r/Drystonewalling

Took the winter off from working on my wall. Weather is broke and starting stacking again. Thinking of doing a course of through stones now. Collecting and cutting from the woods some bigger stones

Tonight I was working on cutting some of the stones that I drugged out of the woods into through stones for the next course on the wall I’m building

I did my first practice stint in Janurary and was overly confident in my skills. Took me over 12 hours to do and honestly looked pretty bad. I just completed another one last week and wanted to share some progress.

I decided to put my bonfire pit in my hill in my backyard. I wanted to create a flat chunk of land around it that looked natural (I.e., I wanted the hill to naturally flow into the flat area). I love rocks so I used more rocks than I needed to to try and give it a rounded effect.

I need to buy better sod for the bottom.

The whole thing took me about 2 weeks to build - which was way too fast and next time I would give myself 3+ weeks. I did the whole thing by myself and except for the gas it took to drive the rocks around it cost me a total of $40 (for the sod).

My process:

Step 1 - spend all winter reading about retaining walls

Step 2 - hand pick fieldstone from a farmer's tilled up rock pile

Step 3 - power wash rocks

Step 4 - dig an approximately 16" wide, 12" trench in a U formation

Step 5 - fill trench 3/4 of the way up with 3/4-in limestone rocks

Step 6 - lay a 30-year landscaping fabric over the limestone rocks

Step 7 - place the largest boulders at the front where most weight needs to be retained

Step 8 - dump soil into a tall mound behind the rock wall

Step 9 - Play tetris with rocks layer by layer, backfilling with pea gravel, and dirt while maintaining the landscaping fabric between the dirt and the pea gravel.

Step 10 - dig out the fire pit and line with rocks

Step 11 - dig a 2-ft hole 12 in from the fire pit and use ceramic tubes to create a chimney for the smoke (this was an experiment and it worked!)

Had a nice couple of days repairing a neighbours retaining wall. A nice mix of Old Devonian Red sandstone (the disused quarry is just up the hillside) and fieldstone in random brought to course building style. I even added a wee makers mark on a stone...see if you can spot it. Fine weather, visit from another walling friend and a good stretch. Sandstone of this sort is relatively light and workable. Love this craft dearly with my heart, head and of course hands.