Rebuilding

My next stone project starts today, if the weather cooperates. Step one is tearing down an existing stone wall. It was built with beautifully weathered stone collected from the property, a property that was once a lakeside family farm. The wall looks ancient, but it’s only about fifteen years old. In wall-years, that’s just emerging from the womb.

The wall is begging to be rebuilt. It’s in such bad shape it’s already started to demo itself. And yet, I’m reluctant to speak badly of whoever built it.

I don’t think they set out to do a poor job, hoping it would fall apart in a few years. I’d like to believe they built it with good intentions, to the best of their knowledge and ability.

The first two dry stone walls I built were terrible. I didn’t know what I didn’t know. This was pre-social media. It was even pre-YouTube. For what is likely the world’s second oldest profession, there was very little good information available at the time. My only training was from a brick and block mason, a distant cousin twice removed from a dry stone waller.

If the person who built this failing wall is still out there working, I hope they’ve improved. I’m trying to do the same.