Rebuilding the Past
One of my hobbies is building rock walls. Back in Ohio, I built them all around the garden. Yesterday I spent time rebuilding and repairing a rock wall along the front of the new garden area.
The original wall was in terrible shape, no longer resembling a rock wall at all, it looked more like a pile of stones instead. You can see it in the photos below, just barely sticking up on the right hand side of the photo. The large tree is the one you see in the second photo behind the wall.
After a few hours of work, I managed to rebuild about 20 feet of it up to a height of about two feet tall. This is just small portion of the walls I will eventually build. Just to enclose this new garden I’m going to need a couple hundred feet of rock walls. When I think of how long I will need this wall to be, I might cap it at two feet!
You can see the continuation of this wall back into the woods. It continues the entire length of our property, which is pretty far. Though it is in rough shape in some sections.
I think one of the reasons I like building rocks walls so much is because I really enjoy puzzles. Rock walls are just real life puzzles that you don’t have to take apart and put back in the box when you’re finished.
What’s one of your hobbies besides gardening?
Filed under Around the Garden | Comments (25)
Other than gardening, it’s got to be riding my horse :)
to Mich's comment
You will never lack for building material for stone walls in Maine.
For the last 29 years, my primary hobby, although the pure definition doesn’t really fit, has been training and handling Search and Rescue dogs. My gardening and farmetting fit the definition even less.
to Jennifer Fisk's comment
Are you a member of MESARD?
to Mr. Chiots's comment
I am one of two remaining charter members.
to Jennifer Fisk's comment
The Great Wall of Liberty…nice work Susy!
to BJ's comment
My second hobby is a singer. Actually, I started singing waaaaaay before I started gardening. Thats really where Songbirdtiff came from.
to Tiffany's comment
My favorite other activities are doing pottery and riding my horse. Unfortunately I don’t have much time for either, especially when gardening starts!
to Joan's comment
By the way, that is amazing work! It’s beautiful.
to Joan's comment
That looks great! Sometimes it feels like our main crop here is rocks. It doesn’t matter how many we pick out of the garden every year, there is always more…
to Adriana's comment
Susy, nice work. There’s not many rocks in Nebraska soil but the flat limestone rock walls abound in my Neighborhood. Many have had their walls replaced with the modern day retaining wall blocks. I have a rock wall that runs the side of my property and is about a hundred feet long. Rock walls last forever.
Have a great wall building day.
to Nebraska Dave's comment
I love rock walls, but have never lived in an area with enough rocks! I think my longest hobby is reading and in recent years gardening. :)
to Jodi's comment
My husband has a great affinity for stone building as well. And we have a lot of stone around, so it works out.
Now that it’s getting to not freezing at night again, he can finally finish the stone chicken coop he got so far on last fall before winter set in. The old coop is kind of falling apart, so the chickens would sure appreciate it. And the stone one is going to be just a leeetle more aesthetically pleasing than the old one made of scavenged pallets.
to kristin @ going country's comment
Your wall looks great! I was just thinking the other day, as I worked on one of my walls, how I liked building with stone because it is like doing a puzzle! lol! Funny thing is I haven’t done a jigsaw puzzle since I was a child. Fortunately, Alabama has an abundance of various stones to build with and thus get my “fix”. I enjoy building with about anything though and make equal time for welding and concrete.
to Annie's comment
We loved seeing the old walls when we were hiking on the AT. It was something that we didn’t see too often down here in the south. Around the Austin area you will come across some as there is a lot more limestone rock in that area.
You have lots of work ahead of you but it will be very nice when you are done!
to Misti's comment
Your wall reminds me of the walls around a history museum in CT that i love.
My other hobbies are knitting, cooking, and hanging out with my family. Thankfully, all fit together quite perfectly each weekend.
to whit's comment
love what you did on the rock wall…amazing! My other hobby is scrapbooking.
to amy s's comment
Beautiful work! You might enjoy this lecture on stone wall building:
http://boingboing.net/2013/04/02/lecture-on-stone-wall-building.html#disqus_thread
to Rue's comment
One of my favorite things about living in New England is the old stone walls that I see hiking deep in the woods. It really makes you wonder how different the land must have looked back then when everything was clear cut for farming.
to kathi Cook's comment
After spending time redoing a front flower bed with a rock border I have a new appreciation for your work. =) Great job, it looks wonderful.
Besides gardening I like to read and quilt, though the quilting has been put on hold for the past couple years …. my, it really has been longer than I thought. I’ve also been doing more cooking lately, trying out a lot of new recipes. So, I guess reading and cooking are my other ‘hobbies’ right now.
to The Groundskeeper @ See You In The Garden's comment
Great job on that wall.. I have a fondness for them as well but have none here. I used to live on some land that my grandmother & her cousins lived on when they were children and there were left over stone walls still standing strong.. They’d been mortared together with a sandstone mix and was still standing strong last time I saw it..
Some of my hobbies besides gardening are I making bath & body products, scrubs, rubs, & the like.. photography.. scrapbooking,sewing and crafting though I havent done the last two in a while.. I also make greeting cards occasionally but havent done that lately either.. I’ve got one in the making in my head right now though and I need to get after it.
Mostly, more than anything, I sit around reading, online & otherwise. ;)
to KimH's comment
Beautiful wall!
My other hobbies…knitting, scrapbooking, does snowshoeing and hiking count?
to MountainMisty's comment
Farm carpentry … not that I’m good at it, but I do build things that can be used for many years, from used materials when possible.
That is a good wall — real world Tetris! :)
to risa bear's comment
I love rock walls! I wish I was able to build my own with readily available materials.
I wish I had some outdoor hobbies, but mostly I work work work. I design websites and book covers. :)
to Caroline's comment
I have hauled probably a couple tons of granite filed rocks to use around my flower and herb beds. The farmer doesn’t want the huge rocks there and I do him a favor getting them. Mostly hauled by the bucketful to my car at the side of the road. A LOT of HARD work. Have found very pretty ones and a few partial arrowheads and other stone things, nothing valuable though. Hard to get onto the filed though when it’s dry enough and no crops to walk on. No flat rocks like your fence though. Would love that. I garden a lot and preserve foods. Learning and using herbal remedies. Crocheting. Doing Living History Interpretation for 1847 activities so have done or could do all the things they used to do that many years ago. Love reading also.
to Deb's comment
So Beautiful! I am so enjoying watching your and Brian’s journey. There were no pre-existing rock walls here but I have been building them as I go along….They have such presence….I grew up in the Lexington KY area with all of the old horse farms encircled by their moss covered rock walls….I fell in love with them then.
My hobbies are Singing….Violin and Piano….Reading….although I don’t really think of this as a hobby…more like a necessity…..Baking….ditto what I said about reading….Journaling…..Bird watching and Bee keeping…. sculpting, painting and drawing. I have many things I truly enjoy doing…..and have quite a bit of time to do it because the one thing I don’t do….I don’t do TV:)
to amy's comment