My new garden or Stone Henge?

I just edited my message with the correct web site; I had used Bruce's email, instead.
With his foundry, I know John would be so interested.
He is currently working on a sculpture for my garden.
Bruce also has worldwide contacts - seems like its
time your work was recognized!
Polly Cooper

Hi, Gitagal -

I think I found your guy..did a web search using Florida, man, latvia, and came up with this:

http://www.mysteriousworld.com/Journal/2003/Winter/Artifacts/

Wow..is that amazing! Can't wait to read the whole site and show it to John.

Thanks for posting the site. Wow, what an amazing person!
:) Donna

Makes you wonder ... I would love to make some garden walls and wow he had some great ideas

Dianne!

BOY! You are right on! YES!!! That is the place! and the Man!

Thanks for supplying that link. I read the whole thing! I will forward it to my sisters and my daughters just so they can become familiar with the accomplishments of this one person from their mom's country. All that stuff about 'floating" 30 ton blocks of coral!!! Gives me the goosepumps! Verrrrrrrrrrrrrry interesting.....................

I hope that John can try some of those "tricks". It will save his back.
Sometimes it is just as easy to believe that the imposible can happen and NOT fight all the logistics. It is good to believe in some mysteries of life, or it would become too mundane!

What is the weight of the heaviest stone that John has put up in your Garden? How did HE get it upright???? HHHMMMM.....John???
Did you go out at night and hummmmmm to those boulders?

I will be following this thread till the end! Take good care of yourselves so you can finish this amazing feat!!!! You are truly creating something that will still be there in a couple of hundred years! Perhaps you two are just "tools" of a grandiose plan by someone in this universe!!!! OK! Now I am getting weird! Better quit while I am ahead!!!!!

Thanks for sharing! Gita

This has got to be one of the most overwhelming threads for a new garden I have ever seen on DG and I have been around here a while. Not sure how I missed this in the beginning, but I am now glued to the thread as if it were being created for my personal enjoyment! Wow, wow, wow - hard work is one of the most rewarding treasures to have and your and your DH's creativity is incredible.
I don't think it will be long before word is out and you have photographers at your door wanting to see the entire story unfold in a garden magazine!

Unbelievable accomplishment. You both are to be applauded.

Your home and garden are spectacular. I love stone myself, especially rough granite...you and john have done some amazing work, you'll have to have us all over when your done :-----) ~~Mary~~

Okey Dokey - time for another update -- it's been almost two months and poor John has spent nearly the entire time working in 90+ degree weather putting up the second course (top row) of stones around the entire perimeter, plus he built some of the beds which I will show you. Once those stones are cut to size and lifted into place with a backhoe, John spends DAYS on each one "chinking up" the cracks. This means fitting tiny little pieces of stone in between the large ones to fill the gaps. Here is a pano I did of to give you an overall view of the progress.

Here's a close up view of some beds along the back left wall if looking at the garden from the perspective of the pano above...

Wow, great job, I'm green with envy...beautiful work...is John a stone cutter? Mary

This is some new beds he made in the back right corner of the garden. These have a couple steps leading into the beds...

In between these posts will be a iron trellis and all along the top of the wall will be iron fencing that will make the wall 6ft high.

The entire garden will be enclosed to a height of six ft with either iron fencing, wood fencing or brick walls.

gotta go..there is a big lightening storm coming through...I'll post more later.

Diane

Ok, all is well now..storm went past...

alrighty..this is the well we put in for the garden (John will build a well house around it) Directly behind it will be a stone bench and behind that on the far wall will be the front side of my potting shed. It will be a wood and brick structure about 12 x 14 ft with windows and my work are will be outside it.

Here is a view across the garden from the house side looking south to the wall of the side wall of the garden. I show you this because in the next post I will show this same picture with an overlay of Johns autocad sketch of the wall he will build between the posts.

Now here is the same area with the overlay. The walls will be brick, the door oak, - the fountain (I pasted the pic in here) will be against the brick wall. The opposite side will have an iron trellis on it.

Directly to the left of the brick wall with the fountain will be my potting shed and work area.

By the way that stone post in the pic above with the broken top towards the front of the pic?) that will be capped with a wooden frame and a victorian birdhouse will sit on that.

This grassy area also in the pic above will be gone and replaced with paths and more flower beds and this birdbath we recently purchased..

This is a view looking back toward the house, patio and barn but I post it here to show you these large iron gates resting against the posts. These gates will be moved and will become the entrance gates to the garden from the backside - which I will show you in the next post.

Okay - those gates will go between the 12ft posts you see in the background here on the back side of the garden directly opposite the front gates which will be under this brownstone lentil. John has not found the gate yet he wants to put here in the front.

Here is a large wellstone John is saving to make a feature out of in the garden. We are thinking we will lay this flat and low to the ground on stone cubes making sort of a table top and perhaps mount an old water pump on top that will become a fountain pouring water into the hole and then into a catch basin and recirculate around again. I'll probably put planters around the top of it. That's one idea..we haven't totally decided yet.

That's it for now...we had a large load of topsoil delivered yesterday..We'll be spreading some of that around soon. Stay tuned for future updates of "As my garden grows.."

Diane Krny

Wow, Diane. This is going to be so beautiful. You'll have a house and garden that the rest of us can only dream about.

Simply Amazing!!!!!!!!!
You have done so much work this summer. I'm so pleased to see your Garden and stone work in progress. I'm at a loss for words and trying to get my Jaw off the keyboard!! LOL
I would not be the least surprised if we see you featured in a National Garden Magazine.
THANK YOU Sooo much for sharing your beautiful Home and Garden.
Kin

aww..thanks Ada - sometimes I do feel I'm living out a fairy tale. This whole house and yard is such a peaceful place to be. John's imagination and skill still amazes me every day. I am happy to share my little slice of heaven on earth with all of you through these pictures and you can always stop by if your up this way.

Diane

Stunning, Diane...

Reminds of the movie, "the Princess Bride" where whatever you ask of your DH, he replies....

"As you wish...." :)

Dreamlike... I always enjoy all of the new pictures....thank you for sharing your little slice of heaven with us... :-)

So happy to see your thread updated - your husband's concepts, and his ability to create them is frankly astounding.
I hope you are documenting all this along with your pictures to make a gorgeous coffee table momento, as well as show off this incredible homestead for publication, The history of each gem acquired would add to the fascinating fairytale.
I feel so fortunate to see it unfold.

Diane, the stone with the hole - is it natural or did John fashion it?? My fav part is the stones chiseled to fit in the long vertical stones. Where in the world does John get the stones (he huge ones), and how does he get them to your place, and, if they are natural to your surroundings, how does he move them around to chisel, etc??? Fascinating!!! I showed this thread to my granddaughter, Madeline, and she asked 'is that part of a movie?' I agree, it does resemble the set of a movie, except that it real, wow!! And, it seems that John is moving right along, I'm amazed at the progress since the thread(s) started...

Sherry - the stone with a hole - is a wellstone used to cap off a shallow well and is probably from the middle 1800s. The slot in the middle was chizeled out by hand to allow a series of small buckets on a wide chain to go down into the well and pick up water and return full to the surface and spill into the large bucket of the person drawing water. This whole thing was driven back then by a hand crank. This is in contrast to a similar looking wellcap stone with a round hole in it where you simply dropped the bucket down the hole on a rope and pulled it back up. So the round holded ones were typically earlier than these more mechanized approach to drawing water. By the way the wellstone in this picture is large - about 5ft across and about 4" thick.

All these rocks came from a local quarry and were trucked in by John's friend with a flatbed and a backhoe to lift them. Once they were here and layed out in the field - John had to roll each one over an number of times to keep trimming them to be roughly square as they are quite misshapen when roughly cut at the quarry. Granite weighs approx. 170lbs a cubic ft therefore each lineal foot of stone weighs 170lbs as these are 1ft X 1ft square. Therefore, a 10ft long stone weighs about a ton.Stones up to about 6ft in length can be moved with a logging hook (yes, a logging hook - used in the lumber trade to roll large logs). He puts a small chain around the stone and hooks the logging hook into the links of the chain to roll the stone. Stone larger than this he rolls over with a chain and a come-a-long (ratchet puller) hooked to a tree. Every time you flip the stone over he eyes down the edge of it and chip off (with a stone hammer and chisel) whatever is not square. This is where all the little chips come from that are extremely valuable to "chink" or fill in the gaps after the stones are set on the wall.

Is this more than you wanted to know???? If not..read on...

the stone are cut to length by drilling holes and putting special stone wedges in called plugs and feathers. Then he hammers the wedges and they split along the line between the drill holes. By sawing a tiny score line between the drill holes with a diamond blade on a circular saw, the stone will split exactly on that saw cut.

Now are you sorry you asked??

Diane

Diane, I hope that some TV station has done a piece on John and his work. I can't wait to see it finished and learn what he will do next. I'll bet he sleeps well at night. My gosh, I'd be totally exhausted. It all just wonderful. You both should be very proud. Thanks for sharing all of this with us.

I echo G/GuyKin and Brugie's comments.

You will most undoubtedly be featured somewhere, either on TV, or a popular gardening magazine.

The work that's been done is incredible!!

Gracie

Diane, Didn't you say that he has been at this art for a very long time .

How long ago did he start on the house or what ever came first ?

In the future , when you both retire you could prolly open up for Tours.

I would not hesitate to pay to see this.

You might have trouble getting rid of me tho ......... lol

Diane, it simply gets better everytime you do something else...I can't wait to see it in it's completion! You and your DH deserve something GREAT to happen to you after all is done...I'd be out there sitting right smack in the middle of it having my morning and evening coffee or lemonade!

Looks great and for those of you that missed the beginning of this story...see the link Diane posted early in this thread...long ago and far away...
http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/450580/
I know I want to go back and re-read it too!
It just keeps getting better!

I cannot imagine all the work and energy that is going into your dream! Just be sure to take care of yourselves and to stay healthy! And take the time to enjoy all you already have...including each other!

Margie

This message was edited Aug 14, 2005 9:46 AM

Amen Margie!

Thank you again for all your nice comments. Shirley - TV stations - no, not yet {grin} but maybe sometime. Johns Aunt and Uncle brought over some people visiting them from out of town yesterday and they toured the house and grounds listening to John's blow by blow description of everything. It took over 2 hours. The folks were just astounded at what he has accomplished here -- the most amazing thing of course is that he has done it all by himself. No work crews, no designers,no loans, no mortgage and he started when he was just a kid (about 24 yrs old).

Scoot - John learned the art of stone masonry when he came out of the service around 1968-69. He spent that first summer back home working for the State parks department helping to restore Gillette's castle (a stone castle here in CT) and took to the art like a duck to water. He decided to build his own castle on this piece of land that had belonged to his grandfather and given to him by this parents. He had NO money so everything had to be done slowly, by hand with simple tools. Everyone thought he was absolutely NUTS. His father would tell him he was a fool and "why don't you just build a normal house like everybody else". But he persisted and he had such vision - that is what astounds me the most. What 24yrs old kid that you know could design something like this in their head and then have the know-how and stamina to see the project through? It took him 6 yrs to finish the outside walls of the house and the 3 story center chimmney. He lived with his parents (next door) during this time. Then once the exterior construction was done he moved in.

The rich history and amazing workmanship of the house doesn't end on the exterior either. Inside the house everything is very authentically designed to mimic a 16th century english cottage. Here's a few shots of the house inside to give you an idea.

This is our kitchen - stone walls (of course!) and even the windows were all made by hand by John out of antique leaded glass.

another view of the kitchen from the other side - we did remodel the kitchen a few years ago and put in the granite countertop and deep farmers sink.

Here';s a view of the living room -

Here's a view of the fireplace - this fireplace has a really interesting story behind it. It was bought by John from a demolition crew taking down the Lafayette Inn in Clinton in the 1970s. This fireplace dates to the early 1600s and this Inn was where Lafayette stayed when he passed through town during the Revolutionary War. John bought this fireplace and the one in our kitchen, brought them home and reassembled them into the house.

This is a view of John cutting kindling for the woodstove in the kitchen. the fireplace next to him we don't use but it is the mate to the large one in the previous post.