Work on the 8th hole stone fence at Cochecho Country Club in Dover, New Hampshire ended on a bright note yesterday with sunny skies. The golfers were out in droves. It will be interesting to see how the new wall becomes part of course play. A ball that hits the wall will ricochet toward the green instead of bounding, as it would have previously, into the rough. In any case, Brian and I are happy to be out of the line of fire from long drives gone astray.
Read MoreIt’s not every school where you can see chickens free-ranging on the lacrosse field during a practice, but Green Mountain College isn’t every school. During a recent visit to Poultney, Vermont to lecture and instruct a walling workshop at the college I discovered a vibrant educational community that’s leading the way in environmental studies. The eight students I worked with were a ready and willing group. They quickly grasped the concepts and principles of dry stone wall construction and jumped right into building. By the end of the afternoon they had laid up a 24 foot long section of retaining wall using slate cut-offs from a local quarry/fabricator.
Read MoreAfter the snow has gone and before the leaves bud out there’s a pause between seasons that’s just right for exploring the woods. Because the forest floor litter has yet to rebound from its recent compaction from the weight of snow, land shapes are clearly defined. Ancient trees have left evidence of their former stature in the earth pillows and cradles created by their toppling and uprooting. Dark, moist ledge outcrops and loose stone screes stand out on dry slopes. Stone fences, once lining high meadows, now stand only as a testament to a bygone sheep farmer’s singular tenacity.
Read MoreAn inch of rain isn’t the best way to start a new job, but that’s what I got Wednesday in Dover, New Hampshire where I was beginning construction at a golf course. The original fence ran alongside of an old town road. Its remnants had been pulled down by the course maintenance crew and a new footing established away from the tree line. By Thursday afternoon the clouds lifted and the wind began to dry the mud. Friday was beautifully sunny.
Read MoreThree days this week were devoted to dismantling and reassembling a sculpture titled ‘Rock Rest’. The piece was designed and constructed last December at my stone yard with the intention that it would eventually be installed at the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center’s new sculpture garden. On Sunday I numbered and catalogued the 50+ stones in the piece and transported them, by five truck and trailer loads, seven miles to Brattleboro. The stones were spread out across the parking lot in preparation for placement in the piece.
Read MoreThe gardener's perspective is the perfect loci for seeking inward and reaching outward, for ordering the experience of time and space, and observing higher orders. Garden makers and stone workers channel the power of nature through their imagination where it is interpreted and transformed through action.
Read MoreThe Sheep Shed resides at the convergence of two paths trodden into the hillside by many generations of sheep hooves. Three dry stone walls, built from cobbles and boulders selected from a gravel pit, support oak timbers. A light weight network of spruce log poles rests on the frame. In ascending layers, thick slabs of flat stone from a quarry in Goshen, Massachusetts cover the pole rafters. The roof stones are not affixed in any way. They are held in place by the sheer weight of their collective mass. Twenty tons of stone float over the void of the sheep shed interior.
Read MoreDiscounting the pesky black flies, weather and working conditions were ideal for the Dummerston town pound walling weekend. Sixteen participants under the direction of myself, Andrew Pighills and Jared Flynn created forty foot of four foot high fence wall, a corner and a cheekend. The pound is now enclosed on nearly three sides. The gate opening makes a fine entrance to the interior space. Thanks to all who worked so carefully and well laying stone.
Read MoreBlessed with with sunny skies, warm temperatures, a cooling breeze, and a wonderful location in Dummerston Center, 22 participants worked and learned together, creating several beautiful stone constructions and walls, under the direction of Travis Callahan, Andrew Pighills and Dan Snow.
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