Graham Robertson

Hey Al, thanks for the info.

The dam in the video is in Dallas TX

My friend and I built it over the past weekend.

I thought y'all might get a kick out of this.

I was curious if others are using this method to build dams. Very little info about small [stone] dam construction on the net. We built it like a retaining wall, and packed small rocks and dirt behind the wall as the stones were laid. It seems to be holding up very well, though we did just get 1.5" of rain and I havent checked it yet.

I expected her to blow on the first rain, you can hear me saying "if this breaks we are going to die" in the video. I really underestimated her!

Before and After

Pics of the wall as of this week. Almost done and starting to build some dry laid paths!

Hi, I have a china berry tree on my property and recently read that it is allelopathic, meaning that the roots and leaves emit chemicals that inhibit the growth of other plants. Does anyone have experience growing plants under china berry trees?

just finished the first course and the stair landing!

im very proud of the steps, not sure if i should be embarrassed by jay's standards though. i would rather get done and have just sufficiently tight joints than exhaust myself by turning and chipping stones any more than is necessary in this Texas heat.

I am loving my new stone tools. My mom filmed me splitting a 26 incher in half, something I will be doing to most of the blocks, to save face (literally). Ill up the vid later.

I finished the footer yesterday and it's smooth sailing from here. No more gravel leveling!

A big portion of the stones we have are definitely too big to be moved by kicking. the largest are 6x8x36"... I am just wondering if laying their lengths along the face is going to be structural?

My carbide masonry set should be here mid next week. Sooo excited to start splitting stones and getting those tight joints!

In the meantime I will be working on our trellises for grapes, figs, blackberries, vining vegetables, apples etc.

When I first made this thread, I didnt expect the project to expand as much as it has. I guess I was viewing the theme of the project as more of a means to grow food and hold water in the soil, rather than the end goal of a wall. I underestimated the immense nature of the endeavor at the time.

I hope to take what I have learned and build a specialist practice out of dry stone walling. Last night I had dreams of driving around Dallas and seeing some crazy beautiful dry stacked walls. I am noticing more people are becoming more interested traditional lifetime design building.

I am wondering about capstones. Could I use the longest of our blocks, with the length in the face, just on top? Would this serve the purpose of a cap or would it still contribute to weakness?