Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Going the full round.



Here's one of three projects I've been working on in the last few weeks. This is a nearly completed 50 foot section of a dry stone wall we are building in Alderville Ontario. Massive 16 inch high boulders for copes.

The wall is built mostly from very round granite field stones gathered from the 200 acre property. The rock is very hard and pretty much 'unshapable'. The walls are 3 feet thick and coursed. 

There is a wonderful 'rightness' about round stones laid in rows.

It's strange how deceptively square-ish round stones look when painstakingly laid in courses like this. That's probably why sometimes people who don't know a lot about walls comment that working with such "flat stones" must be pretty easy. They obviously think the stones are flatter and squarer than they actually are.