This is after only 5 days of work! We're building a small office for a farm down the road from us. Obviously, because all of the participants in this workshop are inexperienced, it's not perfect. That's what gives it so much character. A lot of learning has gone into this product. Anyway...
The stone is Columbia basalt, which I'm told is actually very difficult to work with. We did some minor shaping here and there, but most of these stones you see were laid in place as is. The bottom section of the wall (not visible, obviously) is entirely dry stone, incredibly stable and well-laid, if I do say so myself. Of course, our best work won't be seen. Haha...once we got past that layer, unfortunately time constraints forced us to move a little faster and I feel that sometimes our fits weren't the best because of that. We also started using a lime/clay mortar mixture to fill in the cracks instead of smaller dry stones, which, although faster, isn't nearly as stable as dry stones. It works, though, and it was fun to play with it. The corners are set with a natural hydraulic lime mortar and topped with a 16-inch sandstone that we manually shaped and set. That was fun. The best part is that a week later, it was still standing, and appears to be rock solid. See what I did there?
A brief aside: one thing that has made this program rewarding has been the instructors, both of whom are masters in their trade. I think even more valuable than their wealth of knowledge has been their attitude and personalities. Last week, our master stone mason showed us his mandolin skills, came out and shared dinner and drinks with us, waltzed with my girlfriend at lunch (Aarghhhhh...just kidding. It's cool). This week, our master timber framer showed us how to play a game called stump, where you try to hammer in everyone else's nail before your own gets stumped. I happened to grab an amazing action photo:
Basically, they've been a whole lot of fun to be around, and that made learning from them that much easier and rewarding.
Now, after two weeks, we have something that really resembles a building. Take a look below!
Absolutely NO NAILS were used, and most of that frame was shaped by us, the students using mostly hand tools. Again, time constraints forced us to speed up the process just a little, but overall the result looks fantastic. Don'tcha think?
And now I'm jumping on the soap box. Over the past two weeks, I've experienced everything from frustration to joy, aches and soreness to relief, hunger to satiety, and the list goes on. When I look outside of myself, it's really amazing to see this thing coming together, and this experience has just been so awe-inspiring I struggle to find words most of the time. What I felt yesterday when the 15 or so of us raised this frame was absolutely incredible, and after pushing myself to the limit and being left slightly short of breath, all I could do was stand back and smile from ear to ear. I couldn't explain why, nor did I want to. What happened yesterday and what has been happening here is unquestionably spiritual in nature on a much deeper level than just what you see in the picture. I'm not calling it a religious experience, but you could liken it to that, I suppose. That's what I think confuses a lot of people. Just because you're not religious doesn't mean you're not spiritual. This has been an enlightening spiritual experience, and even though we're not serving a God, we're serving other people and in turn serving ourselves. There's something very peaceful about that. At least that's how I feel.
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