My lovely wife got me a Mallorquin/Mallorcan/Majorcan (?) Hammer Axe for my birthday.
I had been hinting that I wanted a Majorcan Hammer so very happy, but I had been thinking on the one with the curved spike on the other end rather than the an axe.
Wondering if anyone here knows what the axe end is typically used for? Is it for cutting roots?
I built the large wall with the arch back in 2024, and the client wanted me to finish the area beneath the arch to make it a more suitable garden bed in the lower area. Had to shape some of the stones to fit tightly where it meets the bedrock, and worked around the drainage pipe.
Similar to the previous wall, I matched the height of the existing walls on the right side (there's walls there, just difficult to see them because of the vegetation) to keep continuity the best I could. Fun little job!
Tonight I was working on cutting some of the stones that I drugged out of the woods into through stones for the next course on the wall I’m building
Took the winter off from working on my wall. Weather is broke and starting stacking again. Thinking of doing a course of through stones now. Collecting and cutting from the woods some bigger stones
I decided to put my bonfire pit in my hill in my backyard. I wanted to create a flat chunk of land around it that looked natural (I.e., I wanted the hill to naturally flow into the flat area). I love rocks so I used more rocks than I needed to to try and give it a rounded effect.
I need to buy better sod for the bottom.
The whole thing took me about 2 weeks to build - which was way too fast and next time I would give myself 3+ weeks. I did the whole thing by myself and except for the gas it took to drive the rocks around it cost me a total of $40 (for the sod).
My process:
Step 1 - spend all winter reading about retaining walls
Step 2 - hand pick fieldstone from a farmer's tilled up rock pile
Step 3 - power wash rocks
Step 4 - dig an approximately 16" wide, 12" trench in a U formation
Step 5 - fill trench 3/4 of the way up with 3/4-in limestone rocks
Step 6 - lay a 30-year landscaping fabric over the limestone rocks
Step 7 - place the largest boulders at the front where most weight needs to be retained
Step 8 - dump soil into a tall mound behind the rock wall
Step 9 - Play tetris with rocks layer by layer, backfilling with pea gravel, and dirt while maintaining the landscaping fabric between the dirt and the pea gravel.
Step 10 - dig out the fire pit and line with rocks
Step 11 - dig a 2-ft hole 12 in from the fire pit and use ceramic tubes to create a chimney for the smoke (this was an experiment and it worked!)