Maybe it comes from experience, or maybe it is innate, but I do have a nose for stone. Time and again I stumble upon obscure sources of loose stone if I just start wandering around. The talent, if it can be called that, extends to moments during the walling day when a particularly sized and shaped stone is required for a spot on the wall. Without it being in sight, I will ferret into a stock pile to immediately come up with the hidden gem, waiting just below the surface.
Read MoreBefore 2023 gets too distant in the rear-view mirror, now’s a good time to catch a reflection of the year’s activities. I was joined on the 2023 constructions by a number of wonderful client partners, collaborators and dry stone professionals. All gave it their all, and I can’t thank them enough.
Read MoreReaders may well wonder “What’d it take?” when viewing images of the sunken garden space and surrounding hardscape I built last fall in Marlboro, Vermont. It was work done with skill, efficiency and pride, by me and a handful of compatriots. As with other stone endeavors, it required the marshaling of materials, equipment and craft.
Read MoreOver the years, experience taught me that not all my ideas work, but that the most risky ones, when they did, turned out to be the most rewarding. If I wanted the Odeon to be something special, I had to have faith. Architectural details from the church have informed the Odeon’s design. A seating arrangement of granite slabs, their surfaces speckled with iridescent mica like the church’s facade, are set atop retaining walls built in a matrix style that emulates that of faceted, stained-glass windows.
Read MoreThe 2023 maple season is off with a bang. Three boils in the sugarhouse have yielded several gallons of heavenly sweetness. Frosty nights and sunny days get the sap running. Our 260 buckets will be full again before we know it. Stop by the sugarhouse if you see see steam pouring from the cupola. There’s a taste of Vermont essence waiting for you.
“Sugaring off” begins our yearly activities. To see what fun we had last year take a gander at the 2022 newsletter.
Read MoreThe Stone Trust leads a tour of notable stone walls and other dry stone structures as part of BMAC’s “Hidden in the Hills” series. The tour will begin and end at The Stone Trust, located at Scott Farm in Dummerston, Vermont. Participants will begin with a short walking tour at The Stone Trust, followed by a guided tour of nearby stone structures. Amy-Louise Pfeffer, Executive Director of The Stone Trust, and I will host the event. Come and enjoy.
Read MoreThe recent 2-Day Cheek Rebuild workshop that I instructed saw four enthusiastic participants complete their own free-standing cheekend, achieving personal satisfaction from work well done, and a certificate from The Stone Trust, to boot! Congrats to Darrin, Lou, David and Jonny for rising to the challenge.
Read MoreCraft skills typically used for making something new are also practiced to repair something old. Many a waller has cut their teeth in the trade by rebuilding broken gaps in old fence lines. Mending a section of dilapidated, dry stone wall is a form of stitchery, too. When done with respect for what's been accomplished by others in the past, repairs can feel like a partnership that's taken place over centuries.
Read MoreHours and days of grinding labor culminate in a finished structure but somehow it’s the intermissions in the process that are remembered, the many cracks of light that shine through the monolith of physical exertion that is dry stone walling.
Read More
