Alison Perry Landscape Photography

Adventure #8

  Blue is just like any other kid. He has a natural inclination to explore the world around him. Living in the country is so much fun because there’s so much to hear, see, smell, taste and climb on! And where better to climb and balance and feel like you’re on top of the world?  A stone wall… of course!

In upstate New York there are stone walls everywhere. Blue was curious to know why there are so many rocks and stones… and why are there so many walls?

The rocks and stones are a result of  two mountain chains in New York state: the Appalachian and the Adirondack Mountains. After the earth was formed but was still in the process of cooling down, bedrock from deep within the earth was thrust up and out into the sky resulting in tall jagged mountains for as far as the eye can see. Many years later enormous sheets of ice called glaciers moved south from Canada. As the glaciers spread over New York State they broke apart the encrusted rock on the earth’s surface. The encrusted rock was left behind when the mountains were made. When the glaciers retreated the broken rocks remained on the surface but gradually got buried under a layer of top soil and deciduous forests. Deciduous trees are green and leafy and shed their leaves in the winter.

A Stone Wall property Line

This rock wall stands at property entrance

People who came to America from Europe in the 1600′s-1700′s knew how to farm the land. They cut down many trees and tilled the soil so vegetables and fruit could grow. They dug up those rocks and moved them to large long piles, stacking them as best they could along the edge of their property, field or meadow. As the ground thawed and the earth was tilled each spring more rocks became exposed along the surface and so the stone piles and rock walls got bigger and higher. When you see a stone wall in the woods, chances are the forest moved back in to reclaim farmland no longer tilled.

Happy ZZZZzzzzz’s Blue!

 Not long after the Erie Canal was built in 1830, farms in upstate New York began to decline because factory mills and railroads replaced them. People left to live and work in cities like New York, Albany, Utica, Binghamton, Rochester, Buffalo and Syracuse.

Around the time of the Civil War in 1861-65, more elaborate and stable stone walls were built using mortar and cement. Solid stone and cement walls began to line the properties and entrance ways of homes owned by those who could afford it. Quarried, cut granite or cut field stones were used in place of naturally round stones, but not always.

 Beginning in the late 1800′s and continuing today, people are reclaiming stone walls. They are reusing the stone to help build bridges and roads or to build new rock walls in public and private settings. Blue loves best that stone walls are now cultural icons in the American landscape. To show his appreciation he will sit, climb or sleep on any he can find whenever we travel upstate in New York. Happy ZZZZZZzzzzz’s Blue!

History of Stone Walls: http://www.stonewall.uconn.edu/primerhist.htm