Sept 20, 2013 update

Sept 20, 2013         IMAGES COMING

Yesterday was spent digging in the front yard again. Today, I feel the pain that comes with the gain of exercise. Not a bad tradeoff.

The day before, I spent a few hours rebuilding the walls and excavating.  Just as it turned dark,  I found something strange in the stone work and I wanted to explore more. This was the same area, in the bottom layer,  that I found a couple of ceramic marbles mixed in with sand a week ago.

THINGS BEING FOUND  I have found many objects that describe a long and rich history.  So far nothing out of context or exceptional. what I have concluded is that the people who lived here  sometimes had very fine ceramic and glass pieces that would indicate they were not “dirt poor” as stories have suggested.  What I am finding seems to relate to the following:

1. FROM THE BOTTOM  Like the marbles and the remains of a horseshoe, there are items at the very bottom that were there when the hole was filled.
2.  FROM RANDOM SMALL BURN PILES  There are areas where I believe there may have been random burns. Generally I find a few nails and perhaps some other metal objects.
3.  FROM THE TOP There are items found from the very top to almost at the bottom that I believe were in the top layer of soil when it was scattered to cover the stones used to fill the hole. This includes glass, ceramic and metal objects. Small pieces of pottery and window glass seems to have worked its way down through the rubble stone to almost the bottom simply by the action of vibration over the years.
4.  ITEMS THAT FILTERED DOWN FROM THE FILL Then there are items that were left or lost like the jaw harp I found that appears to have been wedged between two foundation stones at the top where it was set on a stone and then fell into a crevice and lost.

ATTACK OF THE FROGS  Yesterday, I was startled by a movement. The  cellar hole  filled with rubble stones either from pulling down the foundation walls inward or brought in from another location to use as fill. Because of the nature of rubble stone, it does not fit perfectly together and allows for cavities. It was a movement in one of these cavities, a frog that startled me. The cavities tend to be damp and often very wet, so I am not surprised that I found two frogs yesterday. This was not my first run in with these little guys as they seem to enjoy this moist hole in the ground.  Seems their home is going to forever be changed. They were captured and my daughter Gaia took them to the stream on our site and released them.  Apparently they were Pickerel Frogs   Information is available on this NC web site:             http://www.herpsofnc.org/herps_of_NC/anurans/Ranpal/Ran_pal.html

BACK TO WHAT I FOUND THE NIGHT BEFORE  In previous digging, I across two dressed  “square” stones at the very bottom of the cellar, that were carefully stacked.  This appears to have been the foundation pad  for a wood post about 30″ from one foundation wall and 3′ from the other.  Probably a  pad for a post supporting weight for a stair from the first floor. Next to these stone were some large flat stones that appear to be laid  on top of the undisturbed bottom for walking on.   About 8 feet from the pad I found two stones that had been carefully notched together. Clearly someone had gone to a great deal of effort to create them with a 90 degree corner. Next to these stones, there were what looked like a piece of the rubble stones weedged between two other stones.  In that small stone is a 3/4″ steel rod.  All that remains of the steel is a small stub.  Possible this came from the process o cutting and drilling the stone used. Then it appears to be something made.

For now, these stones are exposed and I will try to build them into the final design for this space. One of my goals is to try to return this as closely and historically possible to the original space.

REBUILDING THE STONE WALLS  As I pull out stones, I try to put them next to the wall and reuse them. This is not a perfect art, but so far the look seems the most logical and respectable solution.  Apparently even the US Park Service came to the conclusion that when a dry stone wall collapses, the most logical thing to do is to pull out the stones to the solid base and rebuild using the original process. Dry walls use rubble stone often with one side faced  or cut smooth.  Trying to match these rubble stones by putting the same stones back in exactly the same place is just not logical and exceptionally expensive in the care and handling that must go on. In the end the finished look is usually no better.

Exactly matching rubble stone to the same place in a wall can lead to the same failures over again. The conclusion is that it is best to let the modern craftsman repair the wall using the same rules and techniques originally used.  A good mason can match the quality and final look of any historic wall. My opinion is that you should document the existing and then fix it following the visual and technical historic rules. Then that is what good craftsmen have always done.

For me, it is the overall visually quality matching the historic integrity that is important. It is possible for my stone walls to match the look and quality of the original. It is not possible for me to match exactly where each original stone was originally placed.  I have no choice but to interpret the historic context in what I am doing.

FILLING IN THE HOLE WITH RUBBLE   My belief is that someone,  before filling in this hole, stood inside and pulled the foundation walls inward.  Perhaps it was a macho thing to finally destroy the old structure. Perhaps it was a desire to fill the hole and be able to put a couple of feet of top soil on the ground level.  For now I can only guess.

Pulling in the walls is the only things that seems to  explain the condition of most of the wall I have found. As I dig to the bottom. most of the foundation stones seem in place a couple of feet up,  but above this the stones seem to have been toppled inward.  This requires that much of the walls are completely rebuilt. As an architect, I am familiar with dry stone  walls. These walls were built by a professional, not just a peasant farmer doing this for the first time. The quality of work is too good.  Too many of the stones are finely dressed and laid. This is not the work of a casual craftsman but a trained professional.

The original walls used a dressed stone for the face and backfilled interlocking stones. The typical wall thickness is 12″ to 18.”  This does nothing to stop moisture from coming into the place, but from what I can tell it was a fine art form that took a high level of skill to successfully complete.  I have found many small 6″ triangular and square pieces of shale and now I believe were used as the wedges.  Further, the stones with one dressed face seem to be tapered at about 10 degrees,  so there was a top and a bottom to each stone. This would indicate to me that the wall originally built was not vertical but sloped like a typical retaining wall. Structurally this makes sense to me as an architect.

So as I clear out some dirt and stone, I place that stone where needed to rebuild the walls. The dirt is piled beside and used as fill behind the wall. The ideal archeological approach might be to remove everything and then put it back together, but I simply do not have that luxury.  This requires that I carefully select the stone and try to make sure that as I am building I maintain the same look as I go along.

CEMENT FILLER IN HOLE Another thing I am finding is that when  the cellar hole was filled in, there was a layer of rubble stone and on top of that was a layer of mortar with shale thrown on top. When this mortar is damp it is easy to dig out, but when it dries it turns very hard almost like a low grade concrete.  Since I have been away from the dig for a while and the rains have finally slowed down, my digging has gotten tougher and slower.  As I am digging out this layer of mortar, I am using it to back fill the stone. That should add to the stability of the wall.

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