ESTEVAN - A fun project initiated by the Wolensky family made many people in the community smile this summer.
The colourful rock snake, which Brae and Maddyn Wolensky started with about 20 painted rocks, grew to 509 pieces as of the end of last week. The snake is located on the walking trail adjacent to Rooney Road, on the other side of the railing on a retaining stone.
Brae and Maddyn's mother Kaylyn Wolensky said the community was quick on picking up the torch and helping their fun snake grow.
"Lots of people were sending me videos of them putting rocks into it. It's pretty cool," Kaylyn said. "And the girls (Brae and Maddyn) love going there. They ask to go back and check out the rocks snake all the time. Whenever they have friends over, they're like, 'Let's go see rocks.'"
The snake was born in mid-July when the girls decided they wanted to paint some rocks. The Internet helped with bumping the idea of the painted rocks up to the next level.
"We were looking online for different ideas on how to paint rocks, and then we came across this rock snake idea and I'm like, 'That's kind of cool.' And then we just went for a walk and they decided that's where they wanted to put it. So we wrote down on a little piece of paper what it was and it just took off from there," Kaylyn recalled.
Throughout the past three months, the girls added some rocks themselves, and also invited their friends to make their contribution. Kaylyn said they probably didn't expect much involvement from other people, but the snake didn't leave members of the community cold, and the natural art project kept growing up until recently.
"It's starting to slow down now that school is back in and it's starting to get cold out. But it's taken off and it's pretty long now. It's fun to go watch. There are a lot of people who say how much they like just walking by and seeing it," Kaylyn said.
She noted that there were a few people who thought it was a "take a rock, leave a rock" type of initiative in the beginning. And about two weeks after they started the snake, someone knocked rocks down off the ledge. The Wolensky family put them back up and ever since they didn't have any other incidents with the project.
"Some people will come and rearrange the rocks a little bit but that's fine," Kaylyn said.
Now that winter is coming, the project will probably freeze for the time being.
"It's nice where it is. It doesn't get in the way with snow removal or tripping hazards or anything for the city. It's on the other side of a fence ... So I think it could probably stay for the winter. I hope it does," Kaylyn said.
While rocks were painted by many different people, Kaylyn said she hopes the images and colours make it through the winter and next year the snake will still be there to keep bringing the community together to make it grow or just smile looking at it.
