As is often the case, the thirteen people who participated in May’s 2-Day Introduction to Dry Stone Walls and Cheek Rebuild arrived with varied experience. Some brought experience handed down from parents, others from dabbling with walls on their property. One brought her landscape architect’s perspectives, another the lenses of an architect. Two noted that they are musicians, one specifying that she had to protect her hands. A woman came from Houston thrilled to have received the workshop as a Mother’s Day present. A man who took the 2-Day Intro on May 1 and 2 at Broad View Farm in New Hampshire returned to learn to build a cheek end. All of these men and women arrived bearing some longstanding, personal connection to stone in the landscape and the feelings stone evokes in some of us.
Dario Coletta, Ron Neil, Judy Rand, and Martin Beevers facilitated the group’s learning of the five basic rules of building a structurally sound, aesthetically pleasing dry stone wall, and for one participant applying those principles to a vertical wall end (cheek end). Participants and instructors all reported a great sense of camaraderie!
Thanks to everyone for engaging in preserving the craft of dry stone walling!