It’s ironic that I ended up owning an acre of land full of rocks because at some point in my youth I’m sure I shook my fist in the air and vowed: “As God as my witness I will never pick rocks again.”

Those words come back to haunt me every time I tackle a landscaping job in our yard.

Every bit of good dirt has been hauled in to cover up the rocks and the gummy clay soil. Digging post holes has thrown my husband into fits because there’s always just one more rock in the way.

Rocks and I have had a rocky relationship, no pun intended.

It started when I was about 8, old enough to nimbly jump on and off a hay wagon. Every summer, my dad would round up us kids and away we’d go to whatever field had been set aside for rock-picking. And hour after hot, sweaty hour we’d gather up the biggest rocks we could find and carry until we had a load.

This was back-breaking, tedious work and I’m guessing we must have whined about being so oppressed, though I don’t readily recall us making much of a fuss. It was just an unfortunate part of farm life.

I’m no geologist, but I’m sure there’s some explanation for why those rocks seemed to always work their way to the surface. We’d often have to scour the same field, if not every year then every other year.

Our farm is located just beyond the southern shoreline of ancient Lake Agassiz, the glacial lake that created the rich sediment of the Red River Valley when it melted. Our land, though not nearly as rich as the Red River Valley, wasn’t bad soil if you discounted the rocks.

We’d make up games to pass the time during those monotonous marathons — who could find the biggest rock; who could haul the most in a given time; who was the first to spot a gopher ...

One time I turned over a sizable stone to find a nest of baby mice. Tomboy that I was, I thought it was pretty cool. We dodged garter snakes and came in contact with any number of spiders and other creepy-crawlers as we dug in the dirt.

The prize of the day was when Mom arrived with the afternoon lunch basket about 4 p.m. (Minnesota farmers routinely ate forenoon lunch AND afternoon lunch in addition to breakfast, lunch and supper because of the heavy workload).

I don’t know why, but my mother almost always made lime-flavored Kool-Aid and to this day it takes me back to those hot afternoons. We’d gobble a bologna sandwich and some freshly baked cookies and be on our way again, to get in at least a good hour or more of stone gathering until the cows had to be milked.

This rock routine was such an impressionable part of my upbringing that I once got an A+ on a high-school English paper that explained in great detail our toils in the soil. I saved that piece of prose, dusted it off and turned it in for a writing assignment my first year in college. Got an A then, too.

Other than good grades, good memories and a good work ethic, what have rocks done for me? Come to think of it, maybe rocks and I are even. I’ve incorporated them into our landscaping (how do you get rid of them otherwise?) as a testament of their eternal endurance and a reminder of those afternoons in the dirt so long ago.

 Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by e-mail at [email protected]