Conditions are always a factor, b/w The RockLimo has entered the chat.
It's not the heat, it's the decrepitude.
I love building dry stone walls. I am not especially good at it. I am, for one thing, very slow at it, which is fine if you are building mostly to please yourself, but not great if you want to work professionally. (Professionals also have Bobcats and stuff like that, but I digress.) I started messing around with stone in 1991. That is a long time ago. I was 21 then, and I am 55 now. Also, in 1991, the planet was 34 years cooler than it is now. I was lucky that my first major project was in the shade almost entirely. I was lucky that I got interested in stone when I could reasonably put in a nineish to fiveish day, and go play Ultimate Frisbee with my friends at VT Law.
I have more toys tools now, and a lot more experience, but also a lot more miles on the odometer. I have a narrow window to do the stone work I want, not to mention school stuffI have to do, writing I want to do, and any number of tasks in and around the house that I should do before we go. Some of the tasks are outdoor, and some are indoor. It has been prohibitively hot (by my standards) to choose to go out and do physical labor for any length of time unless there is shade. Where I am working, that means getting started about 5, which gives me right now, about 3 hours before dark.
It turns out that is plenty of time these days. To my surprise and delight, moving logs and trees around + robust consumption of CBD has the chronic pain from breaking 5 ribs in Sep 23 under control. Unfortunately, about two weeks ago, my right knee started to feel like it was falling apart. UrgentCare diagnosed it as “overuse,” and gave me some prednisone, but even with my sexy new knee brace, it still hurts a lot.
As they say, “conditions are always a factor.” (The “they” in this instance was a commentator at the Nagano Olympics solemnly saying this during a ski race. A bonded with my friend we can call the Hammer over this statement, which is true, but also absurd, because it is literally never not true. So, heat and age may slow progress on this project, but we are giving it our best.
Moving Day
I am lucky to have some valuable accomplices in this work. Notably, recently, the RockLimo, which is a stone boat I built a few years ago.
The thing that makes stone a good building material is weight. Weight is also what makes it hard to work with stone. If you are finding your own stones, aka Rockruitin’ moving the stones around is really hard. If you can get them into the bed of a pickup, you are good to go, but that is a lot of work. The nice thing about the RockLimo is that if you can get the stone onto it, you can drag, instead of lift. As popular as the RockLimo is with the fans, it does have two drawbacks 1) because you are dragging, you cannot really use it if you have to travel on an actual road. 2) because you are dragging, you cannot get as close to where you might want them compared to dumping out of the bed of a truck.
When I was a kid, my dad, after moving a bunch of firewood up a hill with a wheelbarrow, observed “Physics measures work in foot-pounds. Physics knows what’s what.” He was not wrong about that. There is nothing like moving stone to make you acutely aware of slight uphills and downhills you had not noticed. The spot I can get stones to with the RockLimo is subtly downhill from where they need to be, which adds to the excitement.
Anyway, we are getting a base together. Almost any large stone will do, which is nice, compared to the more tetrisy parts of a wall, but also makes me wonder “is this rock too good for this spot?” I am trying not to think this, b/c after all, there is really no shortage of rocks. Hoping the next installment can be about a special rock or 2. Until then, relax.