I made a practice 'tower' with dry stone bricks Thursday in preparation for what we will be creating with the kids with wood, bricks and stones. I will be working with kids of all ages building neat stuff during the two days of the Canadian Dry Stone Walling Festival in Alton Ontario (being run by the new DSWAC). Bring your whole family this Saturday and Sunday and build exciting things with us.
Neil Rippingale of the Dry Stone Conservancy is here already helping build features and test wallers and teach students.
The amazing Jane Wooley executive director of the Dry Stone Conservancy is here too. http://www.drystoneusa.org
She and Neil drove up from Kentucky to be here this weekend.
My good friend Norman Haddow from Scotland has been busy all week giving private instruction to students who can't be here on the weekend, repairing older walls in Alton, getting to know all the town folk and of course moving big rocks into position for the event.
The famous John Bland is here too. Here he is inspecting the various stone material we are working with.
His wall and arch is nearly completed near Montreal.
At the end of Thursday preparation work for the coming festival, Eric took a lot of us to see the Kerry Landman Memorial Tree he built at Island Lake Park. If you come to Alton you are not far from this amazing feature just outside Orangeville. It's worth the drive to see it in person.
Info about festival is at http://www.dswa.ca/story/latest-news
