Mulch Boy and the Stone Circle

I’ve been suffering under the accusatory eye of Mulch Boy for over three weeks. You see, back during Mulch Madness, Mulch fulfilled an eight-year-long ambition, and he’s been he’s been anxiously waiting for me to document it ever since.

However, what with one thing and another (hospitalizations, out-of-town trips, work crises, dog vomiting) I’ve not got around to it. Until today. Mulch Boy, you can officially get off my back!

Eight years ago: this is when Mulch Boy and I went to Ireland for two weeks on our third date. (That in itself, as you can imagine, is its own story.) If you’ve never been to Ireland and your only image of it is a picture-postcard of green fields and sheep, you’ll be delighted to know that your image is pretty accurate. Yes, there are towns and cities, but mostly Ireland is just as green and idyllic and sheepy as you could possibly imagine (at least in the south where we spent our trip)

Also, it’s full of rocks.

Ireland is a very rocky place. Rock walls abound. Ancient forts and churches of free-standing rocks dot the landscape, enclosed by more rock walls. The Burren is an enormous expanse of rocks that encompasses 250 square kilometers.

And the island is simply awash in stone circles. We visited many of them during our two weeks in Eire, some easier to find than others.




Some are more prominent than others

 
Is it any wonder then that Mulch Boy, good Boston Irish boy that he is, would come away with the desire to build his very own?

Needless to say, we don’t have the real estate to construct a circle on the scale of your average prehistoric druid. Still, the yard is pretty big, and The Big Bed in the front yard has quite a bit of area still waiting to be developed, so to speak. And as several of the stones in our beds had been liberated from their former positions (due to the plants finally growing in and actually hiding the rocks), Mulch found himself with a sudden source of sizable building blocks to finally build the monument to his heritage.

And so he did. Turns out I’m no longer the only rock obsessive in the household. Mulch Boy gathered all the crystalline rocks of a certain size together, plus four larger, darker stones that were to represent the four points of the compass. After placement of these latter stones, a lengthy process of arranging the quartz-like stones just right between them ensured.

Based on my research (i.e., a quick glance at Wikipedia), a dolmen is not usually found in a stone circle. However, Ireland is also ripe with dolmens and we liked them, so a dolmen became part of the design. Again, just the right stones had to be identified and employed until they were just right.

Behold! The Stone Circle of the Little Blue House.




Under the watchful eye of Margaret T. Rex.




Close-up, with genuine Irish sheep.