We arrived here as missionaries at the beginning of June,
and at full summer, could not see into the forest's interior.
Seasons changed; a historic stone wall was discovered there.
I had already been collecting images of walls we passed near.
This wall just yards away consolidated my "study".
But first, a "Happenings" report.
Each week an arbor du jour takes the stage to dazzle.
This flowering tree delighted me on a recent walk.
Likewise this flurry (fleur-y?) of tiny weed flowers covered
a yard near the paved walkway along St. Anselm Drive,
and immediately brought to mind . . .
. . . a previous early autumn day when I walked the same path
in the hour before dawn, and saw this fairy haze.
On May 20th, we celebrated the one year anniversary of
our mission start date, when we began training at
the Provo Missionary Training Center in 2019.
At the end of that training, our MTC tour overlapped briefly
the training of our "flight group" of 10 young missionaries who
would follow us, to arrive in New Hampshire later.
Their start date falls at the end of this week, so we
celebrated by sending them cards with "credit" for treats.
Tuesday and Wednesday of this week we welcomed
a small and then a larger group of new NH missionaries.
Usual procedures were modified to have them stagger
arrivals, stay outside, come for reassignments and
depart within minutes. Here I show the parking lot at
Manchester chapel mission office where a certain amount of
cheery greeting couldn't be suppressed.
It felt so good to see faces!
It felt so good to see faces!
Over a week ago, something happened that Elder Warner
does NOT want me to report - so I won't [sort of].
Here he is with compression-wrapped and elevated leg as
he nurses a strained muscle (and caters to his lunch appetite).
I'll just note that he will be a little more careful -- in a few weeks
when he feels well enough to play tennis again --
NOT to chase that drop shot with quite as much gusto!
On Thursday night, we had to say goodbyes to the three
outstanding young Elders who have completed their service:
Elder Crum, Elder Davis, Elder Beckstrand.
(The two on the ends were APs for a long time, so we
got to see and interact with them in the office a good deal.)
Our adieus were expressed via a Zoom conference call,
where Pres. Beck also recognized the concluding service
of other office seniors Sister Hoke (Mission Medical) and
Elder Hoke, Sister and Elder Matkin.
Through early summer, we will be the ONLY office seniors.
(Office duties will be carried out by three Special Assignment
young Elders, while the new nurse works from Utah home.)
* * * * *
Now for this interesting topic: Stone Walls of NH and neighbors.
The first image I offer is of a wall at the former residence of
NH native Robert Frost in Derry, who penned
the familiar "Mending Wall" poem from which the blog post
title is lifted. In his verse we become acquainted with
the summer/winter cycle that pushes stone walls over.
And from there, the ageless phrase from his neighbor:
"Good fences make good neighbors."
(Listen to Robert Frost reading "Mending Wall" HERE,
scroll about half way down the page.)
Never need much of an excuse to buy a book.
This is the one I chose to educate me on this topic.
Some of the images included here, and much of
the information, comes from William Hubbell's pages.
Newcomers to New England often share our same wonder:
who would build stone walls in the MIDDLE of the woods?
Hubbell asked the same question to his father, who he says,
"patiently explained that what is woods today was once
pasture land." This image allows walls to show through
the foliage-less tree growth. (Hubbell)
This lidar imaging study by Johnson and Ouimet reveals
farm roads and fences hidden by new growth forest.
The story of the stone walls goes way back to the age of
glaciers, when boulders of wide size range were carried along
as if in a stream for long distances. Then, when the glaciers
retreated, the stones were deposited where they thaw-dropped.
Left-behinds are called "erratics", and most were small enough
to become buried. But NOT this immense one in Madison, NH.
One famous erratic is seen in Acadia Natl Park in Maine,
known as Bubble Rock. (Hubbell)
Here, a cut-away view of a gravel pit in Maine gives us some idea
of the degree of stone concentration hidden below the surface.
(Hubbell)
Early settlers staking their claim may not have known what
challenges to farming lay underground at plow blade depth.
Eons of freezing and thawing forced the stones upward -
and the movement still goes on today.
Even the cutting down of the early forests for heating fuel,
building materials and to clear the land changed temps
to encourage the upward movement of rocks.
There is a saying that if the US had been settled from
West to East, instead of from East to West,
that New England would STILL belong to the Indians.
(Photo by Hubbell)
As visitors to New England for the first time over 30 years ago,
we immediately made memories of the stone walls
that were part of the visual landscape. As temp residents now,
we see them everywhere, in the woods, and along the roadways.
This one, below, runs to the side of Mission home property
in Bedford, NH. No mystery about why the stones
are organized into fences, once we understand how
ever-present they are. Besides clearing timber, settlers needed
to clear the land of stones, so they were "tumbled" to
the edges of field boundaries, informally or by design.
Below is a historic and well-laid wall that
can still be enjoyed at the Canterbury Shaker village.
This size stone was called "one-hander" which a waller can lift
with one hand. These evidently were selected and fit together
with practicality to withstand the seasonal heaves and
thaws, one of the destructive forces at work against walls.
At the ends, or where breaks needed to be
left for passage of livestock or humans, extra care was
given, adding heavy stones as bookends to withstand
the pressure from the rest of the wall.
Nature does NOT like a "void", and gravity does pull.
This wall, below, was photographed on our early hikes
in hills around Goffstown.
An entire vocabulary surrounds stone wall building:
this example is a TOSSED wall,
An entire vocabulary surrounds stone wall building:
this example is a TOSSED wall,
which has a little more planned form than a DUMPED wall.
There are SINGLE walls, DOUBLE walls (two larger stone
rows close together, with smaller rubble filling in between),
LAID walls (flatter stones in a stack), DRYSTONE (without
mortar to hold stones in place) and WET walls (with cement).
This wall, below, near another beautiful barn structure at
Woodstock, VT, is a single stack wall at field edge,
sometimes called a farmer's wall.
Over time, single stacks sometimes became double stacks as
farmers continued to clear stones from fields and pastures.
Where the land was not good for planting, stone walls
often were simply boundary walls defining property.
This neat wall that we photographed in September
last year is on Mountain Base Road, near my favorite
local red barn. Can't beat this color combination.
Attraction to stone walls by many is often explained
this way: they are just "peaceful".
Near the Old North Bridge that we view in Concord, MA
is this single stacked wall. If a good quantity of smaller stones
was interspersed with these medium and larger, leaving
spaces, this would qualify as a "lace" wall style.
On a hillside farm near Weare, NH, we saw this dumped
fieldstone wall, clearly resulting from pasture clearing,
requiring lots of labor nonetheless. Most New England walls
are only as tall as an average man's thigh, determined
by the ergonomics of lifting the stones. If the farm was subject
to incorporated township laws, the farm wall might need to
measure 1.2 to 1.5 meters high. A wooden fence often was
added to the top of stone if it would be used to pen in animals.
One estimate is that more than 380,00 kilometers of
stone walls were built by the end of the 19th century in NE.
Other structures that were part of early American rural life
qualify as stone walls. Retaining walls helped hold hillsides.
Foundations were walls upon which homesteads stood.
Foundations were walls upon which homesteads stood.
Dam walls provided water control.
Bridges were specialty walls engineered to assist
continuation of trails and turnpikes.
Below is a containment stone wall known as a "pound",
often built near a town center so that a wandering
animal could be taken to the "lock up" until claimed,
with minimal inconvenience to all.
Living near these ubiquitous monuments to New England
independence, self-reliance and resilience, we no doubt
will feel their absence from the western landscape we return to.
They are simply one more element of our experience here
that fills our lamps with no outlay or effort.
Apart from walls and trees, many things continue to
fill our lamps and offer their own strength and comfort.
Continuing the theme of "stones", I recall the hymn lyrics
Come Thou Fount
by Robert Robinson in 1758 who wrote of the biblical
stone of praise offered to mark success on the journey:
Here I raise my Ebenezer,
Hither by Thy help I've come.
And I hope by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.
We feel the blessings and watchful care of our God,
and we acknowledge the Gospel "fences" that guard us,
and that guide us toward Heaven.
