Every spring, I pull out a fresh crop of these (not including the can):



But this one was a bit more surprising than most. I had weeded there every previous spring for years (poking pretty deep to get out Lily of the Valley roots) and never hit this.
Then suddenly when I tried weeding there Yesterday, it was right at the surface. Usually they don't lift themselves that much in just one year.

I pried it out with a big pry bar, and rolled it a few feet and then today took this photo. There are places (not there) where I might want to make it part of a border and/or retaining wall. But it is a bit too heavy for me to lift and most places I might want it are not practical to roll to from there, so I'll need to think about the compromise between where I want it vs. how much trouble to get it there.

Oh I know about those weeds LOL.. live on top of a NJ mountain that they mined iron ore from .. like the movie armageddon.. just keep screaming were all gonna die man.. were all gonna die .. or depending on the mood of lunatic I am that day .. sing.. a rock a rock.. what a shock a shock

Queen of rocks here....get a 'fresh' crop every spring!

where im from, and prob other parts of NE, we have field stones and fences. from long ago until now, had to pull the granite state - stones for farming. i have about 50 basketball sized on my property. miles and miles of field stone fence around me. arthur moniz art captures the essence of field stone nicely if you look him up sometime

My son made rock walls for my raised perennial beds....look nice, but the walls are home to many critters, some of whom eat my bulbs.....

same here .. voles and chipmunks love the walls .. they used to mine for iron ore here .. we get rusty rocks LOL

Never thought of Jersey as a mining state! My stepson set a bunch of mouse traps in my cellar & garage before he went back to Maine yesterday.....today, in the garage, there was rat killed by the trap...OMG, awful.....don't need rats around.

there's a town in my county called mine hill .. lots of mining happened in north jersey.. bad news is they get those monster sink holes .. off the top of my head Sterling.. Franklin.. mine hill and long valley.. Franklin still does mine tours.. know there's more I'm not thinking of

Onewish1 said:there's a town in my county called mine hill .. lots of mining happened in north jersey.. bad news is they get those monster sink holes .. off the top of my head Sterling.. Franklin.. mine hill and long valley.. Franklin still does mine tours.. know there's more I'm not thinking of

one of the best dinosaur fossil areas in jersey too. behind a walmart or something i forget the article. prob have to sift thru some old mob bodies before getting to the t rex though

Didn't think of that! I always remember Jersey as the "Garden State"....

RobinD said:Didn't think of that! I always remember Jersey as the "Garden State"....

one of my favorite movies too

It was a movie? I haven't seen a movie in 30 years......My late husband taught in Jersey for a year...hated it, moved to CT...best move he made!

yeah it's not for everyone

I think he hated it because he was on double sessions which you don't see anymore....plus, a lot of city kids were moving into the area, & Doug was from NH... He had been the teaching principal in Greenland, NH....really small at that time!

I got an early start pulling weeds (wall lettuce) out around this shrub and bumped into this thing poking at least 2 inches above the surface, which was not there last fall when I dug at least 3 inches down removing the roots of the wall lettuce (obviously with less success than I'd like). I levered it the rest of the way up and will soon roll it away. I expect it will take longer before new rocks emerge to replace this one, than it took for new wall lettuce to emerge.

Whoa! Can't believe you got that one out...it's a whale.....

It is big for having been able to rise several inches on its own, over just one winter. But it isn't large compared to other rocks that I levered out of the ground. Once rocks break the surface, I'm fanatic about pulling them the rest of the way out, and I'm very effective with large levers and stubbornness. Only one was both too big and too close to a large tree to pull out, so I put more dirt on top of it.
Two that I moved a couple years ago were each at least 20 times the weight of this one. It is actually easier to get such a monster up out of the ground (with just muscles and levers) than it is to move it once it is out. The super large ones were moveable only in the winter with the ground frozen, and then super slowly. The largest I ever levered out of the ground was not moveable at all and still sits where I pulled it up.

By contrast, this one moved just by tipping it over again and again in the desired direction. Way too heavy for me to lift, but not too heavy to put it where I wanted it, which I already did. I have a long section of a sharp (but only about 4 feet high) slope, that I covered with big rocks. Where I have campanula growing just above that slope, I replaced the top rocks with larger flatter topped ones so I have a place to stand or kneel when tending those plants. This one is now part of that top surface.

It is this one, seen in context in the next photo:

My son made many rock edged gardens for me when he was in HS....he's now 46! You have to be creative with rocks here in NE!