Kind of mesmerizing.

And lugging those rocks around to build a foundation for a barn or cabin.

The area farmers loaded field rocks into their horse-drawn wagons and brought them into town to build the church. It was erected in 1912.

Frost damage, or subsidence?

arctic air sweeps down through Canada, picks up moisture from the Great Lakes, and dumps the snow when it hits land. The winter of 2019 / 2020, they were proud to claim, by a large margin, the highest snowfall in the continental US. One reason I moved to Miami one winter, and now live in San Francisco.

When my dad was building his dream house, the contractor asked him if he wanted some boulders left over from his great great grandfather's log cabin to use as a retaining wall. All that was left was the foundation, but it was pretty deep -- a working root cellar and likely hide-out from bad guys. These rocks were massive, and required a front loader to dig them out and transport to our building site. To this day I'd love to know how this great great grandfather not only moved these rocks, but managed to stack them on top of each other.

Impressive.

A local farmer near us “picked rocks” by driving his air conditioned tractor, pulling a wagon slowly through the field while the immigrant workers picked up the rocks by hand and threw them onto the wagon. I could only imagine what those workers thought of the farmer’s conditions compared to their own.

a combo of something that looks like giant cat litter scoop and Amish walking the field. It's fascinating to watch but I'm easily amused these quarantine days.

Nicely done.

Sherrif's mobile auxiliary services.

Every year when I pick up the hay bales I gather all the rocks that have appeared over the seasons.
Today was the first cutting day and I gathered about a dozen off my 5 acre hay field by hand.

to raise the collective IQ of the joint.

out of their pockets.

did you know it's hay baling time and crop planting time?
Including sheep, cattle and goat farmers. Sandi Brock is my very favorite, but lately I don't miss any of these vloggers' posts.
I've learned so much, but here's one thing I know: nobody works harder than a farmer.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5bKwwwxL1pMSrt6HhG4z0w
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTLD62-5nhLL-4a7ZbaPQhQ
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmVMNXTsmxr1wkaQ5sExJ9A
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSTZGtlBaX5ympBGEnG13Uw
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDz_dmieFd0neB_VClG8PzA
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs54IE68zVp0zAPjoTg9oKA
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuNIKo9EMJZ_FdZfGnM9G1w
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCf4zEY4qO8OSK5P3sP9MMEQ
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl7w_vIfnELsmuKRR-TRSZA
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP3if8O_cQMc0od_4DU97vw
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-GM0ZytN8V5wD4QwNdhvmg

https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=rock+removal+machine&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjAlPeanf_pAhVpTDABHW5XCrEQ1QIoAnoECAwQAw&biw=1259&bih=746

videos, they have a dairy operation, and I can and do watch endlessly their videos (and a lot of other farming videos). Yours that you provided here have got me exciting and anticipating when I get a few moments put aside to watch these. Take care and be safe!

I know its back breaking work, when I was younger I did stupid stuff. We rebuilt a stone building that was taken down and sat in a pile for 25 yrs. We had to go find the missing stones and then had to pick stones from walls and fields to finish. I still want to know who stole our rocks. Where I live many early buildings were all stone a good portion are around. There are bank buildings made with round stones, cut lime stone blocks, we have a medieval church, yes its from medieval blueprints built in the 1850's by Irish stone cutters. The haul stone 20 miles away across the river. The same guys probably built the 1856 Stone Arch bridge that after many disaster stills survives. The milled all the black top off a couple of years ago and the original surface was still good.

I sure wish we had one of those 30 yrs ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dresden_Frauenkirche

I visited Dresden in 2002 while the restoration was still going on, but they had a lot of exterior structure restored by then. It was even possible to see part of the interior. The Church of Our Lady (Frauenkirche) was destroyed during the firebombing of Dresden in 1945, and the Russians came in and would not permit the rebuilding of the church. As a matter of fact the Russians wanted to use the church's stones to make new communist buildings. So the Dresdners hid the churchstones and buried everything and the Russians couldn't take the stones.

Eventually in 1990 the wall came down, the Russians left Germany, and the city of Dresden said, Great now we're going to finally rebuild the Church of Our Lady. Massive donations poured in from Great Britain, the US, and other areas of Europe to fund the project. It was completed in 2005, just in time for the City of Dresden's 800th Anniversary celebration. It's a great story and there are photos on the Wikipedia page.

Thank you for sharing. Now I'm going to go read about it.

Very cool.

or compost sifters.

You can make them out of bicycle wheels and screen

Rocks, we got 'em.

Even after the farmers of the 1700-1800s made amazing stone walls, there are plenty left in most every field.

They're the mineral version of milk weed and black flies (NH's true state flower and bird). The gift that keeps on giving.

they suck!"

Last edited Sun Jun 14, 2020, 01:11 PM - Edit history (1)

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back in the old, old, old days (couple hundred years ago or more), they cleared their fields by hand (with horses also), and that's where all those stone walls came from that you see all over New England.

I'm originally from New England, and that's what almost all the old-timers told me anyway.
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One of the saddest sights upcheer: The remains of the old farms. The stumps of chimneys, bits of the stone walls, the shallow depression of the root cellar, an ancient lilac, the ghosts with broken bodies and dreams.

How the hell anyone could farm here back in those days is beyond me. It's a beautiful land, but it's not very forgiving.

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I originally came from the Northeast corner of Connecticut, and the history of New England is pretty fascinating, especially all the witch killings.

And, I'm not just talking about Salem either!
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I've removed rocks from my garden by hand for decades. The smaller ones are then put into the driveway. In time, however, I am convinced they re-appear in the garden.

They can not only grind up weeds, they handle trees, stumps and rocks!

I think this is similar to the one the guys used to clear one of our paddocks. There had been a barn there which burned down a few years back. We had a company come and take out all the hazardous and trash stuff, then a different company to clean up the concrete aisle, walls and raised floors. But there was still too much debris to get in with a mower safely so I hired a company that clears forestry land and they cleaned it right up. The ground is smooth and ready to plant pasture grass in.

Last edited Sat Jun 13, 2020, 05:30 PM - Edit history (1)

a specialized vehicle in itself?

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(No video, just watch the other one backwards)

Sorry, I couldn't resist.
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