The PE&A is built on a solid foundation...of basalt

Despite the March-like weather this week, construction is moving forward on the PE&A. The past few days have seen thunderstorms, pouring rain, hail, graupel and occasional snow. I've been bringing seedlings inside most nights to protect them from frost. It's hard to believe this time last year I was concerned about the grass drying out as it was so hot and dry.

I've been looking for some time without much luck for a source of rocks to use for the railroad. I finally found exactly what I was looking for at Sunrise Rock in Otis Orchards which is in the Spokane Valley just a couple miles from the Idaho border. There were so many rock options I was tempted to change direction, but decided to stick with my original plan of using Columbia River Basalt. While we have many types of rocks in the Spokane area, CRB is the predominate rock throughout much of central and eastern Washington and is the most appropriate setting for the PE&A.

The source of the PE&A basalt at Sunrise Rock. The pile on the left is mostly cobbles and the pile on the right is mostly boulders. I requested a mix of the two. I was very happy to find a source that had a fair amount of rocks with weathering rather than all fresh broken surfaces.

Rocks being delivered this morning. I spread scrap lumber across the area to protect the lawn from damage.

The initial pile. All five tons of it.

And this is what the pile looked at by noon after a busy morning of moving rocks to the back yard. What's left are the medium sized boulders that are more difficult to move.

I hauled the rocks to the train area using a wheelbarrow, about a hundred feet from the curb, and sorted them by size. Boulders are on the left, medium and large cobbles are in the middle, and small cobbles and large pebbles are on the right.

I also sorted out unusual rocks such as a few non-basalt rocks which I'll use elsewhere in the yard, rocks with nice lichen growth which will go into my native plants area, and vesicular basalt which you see in this photo. When lava cools quickly, gas bubbles which normally would have time to escape become trapped. Vesicular basalt may have small bubbles, large bubbles or even tubes like a poorly made muffin.

A close-up showing some larger vesicles. In this case minerals have redeposited inside the vesicles forming tiny crystals.

I normally end posts with flower pictures but today I'm including a train picture instead. Here is a double-stack train heading eastbound across the Indian Canyon bridge. The mouth of Latah Creek is in the foreground right at its junction with the Spokane River. And overhead a KC-135R Stratotanker is heading toward Fairchild AFB.