High St. Wall Repair

  A little wall repair on High St. for Tim Massey of Endeavour Builders. (A link to their fine website on the left.)  The wall was apparently struck by an careening automobile a few years ago and so lay heaped in a pile rapidly overgrowing with cedar roots.  We pulled the whole thing apart, put down a substantial bed of crushed stone, as well as crushed stone and filter fabric behind. It should stand the test of time, barring any unforeseen acts of vehicular wall-slaughter.

Driveway Walls of Hot Heaven

  So, after about five weeks of being sequestered on a 600 square-foot patio nightmare island of back-breaking labor and financial ruin, we were able to get back out to Damariscotta Lake and finish the wall on the other side of Bruce and Pam's driveway. And though it was almost a hundred degrees on Tuesday and Wednesday, we were extremely happy to get back to a sensible and creative project in a peaceful environment controlled by kind and sensible people. I think we are going to stay there permanently...  Maybe if we just work 2 hours a day, 3 days a week, we can stretch this thing out to last all year.

Damariscotta Lake (Where the Blackflies Roam)

  So, this is the first wall we built with Clark on the lake, and the next will essentially be a mirror on the other side of the drive.  And yes, the blackflies were horrendous, and yes, they did carry Damon away. We spend so much time working on the ocean, where the breeze tends to keep them away, that we forget how bad they can be inland.

East Boothbay Retaining Wall

  Here are some shots of the wall Damon and I have been helping Dan Ucci of Ledge Hill Creations with:

  Joel Oyer on the left and Danny Harrington in the center. Damon, of course, on the right.

  Working on the cap...

  Randy Edgecomb back-building, one of the most integral and unappreciated aspects of wall building. The back of the wall must be constructed as sturdily as the front, the center packed tightly with stones, and the whole thing being interlocked with stones extending throughout the structure. None of this is ever seen once the wall is back-filled with soil, and the tender's work is hidden for all time.

Finished Drew's Wall

  Yesterday, Damon and I finished the wall, back-filled it, straightened out the steps on the left side, and built a small set of steps on the right. Damon also set the bird-bath he made and gave to Drew as a gift. Filled with water and positioned atop a large upright boulder near the wall, it seemed to somehow add a feeling of naturalness to our backyard project.

The New Wall

  Damon and I had a few good days on the new wall we started in Camden. It was nice to spray it down with the hose at the end of yesterday and see the colors pop out in the stone.