Dan Snow Stoneworks News Winter 2024

WINTER NEWS 2024

Dear Friends,

Before 2023 gets too distant in the rear-view mirror, now’s a good time to catch a reflection of the year’s activities. Since this is the newsletter of a dry stone professional, it tends to leave out the personal events, but it was those days with family and friends that made all the others worth doing. I owe them my gratitude for the joy they brought my way. Not to mention, Elin’s unheralded, behind-the-scenes, office work that kept the projects on course and chugging along.

The first week of 2023 saw work that was ongoing from 2022. The roadside wall construction in Walpole, NH abruptly stopped with the arrival of a foot of snow, the project wasn’t returned to, for completion, until June.

FIELDSTONE FENCE, 140’x3’ roadside dry stone fence restoration using fieldstone from the original wall, Walpole, NH, 2023.

By mid February the ground was almost bare and maple sugaring began. A month later the taps were pulled, having produced an average-sized crop for our bucket orchard. In the midst of the sap run, Jared, Jamie and I designed and built a feature for the Vermont Flower Show.

Mid March brought a 2-foot snow dump, ensuring excellent skiing until mid April.

POOH BOOK, stone book created for the Vermont Flower Show by Jared Flynn, Jamie Masefield, Dan Snow, mica schist stone donated by Black River Quarry in Sharon, VT, 7’x14’x3’, Essex Junction, VT, March 2023

Sugaring, maple orchard with sap buckets, Dummerston, VT, 2023

Late April took me back to CSSC to repair a wall badly damaged by vandalism. In the stock yard, a new method of harvesting quality wall stone commenced with the hand selection of pieces from heaps of quarry crusher-stone.

The studio was busy during May. At the modeling table I produced clay sketches in preparation for three upcoming projects.

One design became the basis for work beginning in June at Mission Farm in Killington, VT. Work on that project persevered through the heavy local flooding that we experienced in July. Full story in the blog post below.

Sun, Jan 14

The Odeon Amphitheater

Over the years, experience taught me that not all my ideas work, but that the most risky ones, when they did, turned out to be the most rewarding. If I wanted the Odeon to be something special, I had

Much of August, September and October was devoted to creating a sunken garden space in Marlboro, VT.

By the end of November a series of retaining walls were completed around a new greenhouse on that same property. You can read more about that by clicking through to the story below.

Tue, Jan 23

What’d It Take?

Readers may well wonder “What’d it take?” when viewing images of the sunken garden space and surrounding hardscape I built last fall in Marlboro, Vermont. It was work done with skill, efficiency and

2023 closed out by making preparations for 2024. Large quarry blocks were chosen in Newfane, VT, more hand-selected crusher-stone was piled up and the exploration of ideas for new projects began in the studio.

I was joined on the 2023 constructions by a number of dry stone professionals. Dummerston colleague Jared never missed a chance to jump on board. Whitney traveled twice from Virginia, Gabriel, Luke, Aaron and Ben came from western Massachusetts and Jamie traveled south from northern VT. All gave it their all, and I can’t thank them enough.

The same as it is with driving, where spending too much time looking in the rearview mirror can be a distraction from what lies in the road ahead, I’ll now start focusing on 2024. I can’t wait to see what’s over the next hill.

Be well, and thanks for reading.

Dan

DAN SNOW STONEWORKS