Being My Mother

As I have stated in a couple of previous posts my family, at least on my mom side, were rockhounds and my granddad was actually a prospector that went out hunting for gold, silver, turquoise, and other minerals in Grant County, NM back in the 1930's and 40's.
All her life my mom remembered all that her dad had taught her about hunting for gold and silver and was always picking up rocks that she liked. As she got older her memory began to fail and by the time she was in her late 60's she would just pick up any old rock or pebble that she saw regardless of it's looks. All we could do was put up with it and throw them out; when she wasn't looking of course. There were a lot of rocks that she had that we did like and allowed her to keep. She and my dad, who also had picked up the prospector/rockhound bug had collected quite a few larger rocks that had crystals, or lots of nice colors in them. Most of these were so big I wondered how my dad had managed to get them home and while he was alive they were regulated to the yard. After dad was gone Mother got it into her head to bring all of these rocks into the house. Some of them weighted at least 50 pounds or more. It always amazed us when we found one of these rocks in the house and sometimes they got to sit there for a while until one of us had the energy or got one of our husbands or sons to take it back out. We might go to visit and check on her one day and take most of the rocks outside telling her there were enough in the house to have to clean around and the next day there they would be back in the house usually with even more of them. When Mother was gone we did divide up the better of these rocks and hauled them to our own homes as we were putting her house up for sale. (Can you see that it might have been a bit hereditary, this rockhounding bug.)
Where I live now in N. M. we get lots of wind storms which cause the desert sand and dirt to blow in and creep into the house as well as covering up anything in it's path outside that doesn't move.
Two years ago I took Mothers rocks and what I had collected myself and made a nice little rock garden in one spot in my backyard. I put a lot of work into and had to have hubby use the hand dolly to move several rocks that had to weight a couple of hundred pounds. As of this morning all I could see of that rock garden were the tops of a couple of the larger rocks. There was a sand dune on top of my rocks and the flowers I had planted around them. I doubt if the plants will come up this spring. So I got a shovel and started digging. I got less than one forth of the area done. 2 rocks were too big for me to dig up. I got a small pile of rocks I could handle dug up and moved again. I will do more digging when I have time. (of course we are expecting bad winds again this weekend)
I find myself acting like my mom so much when I do something like this. I'm not sure if this is good or bad. But I guess it is me as it was her. I will try not to bring so many into the house, at least until my mind is gone.