It's all about Stonewalls.

The Amherst Garden Club 

3 October 2013 

Featured Speaker

☟

Kevin Gardner

Photo: Marti Warren

Kevin Gardner, from Hopkinton, NH, is a very well rounded man. He lists among his accomplishments, 25 years of stonewall building, including large restoration projects at Canterbury's Shaker Village and Acadia National Park in Maine. He's also a writer, actor and producer at New Hampshire Public Radio. But on October 3rd, he kept a large gathering from the Amherst Garden Club highly entertained with a witty, often humorous speaking style and vast knowledge of New England stonewalls and their history. While he spoke to his audience, he casually emptied a container of rocks upon his table and constructed a miniature stonewall before our eyes to illustrate his points and enlighten us with facts. A rather ingenious method to ensure engaging your audiences attention.

Did you know that most stonewalls in New England were built between 1750 and 1850? At one time more than 250,000 miles of stonewalls existed in the northeast; more miles than the entire US coastline, or the distance to the moon. These rocks were deposited here some 15,000 years ago as the last great ice sheet departed North America, leaving what our  ancestors called "boney soil." This gave New England farmers something to do now as they cleared their fields, fenced them in, built house foundations and boundary markers with this heavy, granite rubble.

Photo: Marti Warren

Here, Kevin illustrates the fundamentals of constructing a stonewall that will survive for decades. Always place one rock on top of two, or two upon one to stabilize and interlock the project. Never line up your seams as this is "stacking" the stones and does nothing to make the unit a whole. He as well spoke about "chinking," proper drainage, foundation preparation and maintenance. 

Photo: Marti Warren

After speaking to his audience he took questions from individuals using his newly constructed wall to emphasize his points. Rather than just tell us how it is done, he could show us how it is done. Did you know that a cubic foot of granite, which really isn't all that large, weighs 165 pounds? Kevin shared with his audience a variety of methods and devices used to efficiently move and position such weight.

According to Archimedes, you remember him the Greek who said, "give me a long enough lever and a place to stand and I can move the earth." Some might recognize this as The Law of the Lever or MA = FB/FA = a/b. But I wouldn't be among them!

 

Photo: Rand Peck

Kevin also brought copies of his book entitled, THE GRANITE KISS, (published 2001) which he sold and autographed for many in the audience. It's an interesting title don't you think? You need to read the book though to learn of its significance but it's available at the Amherst Town Library and at Amazon. I'd planned to purchase a copy but by the time I got to speak with him he was sold out, so I took it from the library. If you become particularly enthralled with this topic, another interesting book concerning stonewalls is Robert Thorson's STONE BY STONE (published in 2003) where he acknowledges and gives thanks to Kevin Gardner. 

Thank-you very much to the Amherst Garden Club for sponsoring such an interesting speaker and allowing the general public to attend. And thanks to Marti Warren for photos and an introduction.

On another note, I received a message from local artist Lori Woodward who wrote concerning my blogpost about marine artist Bill Davis. Her work, mostly landscapes that I've seen, are beautiful and available to be seen and purchased at the New Hampshire Antique CO-OP. Lori, thanks very much for your comments and I highly recommend that readers visit her site. Click here or click her on in the right margin. 

Here are a couple examples of Lori Woodwards work exhibited at the New Hampshire Antique CO-OP

Thanks for reading,

Rand