The Stone Age?

    My visit to the rock pile, referenced to in an earlier blog, on The Prairie was occasioned by our thinking that we should order grave markers.  When I was ordained in 1968, my home congregation, Sinai Lutheran Church, gave us two plots in their cemetery.  They said something to the effect "You will likely move around during your ministry and may not have a permanent location.  We'd like to give you two plots in case you'd ever like to use them."  A very thoughtful action on their part. The plots on which we agreed are next to my uncle Henry Negstad and his wife Inga, who were childless. Over the years we've maintained ties to the that community so it seems logical to be buried there.  It also seems logical that we take the next step and arrange a grave marker.

     The stone for which I was searching is large, flat, rock shaped like huge flagstone and has a perfect round hole through the center.  It is slate grey in color.  When I asked my father about the hole he told me this story.  After grandpa Lars secured the rights to the finish the homestead on the farm there were many large rocks on the land which interfered with farming.  Some of them were much too large to move with oxen or horses.  So grandpa would chisel a hole deep into the rock, fill it with black powder...dynamite had yet to be invented...light a fuse to the powder and the explosion would shatter the rock.  The pieces were light enough so they could be moved by horses.  This time when dad told about grandpas's work I had the presence of mind to ask at least one question "How long would it take him to chisel a rock?"  Dad said he might be able to do one in a day.

   It boggles my mind to think of him, with a sledge hammer,  10 or 12 pounds perhaps, spending days chiseling rocks.  My nephew still has the two faced sledge hammer.  One face looks as it has hardly been used while the other face has been rounded significantly from its use.  

   A stone with a hole through it would be an interesting backdrop to our grave marker.  Perhaps I'll look again.  I also remember one in the grove of trees surrounding our farm yard.  My nephew, who now lives there and owns the property likely wouldn't mind.