What to do with potatoes?

I'm thinking about what to do with four tons of potatoes

That's how many we are hoping to have for the children's dry spud walling events at Amherst Island during this year's Irish-Canadian Dry Stone Festival. See http://www.dswa.ca/story/latest-news

I know one thing. All the kids who will be joining us that weekend won't be couch potatoes ! 

Something really special here

Dry stones represent history, both old and new,...

May contain nuts

I have no idea who built this recently built mortared wall at the Kingsmere estate in the Gatineaus near Ottawa Canada. It looks like a British Picnic Bar. 

The original historic dry stone walls we have been restoring there at Kingsmere each year look a bit different. Yes, though the walls our students rebuild at these workshops each year look 'sweet', they don't look like chocolate bars.

Catch the next beginner's seminar this August 22nd and 23rd.

Link to - Kingsmere Basic Restoration Walling Class

Where to be in the picture?

Having just completed the dry stone workshop, news reporter with the Haliburton Echo, Darren Lum had us stand in front of our stonework in order to take this photo. 

Afterwards Marion gave him her camera and asked him to take one more with us standing behind the sculpture. I think this one gives a better indication of the scale and shape of the spiral ramp structure we created.

Maybe its best to not be in the picture at all.

Marion Daniels took many photos of us building Spiral Ascent including this one when the directors of the sculpture park came to see our progress. 

Dreaming and Waking.

A day at the cottage becomes an escape into a miniature world. With the transforming assistance of sand heaped onto a cluster of rocks not far from the main dock, jutting out of Lake Papineau, a castle is born and a new inhabited land emerges. 

Small stone dry laid arches make for charming little bridges linking the islands. Dripped fistfuls of sand leave melted pine trees clinging to imaginary cliffs. Staircases formed with a kitchen spatula lead up to the main tower where tiny people look out over the rocks and feast their eyes on the sea below.

The lake water surrounds this tiny island getaway, lapping patiently against the make-believe shoreline . This is a place to lose oneself in - a sleepy fairy tale dream, a place of rest, until a noisy motor boat surges past and destroys it all with its wake. 

Nevertheless, this miniature world remains as magical and real as it is temporary.

Wine and Bridge Lovers.

Wine Lovers Escape to Prince Edward County

It's always encouraging to see one of our bridges make the travel section of the newspaper! However I don't think this one is the largest anymore.

Free to good home

CKSW TV report on upcoming Amherst Island Festival

http://www.ckwstv.com/2015/07/28/irish-heritage-found-on-amherst-island/

Doves never had it so good.

This recent project, a very charming dry stone dovecote was designed and 'project managed' by James Parker. 



https://www.facebook.com/190788867639370/photos/a.691092637608988.1073741827.190788867639370/1011054455612803/?type=1&theater

Saw This

I saw this low dry stone wall last week. These stones look to be in some kind of altered state. I wonder if they're Stihl feeling a buzz?

Horse Fence

Here is a section of that first 30 feet of horse farm wall we're rebuilding.

Stones and Bones

We are finding a number of old bottles and metal but mostly bones in what was the old dry stone wall that surrounds the old horse farm where we are working. We recon they might be horse bones. We've pulled apart a lot of the hedge row and are now rebuilding the wall. 

It's funny, some of the smoother unusual limestone shapes we've come across look a lot like old dry bones too. Have the bones started turning into stones? Perhaps.

Maybe the longer ones were used as 'through bones'.

Should we reuse them in this old horse fence again?  

Lots of questions 

The Irish-Canadian Dry Stone Festival

I think this is going to be one of the best Canadian dry stone wall festivals ever. It will certainly be the best Irish-Canadian one! 

True to Form

" The Fyrish Monument on Fyrish Hill is a huge structure of three central arches and four flanking towers. It was built in 1783 by Sir Hector Munro - the local laird. He had been commander of British Forces in India, and defeated the Dutch at the Battle of Negapatam. On his return to the Highlands, the Clearances were underway and many people were starving. At that time, famine relief was provided only in return for work, for fear that feeding the starving would make them lazy, and the construction of the monument was one of the tasks given to the local destitute. It was said that Sir Hector rolled stones from the top of the hill to the bottom, thereby extending the amount of time worked and paying the laborers for additional hours. It is a replica of the gates of Negapatam, to enhance Munro's glory. From the monument, the views are awesome, with the whole sweep of the Cromarty firth below, from the North Sea right inland towards the great Ben Wyvis. 

True to form, John and then Fred somehow climbed up on top of one of the columns while the cameras clicked away, catching the boys at play." 


An excerpt from Linda Oswald's informative blog about the Tour of Old Stones that thirteen stone enthusiasts went on last may across Scotland. Fred, seen here pretending to be a statue, is Lind's husband
 http://linda-oswald.blogspot.com/2015/07/2015-scotland.html

Two Clocks

Yesterday was the 100th anniversary of the death of Sir Sandford Fleming, and a celebration of Fleming's life and legacy was held at Fleming College in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada. The event featured the official unveiling of the dry stone sundial outside the Sutherland Campus. Pictured here with me is Sir Sandford Fleming's great-great-grandson, Jock Fleming; and Fleming College president Dr. Tony Tilly.

Sir Sandford Fleming among many other major achievements invented standard time and, in keeping with the theme of tracking time, the sundial serves to highlight his legacy. I was asked to give a short speech at yesterday's special ceremony and after thanking all those who were involved in the project and talking about the process of designing and building this unique dry stone structure I went on to talk about the preciousness of time and the fact that we should make very effort not to waste it, not just by avoiding procrastinating, but also by slowing down and learning to being patient. 
There's a clock inside the building (and you can see one on the building behind the sundial) that tells you let's you know how much time you have until your next class, and there's a different clock outside, a stone one, that tells you to slow down and not be in such a rush.

Timing is everything. Just as we need to be efficient and use time wisely, by not wasting it, we also need to know when (and how) to slow the pace down and 'experience' the passing of time. The sundial helps remind us to take time to consider life, as we compare the subtle changes of shade and light caused by the imperceptible movement of the sun across the sky. A big part of being on time is being in time. This includes being 'in the moment' and appreciating the expanse of time contained in every day we've been given, as well as learning to enjoy the gradual unfolding of the seasons.

The sundial was a unique collaboration among students from the UK and Canada. Educator Tony Lowe and six of his students from Peterborough Regional College near Cambridge, England, joined five Canadian students in the Dry Stone Walling Across Canada workshop that we organized with Fleming College to build the sundial at the front entrance. It features a naturally-formed 15-foot-long limestone gnomon, and the shadow it casts points to each hour marker telling the correct time as the sun crosses the sky.

You can read more about the building of the sundial by clicking on these links to other blog posts

raising-gnomon 

sundial-rock-in-park

two-peterboroughs

the-sundial-people

rocks-around-clock 

Real and Manufactured

Watering Dry Stones

We dry stone wallers have basically always been primitive hunter-gatherers. The idea of growing our own stones has never caught on.

One Man/Two Woman Stones.

When we are describing the types of sizes we will be needing on a project we often refer to them as 'one man' or 'two man' stones. We sometimes forget that there are other sizes too. Here Virginia and Erika are loading a 'two woman' stone into the trailer. It should be noted that it doesn't require one man to be watching.

What Would Andy Do On Our Beach ?

We went down to Lake Ontario to the west beach of Port Hope to create temporary art installations yesterday. It was a very hot day!
The theme of using found objects to make temporary sculptures was inspired by the work of Andy Goldsworthy, possibly one of the best and most creative artists alive today.

In keeping with his vision, we took the day to be spontaneous too and do some creative things ourselves and then took some fun photos of the pieces we felt inspired to make.
We discovered you don't need to be Andy to make people smile and look at things differently.

Here are some of the things we created with stones and other things we found on the beach.

When does a pile of stones become a wall?

It seems our brains are only too willing to recognize shapes, patterns and structure.  We give the universe the benefit of the doubt.

When we look at the stones we've started stacking, our eyes have a built in tendency to recognize the plane and line of a wall with only the minimum of prompting. 

Studies show that our brains are strangely pre-ordained to make this visual order out of chaos.

This ability to find order where there is none is something we can’t turn off.  

We mentally begin to construct the form of the wall out of the slightest beginnings and rearrangements of rubble around us. Just looking at the few stones that we have already piled in front of us requires this ability to organize and see order, even when there isn't very much yet. Creating that order seems to come naturally because we actually see it before it happens.

We are logical beings, so we visually anticipate the form the wall will be taking, and logically it does take on that form . It is the logical structure we have already seen.

Stones fit together 'because'. But they don't just fit causally, they look like walls because we impose reason on the stones.

We delight to re-arrange the stones so they not only work, but they make sense visually. 

This bias towards seeing stones 'ordered' before they are is a function of vision and cognitive anticipation. 

It is a positive human tendency and worth thinking about the next time you come across something looking like it is possibly becoming something else.