Thinking With My Hands

A Scotish farmer and a waller go out into a field on a cold morning to discuss some walls that need repairing. Their eyes and their hands lo...

Photo by John Shaw-Rimmington The stones are stored in winter, stowing Amidst the cold of winter snowing All froze and braced 'gainst...

Simon Scott is an actor friend of Norman who lives in Creiff. He has often helped Norman in the past doing hearting. At the invitation of No...

Norman Haddow explained to me about how he cuts sod for the tops of the many walls he has built and repaired in Glen Lyon Scotland. We have ...

The interesting thing about walling is that within the physical universe as we know it, (even reduced to the simplest of disciplines, that o...

Speaking of AGMs, I was asked back in September to speak at the Central Scotland Branch of the DSWA at their branch AGM which was held last ...

Welcome to 'Thinking With My Hands' -Where fingers can sometimes convey more than words. Norman Haddow and I drove by a plowing matc...

The DSWA of UK has been an inspirational organization for many of us in North America. It has been the model for much of what we have been ...

Dry stone walling is not rocket science. It is a science however and it does involve rocks. In fact it is probably the most basic of science...

While the weather in Scotland (according to Norman Haddow's previous warning emails) had been very wet and cold leading up to my trip, t...

Akira Inman is tightening up the brackets that hold the Platon down on the dry stone replica of the Scotish Blackhouse roof built in Grand ...

My first day in Scotland involved some jumping around. Norman picked me up from the airport and we hopped off to see some very interesting w...

I'm off to Scotland to meet up with my friend and fellow waller, Norman Haddow, to work on some projects. He has warned me in a recent e...

John Henry replaced the long wooden fence he had taken down on the neighbour's side with a long dry stone wall. He started the great Rap...

John Henry obviously loved stone and was beginning to get excited about what things he could do with it on his new property in Virginia. Hav...

My first contact with John Henry was over the phone. He called out of the blue and was looking for perfectly rounded stones. He was calling ...

Lego structures are fun to build. Part of the satisfaction comes from their fitting so well due to their regular patterned shapes and their ...

April 24th 2010 Fall 2010 Jake Sandison is a professor at Loyalist College in Belleville Ontario. He has taken two or three dry stone wall c...

Andy Goldsworthy wall in Palo Alto California. ( with sawn copes ) There is an expression that 'speed is of the essence'. In walli...

Using Legos for repairing stonework Like the dry stone method, building walls or repairing walls with brightly coloured Lego might not be th...