Rebuilding the dry stack fieldstone wall of the art studio.

Sometime last fall after some heavy rains really softened and fully saturated the soil there was a deep rumbling heard in my house. At first I thought maybe it was thunder and disregarded it though the sound was a bit different, yet somehow still familiar too. Going out to the studio later I realized what I’d heard, the roll and tumble of boulders falling as my west side rock wall collapsed!

At first I was dismayed, and it was a sudden bit of work that had to be done in order to move boulders and dig dirt just to get access to my studio door again. Thankfully the only real damage was a slight dent in the aluminum storm door. I wasn’t really that surprised at the collapse. I’d noted that the stones had been shifting over the years. I also have to acknowledge that this wall is something no competent builder would ever recommend doing. A dry stack, Michigan fieldstone wall with the tallest section going nearly straight up 11 feet high is pretty much guaranteed not to last. That sense I’d heard the sound before was because both sides collapsed 3 times as I was initially learning to build it over 10 years ago sending that sound of grinding rumble across the land in the process.

Anyway, my dismay quickly dissipated when I realized this meant I would get to play with rocks some more while rebuilding the wall. Unfortunately last fall I simply had no time. Then it was winter, and now at last it is spring and can get back to it. So I’m setting about my play rebuilding the wall, which I’m sure will collapse again at some point. I emphasis this point so that any of you who are inspired to build your own walls realize taking something like this so high is a recipe for eventual collapse. I’d really need to design it differently with gentler slopes or lots of mortar for any hope of it lasting. I may try that someday, but not today.

For this blog post I thought I’d try a different approach that might work better for homestead projects that have the potential to be ongoing over a period of time. I’m going to start the post showing images and describing what’s going on, then add more images and descriptions over time as I progress. In this case I don’t think it will be a long time frame. In fact, I’m kinda hoping to finish this later today or tomorrow, but I want to try a blog post this way anyway.

So for this project I initially started out with the solar powered weed trimmer, mostly because I needed to trim down around my paths anyway. I suppose really this was completely unnecessary as I’d be trampling everything down as I worked regardless. Still it was my first efforts to clear out the vegetation around the area so I’m just dealing with dirt and rocks.

Next was the harder task of cutting back all the wild grape vines. I needed to clear these out from the top to the bottom of my work zone. This required my ladder and a bit of precarious work up on and leaning over the top edge of the studio. I feel bad cutting back so much of the vines, but am confident they, or something else, will grow back pretty quickly. These vines are actually based in my first experiment with a hugelkultur bed further along the side of the studio. I was amazed at how quickly the main vine grew thick.

In the photos above you can see black plastic. That is part of the “umbrella” forming my green roof. What I don’t want to do is puncture it. I also need to get it covered up again with rocks, soil, and life. If it’s left exposed to the sun too long then the plastic will be breaking down to the point of becoming brittle. Really I’ve let this sit exposed longer than I’d like already.

So now with the prep work done I can begin the heavy labor of moving stones and dirt. The first task in this stage is to finish digging out the collapsed section to find the base ground I want to rebuild on. What’s sad is that I’ve gotten so used to this new footprint of the wall I don’t fully remember how far out its base used to be. Generally speaking though the farther out the better. As much as I can I want to be laying the stones in positions as they might naturally fall. The trickiest spot is always right up by the edge of the studio where it needs to go nearly straight up.

One huge advantage I have this time around that I didn’t have when I first built this wall 10+ years ago is that I have many more rocks to chose from. Initially I was limited to pretty much exactly what I used, lacking a large number of bigger stones with flat edges. Now I actually have a dump truck load of “extra” stones I got several years ago but haven’t yet used. So, for the base especially, I’ll be pulling rocks out of this pile. Hopefully with this better selection I can make a more stable wall.

The downside to that nice bonus rock pile is that I need to be able to move any rocks I want to use up to the studio. I’m figuring I’ll try using just my dolly and wheelbarrow for this job, thus limiting the size I can select. If you’ve never tried moving stones by hand please realize they are way heavier than they look. You really do need to take great care moving any large rock. It can crush your fingers in an instant. Of course, hurting ones back lifting them is extremely easy to do as well. I know both from painful repeated experience. The rock in this photo is probably the largest I’m going to move for this project. It’s really too heavy for me to even lift. I was able to carefully roll it off the pile and straight onto the dolly. By placing it on the initial layer I won’t have to lift it at all.

Here’s a shot with the new bottom layer in place, forming the base I will build upon. I feel like I should make this clear in case anyone thinks to use this blog post as too much of a “how to” guide. I’m offering my observations from making rock walls like this in the past, but please realize I have exactly ZERO formal training or professional experience doing this. I’m just an artist/sculptor who’s not afraid to face failure as I jump in and learn by doing. I love the challenge of moving heavy rocks by hand!

Here in this next shot you can see me beginning to build upward. I’m still trying to use large rocks, some at the limit of my ability to lift alone. As a general rule when moving large rocks I try to not lift the weight fully at all if I can help it. Instead I will shift, rotate, pivot, roll, etc. as much as possible so most of the weight is on the ground or whatever rock is beneath it. A trick I sometimes use for low rise lifting like you see here is to kneel down and roll the stone up onto my legs, then shift a bit so I can roll it back off, but onto a spot higher up. Anyway, things seem to be going well so far.

Here’s the next little update. I’ve kept carefully stacking rocks higher and higher, using the largest ones I can as a general rule. Now, however, they are getting difficult to lift up to the heights needed. You may notice in this next photo that there is a spot in the rising wall that is kept lower than the rest. The serious temptation is naturally to fill that in. However, it’s another one of my little tricks to getting heavy rocks higher up the wall. I can only do my squats and dead lift them so high, right up to about that low point in the wall. When I get the rock to that level I can set it on the edge, thus shifting much of the weight to that point it’s resting on, and then roll it up onto the little plateau. From there I can climb up and lift, roll, or awkwardly maneuver the boulder a bit higher.

As this wall grows I find I need to add more soil and rocks to back fill the space. Logically all the dirt I need should be right there since the wall was complete before it collapsed. However, life doesn’t seem to work like that. It’s sorta like digging a hole to plant a tree or something. Even though you’ve got all the soil right there, and you’ve added some with the potted tree, it still seems like the hole ends up at a level a bit lower. Somehow that dirt disappears into the zone single socks go when doing laundry. In the case of the wall it seems lots of soil wanted to disappear into that nether space. Fortunately I still have several yards of topsoil left over from the raised bed project. So I’ve been getting wheelbarrow loads of that and hurling it up with a shovel.

In this photo you can see what is pretty much the limit to what I can do with that lower level opening in the raising wall. I can’t really get the sides higher until I fill in that opening.

This next photo will be the final one for the day. I’ve filled in the opening and added a lot of back fill. I could keep going a bit longer before the sun goes down, but my body is getting mighty weary about now. I don’t want to leave myself too exhausted to try and finish this up tomorrow. So far everything feels very stable. It’s been nice to be able to use larger rocks this far up the wall. Tomorrow the serious ladder work will start.

It’s now day two of the rebuild. As expected there is more ladder climbing today than yesterday as I’m getting higher and higher up. Right now I think I might be working harder throwing shovelfuls of soil up there than I am carrying rocks up the ladder to put in place. In this first photo today I’ve added another layer or so of rocks, but 2 or 3 wheelbarrow loads of soil.

It’s getting to be slower and slower going as I get higher and higher. I reached a point where the red ladder had become too short and so now I’ve got out the longer all aluminum one. Ladders do need to be placed carefully to be fully secure and at just the right angle so that I can pretty much walk up them with both hands occupied carrying a rock. That is slow, careful work to maintain balance. Fortunately if I feel the need I can set the stone on a step of the ladder, regain my stance, and continue up.

I’m happy to have gotten the toughest side, the one that goes nearly straight up along the studio, almost to the needed height. I’m now feeling fairly confident I can get that the rest of the way. I’m not sure if I can still toss the soil as high as I need it now. That will be my next task after this short break. If I can’t then it will probably be time to break out the 5 gallon pails and start hauling dirt up that way. When I made the studio this was how I had to do the last few rows of rammed earth tires. It’s also how I got the roof covered, lots and lots of pails of soil walked up 2 at a time.

I was able to toss another small wheelbarrow load of soil up onto the hill. Then it was more up and down the ladder hauling rocks one at a time, or two if they were small. I didn’t plan it this way, but one of the rocks of a previous layer stuck out from the wall just enough to provide a very handy extra step for my foot. Without that one rock this whole thing would have been much harder.

I’ve worked everything up as high as I can get it by throwing soil up with a shovel and hauling rocks up the ladder to put in place. Just for fun, here’s a shot of my view when up the ladder working.

Here’s another wider angle view of where I’m at, showing how little there is left to do, but how high up it is.

I can no longer throw the dirt up so it’s finally time to get out the 5 gallon buckets and start hauling it up to the top of the studio via the stairs. Then I’ll pour it down from the top. These buckets are very heavy because the soil is staying wet (and I’m getting more and more tired).

In the end I only had to bring 4 buckets of topsoil up to the roof, so that wasn’t too bad. The final rocks went into place fairly easily as well. It was lots of up and down but the job finally got finished. First here’s a shot from the top after the last bucket of topsoil was dumped.

Finally, here are a few images of the repaired studio wall. It was loads of fun to do, weary fun though. I’m also quite surprise at just how many rocks I used from the bonus pile. Without that pile this would have all been much harder. I don’t know how I did it before, forced to use many smaller rocks.

Because I have been away for so long and then wrapped up in yard/garden projects it’s been a long time since I’ve done any work in the studio. Hence right now I have nothing to share for a studio snippet. So I’m going to skip that section on today’s entry. Fear not though, the studio snippet will return!

I’m happy to have a site where I can again allow comments. (I had to shut them off on my main website because the spam was simply uncontrollable!) So please I encourage you to share thoughts of your own. My general rule about comments though is just to play nice. Differing views are fine, but I’m not interested in engaging in or moderating verbal fights. If I feel things get out of hand, by whatever criteria I decide, I’ll just start blocking or deleting things.