Dirt cheap

Whoever coined that phrase hasn't done much landscaping. I need a bunch of gravel, dirt, edging stones, and flagstones, and while it's not as expensive as the estimate to paint the exterior of my house, it's not dirt cheap either. The fact that I want these items and am budgeting for them has turned me into a coveter of rocks of all things. I see piles of rocks everywhere and imagine how I could get them into my trunk or back seat without being caught. Yes, I want to steal rocks - not diamonds mind you - just TX limestone or sandstone. I have gone all my life without a thought to the careless piles of rocks that seem to be everywhere now. In people's yards, vacant lots, road improvement projects, construction sites.

Here's a true story of how I came by this craving naturally. When I was in elementary school, my mother wanted a flagstone hallway. Undeterred by the lack of funds for this project, she drove my brother and me to the site of a new housing development where she had spied some flagstones. In the dark of night my brother and I scurried back and forth from the pile of flagstones to the trunk of our 1960 Chrysler until my mother deemed there were enough stones for her entry-way. Then my poor father had to lay those stones in his precious little spare time. And you might be asking, was her mother a little crazy? Well, yeah. Thankfully I am not and I will not go off in the dead of night and steal rocks. But it doesn't mean I don't wish I could pass by a sign saying "Free landscape rocks!! Take all you need." If only.