We were at our girls’ state championship regattas recently that are held in Sarasota at Nathan Benderson Park. We are really lucky to be so close to an amazing venue for rowing. It’s a facility built just for that, and the Olympic rowing team even trains there at various times during the year. It is a human-made body of water, long and narrow so that it can hold 1000M, 1500M, and 2000M regattas. And all along the water spectators line up to watch the rowers as they furiously sprint to the finish line.

Also along the water, probably for some erosion control, are rocks. And at one of the last regattas, as we watched the various races throughout the day, I observed the funniest thing. People, young and old, boys and girls (well, probably more boys than girls) were just fascinated with picking up rocks and throwing them into the water. One kid was chucking pretty sizable rocks that were making a splash. And then kids got into trying to find stones to skip.

And it just made me wonder, what is it about rocks? What makes humans look at a rock and look at water and say to themselves, “You know, I should throw this rock into the water.” It reminded me of a time in the winter when I camped out at Vogel State Park in Georgia. There is a huge lake with a pretty hike that goes around the perimeter, and as we walked along the then-frozen lake my buddy and I got the biggest kick out of chucking rocks, boulders, whatever we could carry into the frozen water and seeing how much ice was crushed at one time.

It definitely seems like it is something in our genes. I don’t get a sense of any real survival need for this compunction, but maybe it helped us test the water for depth or to check for alligators – which I suppose is pretty important for Florida.

And of course, at the Nursery there are rocks everywhere. The number of kids that you can tell have pockets full of gravel is always amusing (to us, not to their parents). Obviously our fascination with rocks starts early and never ends! So come stroll across the gravel of the Nursery and enjoy the beauty of the month of May. We know it’s hot, but you can always tuck in the shade of a tree and grab a cold water if you need one to get a quick break. We’re Floridians and we are tough. And we’re lucky, too: the gardening season never ends for us.