Length, width, height - and time - in a rock wall

The true substance of this humble stone divide

Happy Friday, all! I hope you enjoy this short essay on the beauty of stone walls. ~JRC

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Photo by Daniel McNestry, via Unsplash

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I love rock walls. They are functional and beautiful. Deceptively simple, building one takes skill and patience. Anyone can stack a few rocks. But to do it well and make a structure that stands the test of time is something special.

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Where I grew up in the Southern Ohio valley, there were many dry stack rock walls. These constructions do not have mortar to keep the stones in place. Instead, the rocks are expertly positioned, interlocking with one another. Gravity and friction do the binding.

The ones that lined Southern Ohio and neighboring Kentucky countrysides were a byproduct of clearing the fields. Over a century ago, farmers made way for cultivation by moving the rocks. With nowhere else to put them, they stacked the stones into long stretches of beautiful walls. As a kid, I enjoyed watching them along the byways on weekend trips to visit my mamaw in Frankfurt.

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My father once built four rock culvert walls to shore up our driveway. It was a lengthy drive, and he was preparing to have it blacktopped. The walls ensured the pavement would stay put around two drainage pipes that ran under it.

Unlike dry-stack construction, his walls used mortar. Pop painstakingly chose, chiseled, and positioned every stone. Then between each, he'd layer a wet trowel of cement. The resulting walls were perfectly square in all dimensions. And they were solid as, well, a rock.

My brother and I were on sand duty for the project. We hauled load after load from a huge pile from which my dad mixed up the concrete mortar. It was pretty arduous work, considering I probably wasn't more than ten. Granted, my older brother did most of the hard stuff. But I shared the burden as much as I could. It was quite the experience and one we fondly reminisce about even now.

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A few years back, I tried my hand at building a dry stack stone wall. My backyard has a steep slope, and it was eroding, causing drainage problems. Worse, the hill was threatening to crumble and wreak havoc on my little suburban life. I had to do something.

And that something was build a rock wall.

I'd never built one before, but having seen so many and watching my dad do it all those years ago, I understood the basics. First, I sourced a couple of tons of nice flat stone, plus some sand and gravel for the foundation. Then, after digging out the length where it would go, I laid down the gravel and began work on my very own rock wall.

It took time, selecting and placing the rocks. To get it level, you can't set them any old way. You have to look at each stone - on all sides - and think both spatially and temporally. If I use this rock, which side is up? And which way does it face? How does it affect the next rock? And the rock after that?

Yes, building a wall is about space and time.

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I determined it was best to lay the rocks out to get a good view of all. And after a while, I found myself in a rhythm of selecting and placing the stones. It was trance-like, as is the case with much of my other making.

In building that wall, I was once again in "the flow" of creating. But this time, instead of wood, metal, or plastic, I was using stone. And it was gratifying.

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My wall turned out very well. It's solid and retains a sizable amount of slope behind it. I suspect in a disaster (a.k.a., "earthquake" here in SoCal), my rock wall would withstand the worst; my house, I am not sure.

There's a great pleasure in creating something so durable with one's hands. And after seeing and appreciating so many stone walls, it's nice to have now made my own.

Would an expert stonemason be impressed? I doubt it. The artisanship that goes into their walls is par excellence.

But my wall is not too shabby. And like the farmer's walls built all those decades ago, I expect mine will stay put for a while. That’s inherently substantial.

It’s a rock wall, after all.

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Until next time.

JRC