charges the owner $110/hour to rent him and his backhoe) to move the big boulder chunks into the middle of the lot. The end result is a lot that has gone from looking like a lovely park to a weed infested bramble, to what is now best characterized as a wannabe rock quarry.
Rocks are a big landscaping thing on this hilltop. If I wee taking a wild guess, I would say I have 5+ million visible tons of boulders on my 2.5 acres. its a big part of our hilltop and is one of the things we and our most of our neighbors love about the area. Rocks are a big source of metaphors and idioms. “Rock solid” is something dependable and unshakeable. “Between a rock and a hard place” means stuck choosing between two bad options. “Hitting rock bottom” is when someone is reaching the lowest point of something. “A rock” (as in “he’s been my rock”) is someone steady and supportive. “Set in stone” is something fixed and unchangeable. A “Chip off the old block” is used to describe a child resembling a parent. When something is “Carved in stone/rock” it’s permanent and undeniable. If something is “Solid as a rock” it’s physically or emotionally stable. With what is happening on this lot on our hilltop, I’m thinking we need to find some new rock metaphors to describe what’s happening across the street.
When I go to my local rock store, I see people paying lots of money for big rocks to place strategically on their property to enhance the landscaping. I even buy lots of rocks to use at various places in my gardens to further enhance the natural boulders. In case you didn’t realize it…rocks are damn heavy. I’ve maxed out my truck and my power wheelbarrow with lots of heavy rocks. I guess you might say that I have a lot of respect for rocks and I especially like creating “rock gardens” in multiple nooks and crannies of my hilltop. I used to think the best part of all these rocks is that they will be here long after all of us are long gone, but now I’m beginning to wonder. I guess I now realize that I am one sort of rock gardener and the guy across the street is altogether another sort.