couple pics... post what your currently cutting

[OH logger]

whats the stone wall for in the middle of the woods barge?? none of them around here. and when u give up the barge are you gonna change your name to woods monkey, grease monkey, firewood monkey or what?? :D

[BargeMonkey]

 That's actually a small stone wall for around here, we have a few around 4x 8 that stretch for a long ways. Our farm has some unique ones, and quite a few stone mounds, odd for around here.
Haven't figured out what I should change it to, but I appreciate the suggestions.  :D. Had a lovely walk thru the projects of newark NJ this morning after the cab driver couldn't find the oil terminal, then just go to lay down and we lose a pto on the STBD 8.3 cummins pump engine, one tired monkey right now. I like the people I work for but we keep stuff wrapped together with tape and bubblegum quite a bit, a direct opposite of how we run our show at home.  ;)

[OH logger]

what were the walls for? seems a lot harder to put one of those up over a woven wire fence. they had a reason obviously just I don't know why

[Plankton]

There reason would be woven wire wasn't invented yet

The stone walls in new england and new York were put up a looong time ago. Stone fences is there proper name. For livestock fencing in and the walls that are piles of small rocks were around planted feilds. Every year farmers got a crop of rocks with the spring tilling and used a stone boat to sled them to the edges of the feilds.

Nicer walls like in barge monkeys photo were made from the large rocks from the initial clearing making hay fields or pastures from the woods or just made nicely to last as long as they have for a good fence.

My friends farm has a huge pile of boulders the size of small cars that were dumped off the edge of a flat feild above the house, by men and oxen in the early 1800s

Part of the reason why towns like mine have less population now then they did before the civil war. Too many rocks! They all went west to better ground and left the hilltop farms here.

[beenthere]

NW Ohio must not have rocks...  ;D

[thecfarm]

I have no idea about that area of stone wall. But I have many stone walls throughout my woods. I know where there was 2 homes on my land. Farming was diffeant than,they did not have 100 acres of fields. I have woods where there was a so called field. I say so called,because they use to work around the rocks and I mean big rocks. I am claiming back an old so called field. I can dig out small rocks around a big rock. Seem like they would throw the smaller rocks around a rock they could not move. I have a big pile of smaller rocks out in the woods that was done many,many years ago.Might be about 20 feet across and maybe 2-3 feet deep of rocks. Those stone walls was also boundary lines too. Farms was small around here,for most families. Like my Grandparents,they never had much livestock,just enough to get them by and to live off from.With only about 20 acres of fields to produce hay,not alot of feed to get animals through the winter months.My grandparents field are smooth,but where some of the stone walls are up in the woods,the fields are rough and I mean rough. Years ago they use to mow by hand,rake by hand,so they could work around all the uneven places. There was many small farms on this road. They would come to my Grandparents and ask if they wanted to buy their farm. My Father would tell me the story of how one family left with every thing they owned in a hay wagon. Once someone wanted to rent a place and my Grandpaernts told them,we will have to move the hay out first.

[ga jones]

Stone fence is big all through the north east.  Most of the walls in this area are only 2 feet tall. You would ask yourself how could a 2 foot wall hold in farm animals. They would construct small fences of wood on top of the walls in order to keep Them in.  Removing stonewalls and selling them to the big cities for landscape is big business now .

[ga jones]

Yes barge monkey I have been hauling quite a bit of firewood and pallet logs

[ga jones]

I know in this state and southern New York there is stone fence in every wood lot and and farm I've ever been in.it would be odd not to see it.

[OH logger]

that's interesting. we don't have many rocks here but I am workin around Dayton ohio and they have boulders there...big ones. the egdes of the woods and especially the corners of woods have big piles in them from years ago when they cleared the woods and turned them into farmland. they pushed/drug/shoved/cussed the rocks to the edge of the clearing which is now the woods edge. and I think loggin is tough work. we have it easy compared to what they did. ;)

[BargeMonkey]

 Im in schoharie county which is loaded with rock, especially the southern end. Old foundations and cemeteries everywhere, especially on the large chunks of state land. Life had to be pretty tough back then, I think if you made 30 yrs old you where doing pretty good.  :D

[coxy]

about 6-7 years ago I was told by a guy that was 98y old that the walls u see with a row of flat with a point sticking up was to hold goats in something about there bellys would rub on the points and they would back down and not go over  :-\ his familys farm had about 3miles of walls like that      and apparently that's what they told him     the hole farm was 1200a with about 500 of it woods and I was TOLD NOT TO DAMAGE ANY OF THE WALLS  or I was going to get his#10 boot up my     

[BargeMonkey]

 I know in VT alot of the foresters make you fix a wall if you damage it. I try to avoid disturbing them, but it was the wall or 5-6x small oak.  :D this private road is all chopped up in 10-40 acre parcels, DEP owns about 1/2 of it, was cut about 20 yrs ago quick, it's getting the real haircut this time.   ;) 

[thecfarm]

I have "heard" that about stone walls here to. But that might be a property line stone wall too. I have some that go through the woods,but I own both sides of the wall.

[snowstorm]

a few yrs back there was talk of passing a law against removing stone walls. about the time the rich an famous from camden thought it would look nice to have new stone walls built from old walls. the rocks had to have the weathered look and if it had moss on it it was worth much more. i hauled a load of rock to great cranberry island down off northeast harbor. 14yds placed in the dump body by hand. the ferry turned out to be a barge just big enought for the truck lashed to a 28ft wooden lobster boat

[DRB]

Im in schoharie county which is loaded with rock, especially the southern end. Old foundations and cemeteries everywhere, especially on the large chunks of state land. Life had to be pretty tough back then, I think if you made 30 yrs old you where doing pretty good.  :D

I think people were just tougher then, my Great Great Great grandparents are buried in Shoharie county NY.  He only lived to 61 dying in 1840 but she died in 1871 at 90. At least 6  of their 12 kids lived past 80 but one only made 12 days.   The fields back there grow rocks.  Every spring plowing there would be a new set of rocks.  You could never clear a field completely the frost pushed them up during the winter. It would have been very much a struggle to farm.  Its why my great great Grandfather moved to NW Ohio there are almost no rocks there the land is easy to farm once the 5 to 6 foot Diameter oaks had been cleared. If I remember my geography correct Northern NY state is where the glaciers from the last ice age melted leaving rocks everywhere. Now the part of NW Ohio I came from was once the bottom of Lake Erie and is all sediment from that.

[David-L]

Some people see a pile of rocks that equate to dollar signs, I see history that was built by farmers and early landowners who were living off the land. Can't tell anyone else what to do but all the walls on my property are here to stay as it's written in my will for perpetuity.

[beenthere]

Can't tell anyone else what to do but all the walls on my property are here to stay as it's written in my will for perpetuity.

And that perpetuity ends when someone else becomes owner.   ;)  Right?

[ehp]

Yep this is what I cut this week,  8) not a single tree , way to wet

[BargeMonkey]

Yep this is what I cut this week,  8) not a single tree , way to wet

I like that,  :D  no shame in your game.

[Lumberjohn]

Doesnt hurt to metal detect around them, owners sometimes hid money and such in them. Im sure kids/people played on them sometimes loosing change. I have some around my area and they are a beauty, for sure. They sure have lost their shape over time though.

[g_man]

Our town was sectioned off into 100 acres parcels 1500' by 3000' way back. Most of these boundaries are rock walls so you get straight walls going for miles. Disappearing and then reappearing. Plus all the farm walls too. I like them. I have a 100 A boundary wall. In the past a skidder just ran over it on a main trail. Spread rocks all over. I could barely get my tractor through there for all the rocks so I pushed a hole thru with my TD7 and then rebuilt the wall in respect for the old timers who first built it. Now I have a nice old wall and a good trail.



 



 



 

[coxy]

them old timers shur  new how to lay round rocks flat  never seen a wall like what you have with all the rounds and there big

[OH logger]

Im in schoharie county which is loaded with rock, especially the southern end. Old foundations and cemeteries everywhere, especially on the large chunks of state land. Life had to be pretty tough back then, I think if you made 30 yrs old you where doing pretty good.  :D

I think people were just tougher then, my Great Great Great grandparents are buried in Shoharie county NY.  He only lived to 61 dying in 1840 but she died in 1871 at 90. At least 6  of their 12 kids lived past 80 but one only made 12 days.   The fields back there grow rocks.  Every spring plowing there would be a new set of rocks.  You could never clear a field completely the frost pushed them up during the winter. It would have been very much a struggle to farm.  Its why my great great Grandfather moved to NW Ohio there are almost no rocks there the land is easy to farm once the 5 to 6 foot Diameter oaks had been cleared. If I remember my geography correct Northern NY state is where the glaciers from the last ice age melted leaving rocks everywhere. Now the part of NW Ohio I came from was once the bottom of Lake Erie and is all sediment from that.

where did you come from in NW ohio??

[thecfarm]

coxy,pay g-man a visit to see his stone walls and than come see mine.  ;D  His look like mine. I had a real pretty wall where I had the house built. Really the best looking one on my land. Most rocks was just about the size of my head and the wall was built about 4 feet wide and about 3 feet high. Most of mine have all sizes in them. My Father had a couple fields rocked after The War. There are some bigs ones along the wall now.