Jasper would just as gingerly race down the ravine, retrieve the rock, walk it back to the garden, and await the next rock toss. It was one of his favorite games and he has the chipped and broken teeth to attest to it. I finally convinced him to deposit his retrieved rocks outside the perimeter of the garden, but even so, the continual appearance of rocks in the garden continued unabated. I was always amazed, come spring, that the garden seemed to actually sprout rocks over the winter. If you've spent any time in the Maine woods, you know that rocks aren't a recent geographical phenomenon.
Most hiking trails contain a healthy supply of rocks and boulders.
And old rock walls can often be found deep in the woods, a testament to the fact that the forest in which you are now walking was once farmland. Remnants of rock walls abound on and around the property where I built my house, which I find quite curious since the land itself is composed nearly entirely of rocks. I can't fathom how someone could have farmed this land. But who knows, the land is sloping and perhaps over the course of the last 100 years or so, topsoil that was once there washed away. In addition to the aforementioned rock walls, rocks make quite the versatile landscaping material.