When all Else Fails, Spend More Money

The giant rock in my side yard is proving to be a stubborn and clever foe.

I have lots of rocks on and under my property. The other day I pulled a 6-footer out of the yard with the Kubota. I got cocky and started working on another rock. The more I dug, the more rock I saw. I’m beginning to wonder if I’ve stumbled upon one of the longest roots of the country of China.

Last week, I shoveled and lifted quite a bit. I try not to lift anything heavy, but I still managed to strain my back. I felt bad on Saturday, but I prayed and did my thing, and on Monday morning, I felt great. So I went out to do more work, and on Tuesday, I strained my back again.

This time, I decided not to pray alone. I made sure I contacted my friend Amanda. She has been getting a lot of miraculous healings, and she prayed successfully for her son when he cut his toe very badly. It occurred to me that I ought to be contacting her whenever I had a physical problem. I believe in investing in success.

Last night little voices kept trying to tell me I had a serious problem which would not go away, but I got up this morning and felt fine.

When you help other people develop in Christ, they tend to come back and pay you dividends. Preachers don’t talk about that much, because most of them don’t know much. It’s a little bit like raising kids. If you raise successful kids of good character, you’ll have help when you get old. Same principle.

I had pastors who did me some good, and I tried to do good things in their churches, but they couldn’t be blessed. They wrecked whatever I gave them. Many people complain about the way their lives go, and they don’t realize they have turned themselves into people who are only capable of being cursed.

You can’t bless everyone. Curses bounce off God’s children, and blessings bounce off the children of darkness. It’s another example of the symmetry of the supernatural. You could give my sister 10 million dollars tomorrow, and in three years, she’d be broke, and she would also have made a lot of people suffer.

When we involve ourselves too deeply with cursed people who refuse to listen, they become parasites to us. Good things leave us, go to them, putrefy, and are lost. When Satan can’t get a grip on you directly, he may be able to use a cursed person you pity as a handle. This is the essence of enabling.

My back feels good, but I am not interested in a routine of injury and prayer, so I decided to invest in a jackhammer.

So far, I’ve been using a rotary hammer and some splitting wedges. The wedges work very well, but in order to use them, you have to have a rock of a suitable shape, and you have to be able to get at the part you need to split. Also, when you’ve split a rock, you have to be able to get the pieces out of the hole. A jackhammer should allow me to break the rock up into pieces which are light and easy to pick up.

I considered getting a Chinese jackhammer. They’re bargains. You can buy one, including an extended warranty, for less than a third of the price of a name brand. I found a refurbed Bosch for about twice the price of a Chinese model, and I felt like it was a better choice. It’s less likely to break down, and if I decide to sell it, the low up-front price, combined with the Bosch name, should permit me to get out with a very small loss.

I don’t know what I’ll do with a jackhammer once my few troubling rocks are gone. You can use them for other things. You can drive grounding rods with them. I don’t see that happening. You can use them for general destruction of annoying objects.

It will be nice to have. It was nice to have my little-used rotary hammer around when I needed it. I don’t know how easy it will be to use far from the house. My portable generator will power a welder, and it should run a jackhammer, but I can’t say until I’ve seen it.

The big rock moves very slightly when I yank it with the tractor. Maybe if I cut enough off of it, it will come out of its hole before being broken to tiny bits. I hope so.

I’m already using one rock from the job as a landscaping decoration, and I plan to use others. Bonus!

Sometimes I wish I had a skid steer. I suspect a skid steer is a better tool for this farm than a tractor. Skid steers are more powerful. They lift more, too. A skid steer can rip out stumps a tractor can’t even move. I think a skid steer would have enabled me to remove every annoying rock I have in a couple of hours.

If you’re wondering why they’re called “skid steers,” it’s because their wheels don’t have any steering mechanism. They’re always aimed straight ahead. To turn a skid steer, you move one pair of wheels one way while moving the other two the other way (or stopping them completely…I think). The result is that one pair of wheels may skid across the ground while the others turn.

Now you know.

I will post humiliating photos of the defeated rock when I have them.