Dry Stone Conservancy Workshop
After three weeks on the road through six states we arrived at Pleasant Hill Shaker Village in Kentucky for a week of workshops, tests and competition with the Dry Stone Conservancy. Neil Rippingale, DSC Training Program Manager, and I instructed two days of workshops with seven drystone professionals and hobbyists. On the first day they stripped out a curved section of collapsed wall and rebuilt it. On the second day they went on to wall heads, stripping out and rebuilding two sections at a gateway between fields. Pleasant Hill is the preserved village of a former Shaker community. The historic site and working farm is on 2,000 acres of rolling fields and woodlands. Twenty-five miles of dry stone fence intersect across the property.