Held In Place, Untouched

I held this historic round cope stone in my hands yesterday. It sits balanced on a heritage dry stone wall that John Scott showed me in front of an old church in Beckwith township, Ontario which John tells me is made of potsdam sandstone . The Hamlet of Franktown is about 40 miles south of Ottawa and began as a half-way stagecoach stop between the military settlements of Perth and Richmond. Many of the orininal settlers were Irish who refused to join the Church of England and built this quaint stone church in 1822. There is no documentation on the date of the dry stone wall in front of the church, however it certainly is reasonable to assume it goes back to the church's early days. The original drive opening in wall was expanded around 1900 with concrete posts and the wall was crudely rebuilt in places. Other than settlement from tree roots and some tampering here and there, a lot of the wall remains in it's original bond. The round granite coping stones seem small and out of place....kind of delicately placed on top. However pictures from 1895 and then again in 1925 reveal that they are (possibly) not not only original, but some of them haven't moved from their original position for over a hundred years!

Hand Doubts

There are lots of rules. There are lots of authorities. There are any number of people who will tell you that what you are doing is wrong. It is normal that you will start to doubt yourself. It can be quite intimidating at times. There are many critics in this world. Many people who will take shots at you for risking doing something different, or something new or something out of the ordinary. Being creative is not for the weak hearted. Having a vision and sticking to it will require that you don't succumb to the jeers of the naysayers but it also requires that you refrain from seeking the applause of those who are impressed merely by fashion and novelty. Real living requires that you learn all you can from history and from those you esteem to be wise around you, that you learn how to handle yourself and the material you have chosen to work with, that you consider carefully the limitations imposed on you by time and space and the environment which you find yourself in, and that you humbly explore any paths and options that sometimes magically open up to you. If you discover any principles or truths along the way, share them freely with anyone who genuinely seeks your advise. And don't take yourself too seriously.

Re.Grouping

Building a dry stone wall is an exercise in regrouping. The mass of random stones which have been collected or dumped in a pile onto our property are going to have to be systematically regrouped into a much smaller more ordered space. There is something inherently pleasing about this undertaking. Regrouping stones can often become a visual or physical equivalent to regrouping mentally or emotionally. We are taking the time to turn the seemingly random aspects of our lives into a 'better' organized structural pattern. The activity of regrouping is a valuable exercise that greatly contributes to our sense of well being and contentment. If we have an opportunity to arrange even a small selection of stones in a wall and stand back understand the decision making and how it works we begin to understand what the benefits are and what is involved in regrouping in the more complex and abstract applications of daily life.

June is at hand.

Did you know June is Dry Stone Wall Month?

Celebrate with us the fact that there are many of these wonderful structures in Canada and that they can be made by hand with local natural stones and when built right, they will last many many years

Increase your awareness of the benefits of walls made without mortar across Canada.

Everyone can help in a nation-wide campaign which hopes to educate and encourage others by involving the help of the media, promotions, toolkits, children's contests and activities - the engagement of municipalities, schools, community groups, families and individuals in more walling activities during June - dry stone wall month, and on, into the rest of 2010.

The campaign theme FIT A STONE IN A WALL EVERYDAY! reinforces the message of how important it is for all of us to participate in some form of dry stone walling activity each and everyday. Regardless of ability or age, Canadians are enjoying walls in an increasing number of ways. This year's theme recognizes that walling activities are varied and numerous. "Activities of all kinds, not just physical, are acknowledged and celebrated. Whether it's creating garden features, hearting, learning to build an arch, reading a walling book or wall gazing ... walling is about celebrating life and stones... Live it Everyday!"

Take pictures of walls, collect stones, help a farmer clear his field, visit a quarry, give a stone as a gift to someone, organize a group to fix a wall or retaining wall that needs repairing in your area, write a stone wall poem, build one in your back yard, take a dry stone wall course, join a dry stone walling organization, or sponsor a community wall to be built in a public place near you.

A proper wall is at least 13 hands high.

The standard way of describing the height of a horse is by measuring how many 'hands' high it is. At first this way of measuring may not have been absolutely accurate. Somewhere back in history however it was agreed that a hand should be standardized as 4 inches. Anywhere above 16 hands is considered a pretty tall horse. A pony is under 14.2 hands high. On the other 'hand' the horse is 14.2 hands high and over.

A dry stone wall that is below 4 feet (12 hands) in most cases, just looks wrong. It would be considered a pony, not a horse. A tall wall looks elegant. It looks like it has a purpose other than to be sat on. A short wall looks like people were afraid to build any higher, or perhaps that it wasn't finished yet.

The taller a wall is built the more of a statement it makes. We have to take every opportunity to build proper tall free standing walls when ever we can. It may mean really taking the extra time and energy to educate people about the merits of building walls that have this traditional height based on them being a type of barrier for livestock containment. If it can't hold grazing animals in, it isn't being honest to its roots.

Even a retaining wall needs to have some height to it to look good and more importantly for the physics of it to work in terms of it having mass and being able to act like a dam to hold back the soil. A short dry stone retaining wall along a driveway definitely doesn't have as much impact or as much 'curb appeal' as a tall one.

In any case life is just too short to go round building short retaining walls.

Hands up, if you agree.

Rock Coloured Glasses

I have been accused of seeing things through rock coloured glasses.

I dont see this as a bad thing.

I see stones and rocks as being the solution to a lot of things.

I view the future of gardening and landscaping as something hopeful as people start to see the advantages of building with stone instead of concrete and manmade products.

Walls without mortar are a viable option for a world disenchanted with carbondioxide-producing industrial gardening products.

This is not an optical illusion or an illusionary option. As I hold the Crystal ball in my hands and gaze into it, I see dry stone walls replacing many artificial high-tech approaches in a variety of fairly simple gardening applications.

Grasping the real meaning.

Let's be definite and ecologically correct. The reign of concrete must come to an end in our vocabulary too. We no longer need to have 'concrete' be the word to represent the concept of precision, fact or sturdiness.

We dont want the word to dominate the better choices we have to describe something which is permanent and structural, any more than we want it dominating the landscape and building industry the way it has.

Something that is considered to be 'real' and 'understandable' should not be degraded to the level of something as objectionable as concrete. Let's use words like bonded, connected, fit together, secure, tight, factual, fixed, inseparable, conjoined, entwined, integral or interwoven. There are many more words too. If you think of some good ones please feel free to submit them below in the comments section.

Concrete is not 'essential'. Stone is 'elementary' and walls made without mortar do not pollute, corrupt, crumble or degrade the way concrete does. The word concrete has been used incorrectly for too long.

It's All In The Grist Movement

The two day dry stone wall workshop in Bethany Ontario is turning out to be a unique experience. We had our first day of hands-on glutten free-walling on Saturday.

The meals were scrumptious and completely gluttenless ( though we nearly made gluttens of ourselves) and there was even glutten free beer !

Our host is a celiac and informed me about the condition. Celiac is an inherited trait, like blue eyes, or curly hair. Since it is a recessive inherited trait, both parents of a person with celiac may not have the disease, but are carriers. It is also more prevalent in Scotch-Irish people, red heads and fair complexions. Celiac is not an allergy to wheat or gluten, but an autoimmune disorder. This means that the body attacks itself when gluten is consumed. As an autoimmune disorder, the only treatment is to avoid all products that contain gluten.

I looked it up on the internet.There are many people that inherit the trait for celiac, but it also requires a trigger, such as massive consumption of gluten, stress, or viral infection, for celiac to become an active disease. It can begin as early as infancy, and as late as adulthood.

Gluten is part of the elastic, rubbery protein found in wheat, rye, barley and oats. It binds the dough in baking and prevents crumbling. Gluten can be found in breads, cakes, pastries, cookies, biscuits, crackers, battered foods, cereals, snack foods, pastas and pizza and yes beer.

Pretty much all beers, ales, and lagers contain gluten. Those insideous grains are just so excellent at creating beer that about 99% of all beers on the market contain gluten.

New Grist Beer is our host's 'glutenless' beer of choice. It appears as a pale golden liquid with a traditional cap of snowy white. Light hop aromas of mint and wet hay awaken your olfactory senses, while complex sorghum flavors, reminiscent of saki, glisten over your tongue. A medium mouthful finishes clean, leaving you refreshed and all ready to go out again and move some grist-mill-sized stones into the wall.

An idea sent to me yesterday from Christopher Barclay. Thanks Christopher. Maybe it will give the ipad a run for its money.

Getting your picture taken.

Building dry stone walls is different from taking pictures. A wall can't be taken. It usually can't be stolen either, not without a lot of trouble. Thieves may try and take some of the stones but they will have trouble reproducing your beautiful wall.

I once had the coping stones stolen from a wall I helped build . The property owner asked me to come back and put new ones on. She had a pretty good idea who had taken them. This time she put a small red dot of nail polish on each one. Shortly after, some of the copes were stolen again. The lady told me she had an idea who it was and drove over to confront them. Apparently they were caught red-nail-polish-handedly. I never found out if they returned them all or just said they were sorry and promised not to take any more.

Usually though, a well built stone wall with a good home and people who care for it will live a long happy life and isn't in much danger of being stolen.

Photos, on the other hand, often get 'taken'. In fact they keep getting taken all the time. Once a picture has been taken it can be reproduced easily, and then, in a sense it is as though it has been abducted. If it is stolen this way, you never know where it might end up. You may not even know it has gone missing, and even if you do, it would be counter productive to put a 'missing' notice up all around the neighbourhood, with a picture of your photo.

If you are lucky it may show up on the news or appear on someone's website or in some newspaper article about another waller. Someone may report it. Still, it's more likely you may never know about it.

If you get your picture taken, all you can assume is that the picture was a good one, and probably has a good home in someone's portfolio now and if you don't get any credit for it, just take consolation in knowing it was worth stealing.

On the other hand, if you take any pictures, just make sure they are yours!

A chip on the block!

Robert Frost in his poem, Mending Wall, couldn't have said it any better. "Something there is that doesn't love a wall". Some people seem to despise them. They look at them suspiciously like they are going to rise up and fall on top of them. These people generally look the other way when they see one. If they do happen to run into one somewhere, it will more likely be in a car.

This week we have been working in Cobourg Ontario building two lovely dry stone walls on the north and south sides of a residential property. Our client already has a beautiful wall built for him along the front of his property. It is the best looking house on the block. This man is not a tyrant, or a serial killer or a lawyer, but for some reason the neighbors seem to hate him. The new walls we are building are not making his neighbours any happier.

On one side, a Bob Newhart kind of character (without the humour) looks on all day with a deadpan expression. Finally after much blank-stare glaring, and in a rather zombie-like voice, he manages to verbalize his concern that we make sure no stone chips fly off and damage his new windows. They are 20 feet from where we're working! Heck, a lawn mower or a weed-eater is likely to do more damage. Other than that sardonic remark, he just stands and stares at us as we build. No comments. Sometimes he goes off and washes his driveway.

On the north side where we are building the other wall, a lady in her housecoat, who sits all day reading the paper on her screened-in porch, will not allow us to stand on her grass to access the wall we are trying to build. We have to tip-toe along a very narrow strip between the wall and her property with the stones we need to build with. She watches from her porch. Again, no comments, expressionless, nothing. At noon she orders us to stop working while she backs her car out of the driveway. Flying chips might mutilate the vehicle? Not likely. I managed to find only three confetti-size flakes on the driveway from a morning of working near her side.

If we were building fences with noisy power tools, screaming grinders, chain saws and earth pounding compacters, using toxic glues and sealants, and dangerous air hammers, the neighbours would probably love us. Oh wall.

An Element Never Forgets

Understanding what an 'element' is, should not be that difficult, in fact it's really the simplest matter. Aristotle defined an element as one of those bodies into which other bodies can decompose, and that itself is not capable of being divided further. Basically an element is a substance made of just one type of atom. To date, there are 103 elements known to man, and they are neatly listed in a thing called the periodic table. Ninety-two of these elements or various combinations of them (called minerals) occur naturally and many of these minerals and elements are found in the stuff we commonly refer to as 'rock' or 'stone'. The most common ones are Oxygen, Silicon, Aluminum, Iron, Calcium, Sodium, Potassium, Magnesium but there is a truck load of other trace elements too.

Elements because they can't be subdivided are not just the building blocks of matter they are basic units of being, which means they have a great capacity to stay the same and be unaffected by time. If a thing, or a substance, can not be divided any more, it exhibits and continues to retain only the quality and essence of itself. Because it contains great concentrations of these fundamental elements, stone is one of the most enduring materials on earth.

People, on the other hand, are all in an Aristotelian state of decomposing. Besides the obvious downside, one of the main problems this presents is that we have a annoying tendency to forget things. Ultimately, at the point where our memory is lost, we literally, cease to be. In fact many psychologists say the thing that defines us as a species is the human activity of 'remembering'. Memory is the thing that moves us and keeps us going. Stones, which hardly ever move on their own, and have very few 'activities', have in fact a far greater ability to 'go the distance'. That's why mankind, since the dawn of recorded history, has tried to utilized this material as a means of being remembered and keeping the records straight.

Obelsks, inukshuks, walls, monuments, pillars, cairns and a whole pile of other stone structures have all at one time or another been stacked in unique configurations for the purpose of remembering something or other. For the ever prone-to-forget human species these things become an expedient extension of our human memory. While the significance of many of these stone edifices may sometimes be lost over time, the structures themselves, because they are built of stone continue standing for a long time after. The point is that stones have been, and still are, the most efficient way of storing knowledge. Amazingly in our computerized age, nothing has changed. Silicon for example, which is found in almost all of these ancient stone memorials and shrines of many past civilizations, is the same basic element used in computers today, providing trillions of gigabytes of memory, which apparently we need to help us remember who we are, and what it is we are doing, as well as enable us to store all our collective knowledge as a species.

Would that we could, rather than scurrying around in a frenzy, trying to remember and be remembered, discover the one basic elementary secret of stone and rocks - that of merely knowing how to just 'be'.

Where-With-All Walls - Conclusion

And each one 'shakes our hand' and says “You’ve got a friend,

In Cumbria or Yorkshire or Crieff, have you been?

Because I’ll take you around, you can stay in my home!

I’ll show you walls built by kings, built by Rome!!

The most wonderful sites you’ve inspired me to share

Your excitement and energy, you’ve caused me to care.

And I’m proud to see that our humble stone roots

Have spurred such a movement… oh wow, what a hoot!

So, my new friend in the tan overalls,

Do you still think I lack the right stone where-with-alls?

I’ve walled ‘round the globe, dry stone walls are my life.

In bed I fantasize about walls with my wife!

Her breasts are perfect copings as I run my hands through her hair,

And talk about cheekends, well, lets’ not go there!

So welcome to Canada please come see our walls

While all the other tourists line up at Niagara Falls.

If you must, call us canuks, call us beer-guzzling hosers,

Polite Tim Hortons sippers or hockey pond frozers.

But please, for the love of God please, don’t claim that you own

The right to say who can and can’t pile up stone!

But in true Canadian tradition, I offer an apology

To the way Canadians are connected to our architectural geology

So for my final words let me set my beer on this Inukshook shelf

And say to you Brits, …like, sorry aboot that, eh?!

Where-with-all Walls part 3

We can be original and creative while still being true

To laying two over one and one over two

And don’t be offended, please don’t get me wrong

We get that the stone’s face exposes the short (and buries the long).

We respect your traditions, in fact we teach it,

Your fundamentals and ethics, hell, we preach it!

Our founder was brought up on your patented “invention”

And to disrespect your techniques is not our intention.

In fact at every beginner workshop we fashion

We teach your philosophies with the greatest of passion

And instill in the hearts of each potential stone waller

The traditions found in your hills and your hollers.

Be proud of your roots but please never forget

That the farmers who made them didn’t have doctorates.

And the wallers that were inspired by our intitial workshops and meetings

Have grown to become building leaders – and they’re still not cheating!

There have been so many members of the DSWA

Who come to our festivals and all of them say

I can’t believe you Canadians, you stray from tradition

And have so much fun as if it’s your mission

To get people excited about dry stone creations

And build a dry stone wall across this entire nation!

Conclusion to be posted tomorrow

Where-with-all Walls part 2

Don’t get me wrong, I admire what you’re doing,

But here, in this country, your frustration’s not worth pursuing.

Because Canada wasn’t all built from techniques brought from England

But rather France, Denmark, Spain and New Zealand.

Settlers from the Ukraine built walls made of sod,

And Vikings made walls to dry out their cod.

French fishermen built shanties to store their preserves,

And Acadians built dykes and farmed the reserves.

In the north the Inukshuks mark food and direction

And in the south dry stone walls kept our soldiers protected.

Loyalists from Kentucky, New York and Vermont

Built bridges so you could cross streams if you want.

In the woods there are sacred stone piles dressed with carvings,

And Scandinavian stone gardens kept silver miners from starving.

And along the highways in every province of this land

Atop rock cuts tiny wee stone sculptures stand

To remind us of travellers from far and from near

Who stacked a few stones just to say “I was here”.

There are sculptures and features uniquely Canadian

Not just British walls here so let’s stop these shenanigans

Part 3 tomorrow.

Where-with-all Walls - A hand written poem by John Scott

I saw a report in the news about a man,

Who, to his surprise, was caught with a rock in his hand,

Piling stones up stones in the back of his yard

Found in some dirt that his neighbor discarded

“Halt!” Screamed a man wearing tan overalls

“Who do you think you are? You’ve got some balls!

Yes YOU, the one stacking limestone and granite

What are your qualifications? I’ve the right to demand it!”

The man looked up and asked “What is the problem?

My father showed me this and his father before him.

He was a poor highland farmer from the land of the Crieff

Who came to this country in a great time of grief.

He showed me to batter and to keep a wall hearted

And to lay throughs half way up, every three feet or so parted

He showed me just ONCE and I got it, but then needed practice

So that my joints were all crossed and copes were as even as matches”

“I don’t care,” said the man in the tan overalls

“Clearly you don’t have the right stone where-with-alls!

I’ve just come from across the Atlantic Ocean

To put an end to all this dry stone commotion

We’ve heard in this country there exists the potential

Of Canadians who build walls without proper credentials

First you must prove that the stones you’ve been fittin’

Correspond to the way that we do it in Britain”

“Surely”, said the man, “We can make an alliance”

I’m piling up stones, it’s not rocket science!

Besides”, said the man, “Who exactly are you,

To say what it is I can or can’t do?

You’re rebuilding walls built by farmers and horses.

You’re taking down 'random' rubble and rebuilding in 'courses'!

( part 2 will be posted tomorrow )

Difficult to understand ?

Arches are very unpredictable. They make people do strange things. This man needed to do a hand stand after he helped complete this double arch structure we built in Victoria BC 4 years ago. It was a pretty cool thing under the circumstances; actually it was more of a hand spring. Or was it a double vault? I dont remember. Luckily he didnt fall backwards and die. Who's vault would it have been then? But in any case, the dry stone arches stopped him from falling. In a sense, he was not only standing on his hands, he was leaning on his and our — in this case the students at the Glendale College DSWAC workshop— handywork.

I am a firm supporter of arch structures: the more people can learn about the dynamics and principles of how stones stay together the better. Stone and stonework shouldn't be a mysterious thing. There are no arch villians. And there are no villian arches. Except if they are fake ones, or made of plastic.

Fixed By Hand with the Materials At Hand.

Joe Mitchell who works with me quite often, exclaimed yesterday "Man we redo nice work!" We laughed. I noticed he posted his comment on facebook that evening.

We were doing a small repair on an installation that members of the Dry Stone Wall Association of Canada had built last year in a municipal park in Port Hope, Ontario. It was a dry stone sitting-area around an historic memorial dedicated to Joseph Scriven. A circular enclosure had been created around the monument to bring more attention to the fact that it was there, commemorating the famous hymn writer's accomplishments and the fact that he lived in Port Hope, Ontario. That we merely 'redid' a section of this very nice looking circular wall, (which had been purposely damaged the week before) made the statement 'Man we redo nice work' seem like a harmless, yet still very poignant comment. In fact, it was absolutely fitting for what we had done (or rather, redone) but the more I thought about it, the more the significance of this remark struck me.

For sure, this was not a slogan that you would want to have printed on your business cards or your truck. And I don't think we need to confuse people by telling those who ask us, that we never advertise for work, because most of it is 'repeat business' (even though apart from referrals, it's absolutely true). Our 'repeat work' of course is for clients who want us to do more nice work, not keep fixing things we've built badly, but in this case it was a good honest repair needing to be done on a vandalized section of well built wall, and it was done at no cost to the town. I wonder how many other things in the park get fixed at no cost to the town?

But I digress. The fact that a construction company comes back to fix what they do, seems like the kind of thing they wouldn't necessarily want to advertise. Most people dont want to think about, or have anything to do with the idea of something needing any maintenance. That's why municipalities love concrete.

But concrete fails too. And often it has to be redone or sawn out at great cost when there has been damage or changes needed to be made, or more often than you would think, when it has been poured in the wrong place. We built a dry stone wall next to a parking lot being built where we saw a municipal construction crew working for weeks surveying and forming and pouring concrete curbs that all had to all be painstakingly jack-hammered out afterwards and redone, because it was all built to the wrong grade specifications. When concrete has to be torn out or fixed it usually isn't what you would call redoing 'nice' work.

As we unceremoniously rebuilt the section of dry stonewall at the Scriven monument, the mayor and a council member came over and watched us. They just happened to be there to be filmed by a TV crew doing a news segment about the new playground that had been recently installed in the park. I sensed they only saw that our 'wall' needed fixing, not that it was getting repaired without delay, without any fuss or bother, without ordering in expensive replacement parts or materials, and all of this done without having to take a lot of damaged material away to the dump; which is where the old busted steel, wood and concrete from the previous playground had probably been trucked off to.

A public school playground in Ambleside, Cumbria UK

enclosed on all sides by a free-standing (easily repairable) dry stone wall.

There's a hole in the bottom of the Cement industry. Hold on !

Stone emerging from concrete - a photo I took in California last year . The image communicates the victory of nature over industry gone off the rails. It is a cap on the insanity. Perhaps they can find one big enough to drop on the hole BP drilled in the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, which is continuously spewing out black blood.

Perhaps we can still find enough 'real looking' ones not to have to keep making substitutes and fake ones. Perhaps architects and engineers can source out suitable ones, and masons skilled enough, to actually design buildings that incorporate natural stone structurally; strong stones that can support wooden beams and heavy floors and beautiful peeked roofs. Maybe they can discover a way of getting them to hold together which doesn't involve huge amounts of glue, threaded rod, rebar, steel cages or tons of cement.

There may come a time when old barn and house foundation stones are not just pushed over with bulldozers and buried in the ground, but reused. A time when the big 'freezer-sized' ones are no longer quarried just to push up against the sides of buildings as the only solution to holding terraced earth back. Or maybe they wont use all the random truckloads of rip-rap to merely dump it along ditches as quick fix to erosion. Then again they may consider not quarrying all of them just to ground them up into gravel and various grades of crushed aggregate. Maybe they wont need to burn it all at incredibly high temperatures predominantly to make concrete and unappealing concrete products.

Maybe natural stone, just as it is found in the ground, could be part of a much needed solution for this planet. There may in fact be hope. It might be a gradual change, or it may come along like a big bump in the road.

Do not touch.

Dry stone wallers have only a few natural predators. Apart from power wielding town planners and permit officers, who make sure that only concrete contractors get any approval for municipal projects (in their continuous regime to eradicate dry stone walling and wallers in their natural habitat) the only other thing that poses any dangerous threat to the existence, and well being, of wallers is the looming presence and insidious incursion of the ominous plant species known as 'toxicodendron' in Latin, and commonly referred to as 'poison ivy'.

This dreaded 'weed of prey', if allowed to prowl unchecked and attack indiscriminately, can render an unsuspecting waller helpless, turning them into a writhing mass of itchiness within two days of exposure to its venom. In many parts of Canada wallers put themselves at risk anytime they are working in any area where there are rocky fields or overgrown farmland. Essentially the plant thrives in the same environment as most wallers do.

If it is hot day and a waller walks through a patch of the mature plant wearing shorts, or rubs against the plant with their bare arms, unless he or she has an immunity to the toxin, the poison ivy will affect them in an adverse and potentially disabilitating way. Contact with poison ivy can make skin bubble and fester and cause itchiness of unparalleled magnitude. Gasoline applied to patches of inflammation, if discovered early enough, can sometimes reduce the extent of the irritation. Prednisone and various special creams will often help the irritation to eventually subside in more severe cases.

Here we see a picture of the dreaded flora lurking about masquarading as a harmless broad-leafed plant amongst the grasses. Patches of the tender ivy are unobtrusively snuggled up to this small boulder, leaving any unsuspecting waller at risk who may be attracted to pick up such a rock and use it in their wall. Moving the stone, even while avoiding any skin contact with the actual poison ivy plant may still yield nasty skin irritation, just from handling the stone itself, which may have been 'primed' with toxic residue from the plants growing adjacent to it.

Thinking hands need to maintain a 'hands-off' strategy when working near this exploitive and sinister species of vegetation.