I called a gal out who has a backhow to level my yard. She mentioned that in her job homeowners just give her the rock she removes. Lots of the mossrock everyone here craves. She said she practically gives it a way. We need a lot also and will be calling her. And she lives locally so delivery will be really cheap.

I got rocks and boulders from a farm field. All the farm fields around here have rock piles. The farmers don't mind giving them away, but many times they're in the middle of a field so you can't get to it without ruining their crops unless you wait until after they harvest them. I had to hand pick rocks that were flat on the top and bottom because most of the rocks here are round field stone. It would take forever to make a wall of any size if you were hand picking them. I just made a small retaining wall by my driveway and a path made of stone. Here's a picture of the little wall:
{{gwi:285778}}

Rob

I've built a couple of load bearing retaining walls in my yard, with the largest being about 30' long and three feet high. I used thin- and thick-stack fieldstone, bought from a rock supplier, and the going rate was .10 a pound. Now, I've gone through 7,000 pounds, and that's cost my $700...$10,000 seems high unless you're undertaking an enormous project. I got the impression that my .10/ lb. was at the high end of the retail scale.

Rob, those are exactly the rocks I am looking for. And yes I feel that getting them individually would be nearly prohibitive. And those are the expensive rocks. I am hoping that if I need to go into a farmer's field I will be able to before the spring planting begins. How do you contact farmers. Just knock?

I am also going to look into the price of the fieldstone that franklinjay mentioned.

I will keep you posted on my searches.

Jason

Yep, just knock on the door and ask. Sometimes the field is not owned by the people in the nearest house, but they can usually tell you who does own it. Ask in person. It's much easier for someone to say "no" over the phone.

If you want to make a wall out of that kind of stone, you have no choice but to pick them individually. If you have someone drop off a dump truck load, you'd end up not being able to use most of them. I hauled those and a lot more that I made a path out of in the back of my Jeep. I hope you have a pickup, because I had to make a LOT of trips in my Jeep.

Here is a link that might be useful: This is how many rocks you can fit in a Jeep!

Jason--

Good luck with your search. Rob's rocks are different from the type of fieldstone I used, as his are more round and mine are more square and flat. The thick stack are pretty large, though.

I had never done any stone masonry before, but found it to be fairly straightforward. I drystacked and mortared the top course. The thick stack are pretty large, though. Rob, your wall looks great!

The good thing about buying from a supplier is that the rocks are sorted by size and shape and color. Plus you can get a bunch of them quicker than digging, but hey, digging's free! Budget was a concern for me, so I'm spacing it out over time. I wish I was savvy enough to take a pic and post what I've done so far.

Best of luck to you, and post a pic if you can when you're done.

A friend of mine lives out near Harper's Ferry, but on the Maryland side of the river. He occasionally harvests rocks from the side of Rt 340 - there are many places where the hills have been cut away to make the roadway. During the winter months, the cold weather brings chunks of rocks down from the rock faces.

Hope that this helps,

Dan

Franklinjay -

I'm interested in doing the same thing that you've described. i.e., load-bearing retaining walls at most 3' high using thin and thick stack fieldstone. Like you, I have no prior masonry experience. Are there any good resources out there (other than this board!). I'm interested in how you constructed your footings and how you did you backfill. Was yours completely dry stacked other than the mortared capstones?

Thanks!

A google search on dry-stacked stone walls will pull up some helpful information and visual aids. In terms of the foundation, some say to use a gravel bed, but I opted to just dig down and compact the soil.

The first course used the biggest stones, filled between with dirt and rubble to make a good base. Then you use two courses, one in back and one in front. You want to stagger your joints, so that the course on top covers the joints of the one on bottom.

The two courses (front and back) should steadily come towards each other, with each course set in about a half to one inch. I filled in tightly between with rubble, which comes from breaking stones to fit correctly (this is important). This creates friction between the rocks, which, along with the weight, holds everything together.

I did pour some mortar in from the top, but I was careful to mix it thick enough to where it didn't seep out to the exterior stones. I used a brush to clean up the joints and did some chinking on the outside of the dry stacked part to leave a clean finish. The mortar is forgiving, as it takes a while to dry completely, but you want to make sure to not let any dry anywhere you don't want it, as it is tough to get off then.

I waited a week to make sure it was completely dry before backfilling with top soil, and it has held tight and dry so far. I was worried what fluctuating winter temps would do, but so far so good. Good luck, and let me know if I can answer any questions. Again, I'm no expert, but I found this to be a fairly easy, albeit laborious, project.

Hi Jason, We have gotten rocks from roadcuts, construction sites, farmer's rockpiles, the local landfill, ditches and quarries. If the Mighty Buick can pull the trailer,we've loaded it and the trunk and the backseat down countless times. This rock thing can be just like potato chips, no one can stop at just one project. Securing permission can be the hardest thing...and very necessary most times. As a farm girl, I know driving into 'Farmer Brown's' field to get to the rock pile and running down his alfalfa is not going to endear me to Farmer Brown! Most of the farmers we have approached have been incredibly generous, please, please, take my rocks! We always offer to reimburse them anyway, but it doesn't hurt to find out first if their price range is something you can afford. The most we paid so far was $20 for a ton from a farmer, and he was reluctant to take it ...but he helped load it, too!!

I heard a story about a couple who were out looking for rocks one day and found a pile right off the road on a farmer's lane. They pulled in and started loading up. Just as they were finishing up, the owner of the rock pile arrived, none too happy. The owner was in the process of building a stone wall himself and they had to unload again while he stood there. "Step away from the vehicle. Put down the rocks." I don't think there were any firearms involved, lol, but the value of rocks varies from person to person.

Small flagstone we've been able to get from the landfills and inactive quarries that allow hand-picking. The bigger stone came from an active quarry, but we were extremely lucky in knowing an excavator who:
1. Works with the quarry all the time and gets the 'contractor rate' at a nominal cost of around $5 a ton and 2. Was willing to load it for us for his standard hourly rate fee and bartered trees from us. Delivery was paid for by us entirely, most of the haulers around here charge $60 an hour. Finding a rock hauler was SO hard, most of them don't want their dumptrucks hammered to pieces by this big stone. Most of the rock we are using right now average 500 lbs up to 10,000 lbs, with some breakage when the box is dumped. The bottom rocks get pulverized by the impact of unloading. On the first load we received, a rock had poked a hole thru the truck box; he wasn't too happy. After 3 years of dealing with this big rock, we finally found a company who specializes in hauling it. But for smaller projects you won't have this much hassle. Hopefully... ;-)
Here's some pics of the smaller hand-picked stone project and the bigger one.
{{gwi:285779}}

{{gwi:285780}}

Try checking with your local National Park Service. Here in southern California they sometimes give permits to pick up rocks from specified areas in order to control damaging flash floods that occur in certain areas.