Learning to Live Peace: I built a stone wall!

While I was visiting my parents, I had another little foray into natural building I thought I'd share...

Vikki and Jay playing the course

My dad built a 18-hole "Hillbilly" miniature golf course on their land several years ago and this year we had the idea of building an interesting addition of a stone and cob retaining wall on one of the holes.

We surveyed the course and thought we'd go with the hole that had the least amount of water run-off moving through it (the whole course is on the side of a hill). That hole also happened to be the one with an older upgrade... "Pickle Face." Check out the tree on this hole!

The grassy spot by my dad is the new hole area

Then, we got to work collecting the materials for the stone part of the wall. Ultimately, we decided to save the cob part for another time because there wasn't time for it all. Since their long driveway is made of gravel and rocks, we were able to gather the drainage rocks from there. There is also a creek at the bottom of the property, where we gathered the stones for the wall.

rubble trench

We dug a trench about 4" deep (since this isn't a structural wall or a wall for a dwelling, we thought we'd see what we can get away with - for those structures, you should consider digging below the frost line).

Then we added an old worn out tarp in the trench to keep most of the dirt and debris out of the drainage rocks.

Added the rocks, wrapped them in the tarp, and added some more on top so you wouldn't see the tarp. If I were to do this again, I'd use smaller rocks for this part because it would help with the stability of the wall when placing the rocks.

Then to the stacking. These slate rocks looked fairly flat, but they had a lot of bumps. It was really difficult to stack them, so I focused on the largest rocks we had, so I wouldn't need to make as many adjustments with small shims. This was by far the longest part of the process and most frustrating, but the most fun too!

Always checking for level

I even split a few rocks to make them flatter.

In the end, the wall turned out great! Then my dad finished out the design with a log and board holding up the fill dirt that leveled out the course and installed two drainage pipes that make the hole a tricky one! If you get your ball in the middle, good job and good score. If not, you are taking a trip into the woods!