Sunday, May 18, 2014

An old stone fence - 1


Reporter: "What's Vermont's leading cash crop?"
Old Farmer: "Rocks."
The start of an old stone fence. 

I spent a little time this afternoon after golf (an embarrassing round this morning) and getting my vegetable beds turned and ready, adding an old stone fence to the perimeter of the pasture. 
This is not to be confused with a "stone wall" - the stones aren't dressed or even dry stacked to create an attractive wall. All those rocks early New England farmers "harvested" had to go somewhere - and the simplest place was the edge of the field they were clearing. 
These stone stacks often had a fence constructed above, or immediately adjacent. In early days it would have been a wood split rail fence, much like the ones we have at the nearby Manassas battlefield. In later years it would have been fenceposts with barbed wire. 
I'm not sure which fence I'll go with yet.  

While these types of fences existed everywhere, they're certainly a great addition to a New England scene. 
At this point all I've done is sprinkled some decorative stones from the craft store roughly in place, then pushed them together with my fingers. 

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