In the Crevices of the Lava Rock Wall

Son1 spends a lot of time outside in our back yard. He ogles over our lava rock wall, inspecting it for spider webs, lizards, and geckos. Our neighbors have ferns and the spores that blow into our yard cause ferns to sprout from the crevices. Here Son1 is telling me all about the spider that lives there, and detailing for me everything that has been caught in the spider's web. The spider was nowhere to be found, so he was also telling me all about where this spider could possibly be hiding. He loves The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle.

Lava rocks are found in rock quarries. It is no easy feat to build a lava rock wall. I don't know anyone that has ever built one. We hired a contractor to build the rock wall, who brought in a bob cat to move the rocks to our back yard, and then also have them brought into our front yard. A back hoe was also used to level part of our lot in front and back. Lava rocks are these large boulders, that are porous in character, created by lava. They pretty much look the same until a neighbor pointed out to me the detail of a nicely composed wall as opposed to ones that weren't built so nicely. We had just moved to the island when we had the wall built. I will admit to being skeptical of the Samoan men in sarongs (kind of like a wrap around skirt) and slippers (those are flip flops to you on the mainland). How ever were these men going to build my wall without steel toe boots and some dirty jeans, like on the mainland? HA! When you do it every day you must become a master artist and builder.