Trick-or-treaters had the trick played on them this autumn when a pre-Halloween Nor’easter dropped a foot of snow on our area. Witches and goblins don’t usually have to scale snowbanks to ring doorbells. And I don’t expect my stone supplies to disappear under a blanket of white stuff in October. But after a short delay, the project I had scheduled for last week got underway and a 100’ length of “singling” was produced for Cochecho Country Club. This style of dry stone walling is well suited to a materials supply constituted of boulders. The stone was resurrected from the remnants of an old field wall. The wall line was reestablished and a crushed-stone base installed.  

Even though the sun shone each day, the ground underfoot stayed wet and slippery during the three-day process. The boulders were caked with mud. Sometimes a layer of snow would get packed on their sides as they were rolled along, turning them into giant, chocolate-coconut bonbons.

I might have been depressed by the sight of the finished work, mud-coated as it was, but I knew it would look better with time. The section of wall I completed last April for Cochecho Country Club, in the spring mud season, now looks clean and bright thanks to the through washing it got from summer rains and to the classy job of landscaping by Tony P. and his maintenance team. Thanks also to Matt N. from Maine for joining me in the latest ‘mud follies’ construction.