The Dirt Pile

On May 3, 1947, Korczak Ziolkowski came to the Black Hills to create a monument of Crazy Horse at the invitation of Chief Henry Standing Bear.

The idea was to create the world's largest mountain carving located in the Black Hills of South Dakota to honor the Dakota warrior, Crazy Horse. Work on this monument still continues today and I know what the workers on this project might think, are we ever going to get this finished?

Since rock is plentiful and dirt is scarce here on the homestead, I added garden space with 2 X 12's for two beds 5 X 10, surrounded by a walkway of Bandara stone. I contacted a good friend about needing the dirt and the same afternoon he drove up close to the beds and deposited a heaping truckload of dirt for garden soil.

The next step was to move the dirt into the garden beds. The dirt man had offered to bring his skid loader to scoop it up and put it in the beds. I declined his generous offer and foolishly said it will give me something to do. One shovel at a time, I found out that it took quite a while to fill 100 square foot of beds, 12 inches deep. In the middle of all of this it rained so it became harder to dig the dirt. Bit by bit, and shovel-by-shovel, I finally filled the garden spots.

The next problem was that the other half of the dump truck load was still piled next to the garden. Bringing the garden tractor and yard cart around, I started scooping the dirt into the cart and spreading it throughout the yard. This was kind of like eating a green vegetable you don't like and being unable to clear your plate.

Finally, another friend volunteered to come over and bring a tractor with a blade and help get rid of the dirt. I was only too happy to accept. My back was beginning to hurt and I cracked the handle on the shovel and the dirt pile was a constant reminder that the project could outlast me.

Thanks to good neighbors the project is finished. Maybe we should drive up to South Dakota and see how the Crazy Horse workers are coming along.