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| Photo by Mark Ricard |
We had a royally good time yesterday at the 1000 Island Dry Stone Workshop at Rockport Ontario.
Students gathered early and learned the basic principals of how to wed stones to one another in order to build a strong princely wall, and then we all joined forces to add another 28 foot section of six foot high wall, to the existing 100 feet of wall, along the border of this lovely village property, just east of Gananoque.
Having an example structure already on site makes it very convenient to point out all the features of a properly built dry laid wall. There's really no need for diagrams if you have the real thing there. The batter, the through stones, the bonding, and cheek-ends are all visible. The only thing students are not able to inspect is the 'hearting'. Ironically, how the stones are placed in the wall, is often crucial to whether the wall stands against the attacks of time and weather.
By mid-morning a steady barrage of rain fell on the troops, but it didn't dampen our enthusiasm. We remained victoriously DRY stone wallers.
Reining day people.
