Quick update

This is my first house update in a while, and my first blog entry from the iPad... Since I have a day job now, there's very little time for working on the house. The stone mason has been laying up the stone on the retaining wall for the past few days. The family and I have been collecting the stones for him from the creek, woods, and the little quarry that I abandoned a couple of years ago.  Between yesterday and today, I estimate we collected about 5 tons of squarish stones so the mason can get started on the east retaining wall.  In the very middle of the stone pile below you can see the stones have more of an orange cast...  these are from my old quarry.  The stones with the greenish cast are from the creek. I started out as a purist, so every stone on the house itself is laid just as it came out of the ground (sedimentary stones have grain like wood).  On the retaining wall, I told the mason he could lay the stones sideways.  This makes life easier on him and me.  I have fewer stones to collect, and he can lay up a wall faster.  He is using corrugated wall ties to hold the 4" stone veneer to the 8" concrete block.  He is careful to include enough orange stones so the retaining wall will match the house wall. The block wall is full of rebar and concrete, and is anchored to a "deadman" in the ground just beneath where my son is standing.  This and the curve in the wall should keep the wall from ever leaning or falling over. (and FYI, the iPad stinks for creating formatted blogger content!)