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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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no off fence taken, Muzz J :)
And yes, the OED confirms your remark about the linkage, it's a group of words all to do with defending.
Thanks, that too is a completely new type of fencing to me - and again, born of such ample supplies of lumber that the Old World can only dream of!
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Joined: Dec 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Then theyuh wuz the Maine fahmuh who built a stone fence fowah feet high and six feet wide. When ahsked why he did it that way he said, "So when it blows ovuh it'll be talluh than it wuz to staht."
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Joined: Mar 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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a completely new type of fencing to me Haha!
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Joined: Jan 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dear Faldage: I think I remember your telling me you had lived in New England, so you may have seen wall there. When the colonists arrived, most fields had so many stones left by the glaciers that they were not arable. So walls were built often just to get stones out of the way, as well as to mark boundaries. Most of them were so rounded it was hard to made a wall that could withstand frost heaves. Remember Frost's poem about mending fence with his neighbor. And for hundreds of years the plow would keep turning up new ones. (The Devil below keeps pushing them up.) Every year in Maine, before any other work could be done, all hands turned out to load potato sized stones onto the stone boat. Frost:Mending Wall http://www.bartleby.com/118/2.html
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Joined: Dec 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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My roommate and I took a trip up to Maine once. Talking to an old Maine spud farmer we could almost make out that he was complaining about not being able to keep people digging rocks out of his fields for fifty cents an hour. Hard to tell though; his Maine accent was compounded by his complete lack of teeth.
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Joined: Jan 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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And Oh,my aching back, trying to tell the potatoes from the
stones at harvest time.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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You want stone, you go to the Isles of Aran in Ireland ...
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addict
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addict
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When I thought of a wavering Virginia fence, the first thought I had was of this brick wall, designed by Thomas Jefferson at the University of Virginia. http://www.columbia.edu/cu/gsapp/BT/EEI/MASONRY/18serpcorn.jpgThe wall is "serpentine" to provide rigidity, since it is only one brick thick (good band name: One Brick Thick), but now that I am reminded of the post-less wooden fences Dr. Bill mentioned, I wonder if Jeffy didn't have them at least partially in mind for what he called his "academical village".
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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That's beautiful, Flatl! How are the rounded bricks made?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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And that, too, was exactly the type of fence I thought of: Mr. Jefferson's! There are those wavering brick walls up at Mr. Jefferson's university in Charlottesville, and I have seen many a drunk waver about those same walls about, oh, 30+ years ago. Amazing that I remember them at all!
Problem is: 1745 is a few years too early for those serpentine walls. I don't remember seeing any in Williamsburg (earlier period), but it's possible...
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