The secret life of rocks

Last summer we finally made some changes at our house. As you probably have observed (as I’m sure our neighbors have), I don’t really enjoy yard work. It’s not that I don’t like being outside or that I don’t particularly like physical labor (okay, maybe that has something to do with it), it has more to do with inertia and the fear of getting into a project and ending up over my head. I’ve found that if I start thinking my way through the steps that it doesn’t seem so bad and I might, but by then I’ve thought myself into a nap (and that feels so much nicer and I don’t need a shower afterward).
Anyway, Judy started insisting that we make some changes with the landscape in front of our house. We thought it over, made some drawings, and looked at options. We decided on enhancing the current grass motif with a rock garden/desert motif. Just as I was settling down into going-over-the-steps mode, Judy said, “Well, let’s go.” She obviously didn’t understand that I was still processing the steps; she was ready to get the rocks and I hadn’t even closed my eyes yet. Forty-five minutes later we were wallowing down I-15 in Dad’s truck (he likes cool cars, but I don’t think he ever envisioned his truck as a low-rider, and fortunately he wasn’t around to witness it). By the end of the day, we had a layer of rocks snaking up the side of our front stairs, taking care of that patch in the front yard that would always brown in the summer.
 
So, here you see our rocks; stream bed leading from the down spout; drought-tolerant, native plants; and rustic, period lamp post. Now Judy’s only concern was that the neighborhood kids would walk off with all of our pretty rocks. Yeah, right. As if.
Well, our rocks haven’t exactly walked off, but it does appear that they have walked. Now, I’ve studied biology and seriously don’t remember rocks being classified with a genus and family. Hindus, I’m pretty sure, don’t lay awake at night worrying about returning as a chunk of granite in some ornamental garden. But these rocks move! I’m constantly returning rocks of all sizes from their excursions into the gutter or onto the lawn, although that doesn’t surprise me too much. But I took literally minutes positioning larger rocks carefully selected random spots, only to have them change places with other rocks.
One day, I caught them in the act. The beauty of our front window is not that we have an unfettered and superior view of our neighbor’s front window, it’s that we can view nature as it happens naturally around us without having to go outside. I was thus observing one morning (probably just starting through the steps of the next big project I needed to avoid) when two neighbor girls, around 3 or 4 years old, wandered into our yard and right up ONTO our newly planted rocks! They proceeded to consider my streambed and random accent stones. They would pick one up, examine it from all angles, and then carefully place it down somewhere else, as though tucking it into its rightful bed. They then started rearranging my streambed, as though they knew better what a randomly placed, naturally occurring streambed should look like.
I know the proper technique for discouraging cats and dogs from decoration my lawn (and through years of experience have learned to do it without breaking windows), but I don’t think that it’s the same technique to use on little girls. “Scat!” doesn’t seem appropriate, somehow. So I let them continue with their rearrangement, knowing that I could remedy their amateur arrangements later when they weren’t looking. Judy is a bit wiser, however, and fell upon the perfect plan: she committed the girls to police the rock garden and prevent other girls from messing with it.
Still, my rocks wander daily. I wonder if they dream.