I will try to hit the stone so that it is suitable for the wall. I have got a double pointed pick –
Claus Haegle has learned from his father how to build a dry wall professionally. Listen to him, he will tell you about how a typical wall stone should look like and how these stones make a solid wall.Such a stone has a face, that is the beautyful side, like people have it, too. The bottom of the stone should be smoothed well. There is top side of the stone and the back is often spiky, so that it can be connected with the small stones to be pressed between the wall and the soil. Such a wall does not last forever. Due to the pressure of the hillside it may occur that the walls collapse. The winegrower is not very happy about this situation, quite the opposite, it is very big challenge for him to rebuilt the wall and it is a very difficult handicraft to do. First he has to separate the whole material which has slipped down. The stones have to be put aside, to store the soil accordingly and to dig out a base, approx. 80 cm in depth and 1 metre in direction of the hillside. When the base is ready, the winegrower can start with the first row. He takes the bigger stones, but the most important thing is the walling behind. When the first row is ready, he concentrates on the walling behind. Smaller stones without a face unsuitable for the wall itself will be wedged so that they have an own tension and take away the pressure from the hill and from the front wall. Only this way the wall will be of sturdy construction. So one row after the other will be made using the stones which sometimes have to be reworked. In the past it took them one or two days until the stone was ready made. If you count the millions of stones we have here, you can imagine that they were manufactured in many life times. Today it is a little bit easier, because the stones are already hit, but they have to be reworked for the actual position in the rebuilt wall.The stone now should fit well – I will try it now and continue stone by stone. The complex system and the specialties of the walls Claus Haegele will explain in another story.