The Unturned Stone

This is a wall I’ve wanted to build for a long time. Whenever I go to New England, I admire the foundation and cemetery walls built of huge chunks of granite- plumb faces, with minimal shims. They have a volume and gravity to them that elevates me. We happened across a supply of quarried granite from South Carolina. To my knowledge the quarry has been shut down for a while and the granite, which is bright white when freshly cut, has started to weather to gray. It’s the truest stone; you could build any temple, any monument, any structure, any span from this stuff.

This wall, designed with my son’s big Legos, is meant to resemble an old house foundation and frames in the outdoor kitchen area that already features the hearth oven. Someday there will be a grill kitty-corner to the wall. This section of wall is four feet tall, though when the project is completed, several inches will be hidden below grade. There will be a taller section closer to the house (visible to the back) and a set of stairs built through the wall. For scale, the corner capstone is twelve inches thick.

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Within the month, the yearlong, four mile long the Stone Mountain trail project should be finished. Depending, of course, on the weather. Here’s a handful of photos of recent developments.

A lovely curving set of timber steps. These steps are three feet wide and backfilled with sand-rock, a decomposed granite that packs down into a great walking surface.

The suspended walkways over the dome. Since this photo was taken the steps and decking has been completed. Only the hand rails remain.

The lone set of stone steps winds its way through boulders. A sliver of ledge pokes through the ground and is used as a step.

Our track dump truck, Ursula, parked on the granite dome with a load of decking for the walkways.

A close up of the oven. This week Scott added 36 cubic feet of vermiculite mixed with Portland cement in a 6:1 recipe. This insulating layer is between the aluminum silicate shell of the heat chamber and the exterior stonework. Next, a roof. The original idea of a mosaic over concrete has shifted towards dry stone, laid like shingles. Very old school.

What’s next… of limestone and granite.