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But at our house, not in the way you might think.
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This is one of our stone walls. It’s the smallest and has been falling in on itself for years.
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Mainly because when my husband built it 19 years ago, he didn’t listen to me and dug it level to the higher edge of lawn.
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You can’t tell but there’s over a two foot difference in height there.
Anyway… on July 2nd, the start of the holiday weekend, I came home from the grocery store and found this.
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Because the husband decided July 4th was the perfect time to redo the corner of the wall where stones were starting to slip into the ditch. He enlisted a friend, dug a trench and figured this jerry rigged engineering marvel would work.
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A slab of untreated wood, a line of black stakes and yes, God help me… roofing shingles to hold back the dirt. Not what I would call aesthetically pleasing.
There was a discussion. Followed by a heated debate. Which turned into the beginning of an argument. I offered multiple solutions and they did not go over well. Naturally the husband wanted to do as little lifting as possible because, you know… rocks = heavy. But if you’re going to rebuild a wall? You can’t just do one section, and after some (not so) gentle persuading, he finally saw it my way. Since the slipping stones were his main concern I conceded defeat on that point and we eliminated the corner.
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Filling it in with dirt which we will then seed or sod.
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And then the real work began.
If you’ve never built a rock wall? (And I mean a real New England cement free rock wall, with rocks of all different shapes and sizes and weights… not the nice flat ones you buy at a landscapers) Trust me, it’s work!
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Which is undoubtedly why my husband only wanted to do a corner.
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Silly man, he really should have known better.
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Day one? It went something like this:
Move rocks, install barrier, argue with wife, remove barrier, curse wife under your breath, fill hole with dirt, move rocks, curse wife again, start rebuilding entire wall when all you wanted to do was one corner, move rocks, curse wife under breath one more time because you can and she’s too far away to hear you.
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To be continued….
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That’s some serious labour going on there. Back breaking work!
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It was. And his back paid for it….
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Good walls make good neighbors. Great walls make jealous neighbors…
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Thankfully we love our neighbors, no walls required.
😊
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Silly, silly man, doesn’t he know that if River is around, he’s going to have to do it the “right” way and not the “Hubs” way? lol
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You’d think he would have learned that after all these years.
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You’d think….lol.
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A good rock wall takes time… – like good hair.
I’d love to have an authentic New England style rock wall, but here in the deep south I would have to settle for the southern style ‘flat’ version.
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Stone walls are abundant up here but the art of building them right the way is fading…..
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I see a wishing well in the last photo. Why not put it to use by wishing that the two ft. difference would simply disappear and the yard would become level? If your wish isn’t granted, threaten to fill the well with those rocks to teach it a lesson. If that doesn’t work, your wishing well is a fraud and should be prosecuted..
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Our wishing well is most definitely a fraud. It’s only there to hide access to the real well….which is filled with water not wishes. We were robbed!
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” he didn’t listen to me” What a nice guy he is–gives you reasons to nag him!! How many husbands would do that???
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He’s very thoughtful that way…
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I LOVE rock walls.
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I’m curious: does he ever say yes to any of your ideas? The first time, I mean?
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I think you know the answer to that.
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One can always hope…
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The rock he moved was small. If he doesn’t move some of the larger ones, the job will take a while.
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He moved all of them… eventually.
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