A mere nine months later
...
I finally got my first load of stone. Just 950 pounds today, but I've handled each piece at least 6 times already. Spent most of the afternoon building it backward. In other words, the slope was all wrong and it looked just plain stupid. More like a pile of tombstones than a rock garden!
I think I've got that part figured out now, so tomorrow I'll get a load of fill and start setting them in. This one isn't turning out to be a crevice garden, so I think I'll try a small one of those later on, and in another area; they're a lot harder to build than they look!