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Our community project today was for The National Trust for Scotland (NTS) at their Culzean Castle and Country Park in Ayrshire.
A storm over a year ago, caused a couple of trees to came down on the Galloway style wall at the side of the exit road, resulting on damage to several sections of the wall along it's length.
One our members, who voluteers at Culzean, developed a bit of an itch, that required scratching, regarding seeing this damaged wall everything he attended at Culzean .
An approach was made to the NTS and after much time consideration, our offer was agreed for us to go ahead with the work once the castle was closed for the winter, so ,today was the day.💪💪💪💪

We were contacted recently by staff at Dumfries House's Rural Skills Training Centre asking if it would possible to arrange an Introduction to Drystone Walling Training Course for some of their agricultural students.
The students were on an 8 week Introduction to Farming and Rural Skills Course, being held at Home Farm which is run by The King's Foundation.
During the course the students receive training covering a wide range of practical rural skills from sheep and cattle care, feeding, housing and handling of cattle, as well as fencing and dry-stone walling.
Anyhoo, enough of the introduction...for three days this past week ,we gave 8 students, who were on Week 2 of their course, an Introduction to Drystone Walling Training Course.
24 ton of gabion stone had been delivered ,yes whinstone gabion, so gnarly and small, however, as you know you have play with the cards your dealt,and we managed to find 'throughs' and 'copes'.
All the students were very keen, with two of them asking us for details of our Training Courses, with a view to joining us one day 😉
The weather was excellent for the three days, only one heavy short shower .The ground was however already quite soft after the recent rain and was a wee bit slippy and slidey by the end of Day 3, however, we all coped 😉
Yup, very well done to ALL involved 👏👏💪👌

As Glenarn Gardens was now closed for the season it was now time for us to visit for our annual walling weekend , rebuilding and repairing the perimeter sandstone wall.

www.glenarn.com/

When we left last year ,we had almost completed the steepest section, and that was competed yesterday, with approximately 5m of wall built and coped.
Today we continued to rebuild another 20m ,with only a couple of meters that had to be built as required on such a slope.
We ended up running out of suitable copes, however, the owners of the 'Gardens ,were happy for us to place covering plates along the top, so job done to everyone's satisfaction, hurrahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh 😀👌
As much as Mike and Sue did not have any honey to gift us this year,their bees were just not producing, we were treated to a fantastic lunch for us all on both days,which we all really appreciated and enjoyed 😋😋😋😋😋👌

A good day walling at Auchenfoyle today,finishing off the wall that has been rebuilt during several of our Introduction to Drystone Walling Training Courses.
There was only approximately 13 or metres of tumbled wall to rebuild, so the length didn't merit another Training Course build.
So, we started off the day with 4 eager souls, we were then joined by two more 💪💪💪💪
It stayed dry for the duration and it was actually a very pleasant and pleasing day throwing stone about 😂 with like minded souls......a three stone cheekend was the highlight of the day ,aye, a three stone cheekend, who'd a thunk it .....Priceless 👌

Well that's a wrap, a very warm wrap 🥵🥵💪The 2nd and final day of our final Introduction to Drystone Walling Training Course of 2025.
ALL who were in attendance today done bloody marvellously in the hot, hot, hot conditions 🥵
They added a couple of courses to throughstone height.
The throughs' were placed higher in the wall than usual due the breadth of the base and the availability of long enough throughs' , however they will add strength to the wall, be in no doubt of that 💪💪👌
So when the wall was sweetened up the tops of the throughstones, the copes were added.
Well done to the seventeen trainees, you should be rightly proud of yourselves and the bloody marvellous wall you completed over the toasty weekend, yes siree 😊👌
We look forward to welcoming you back to the body of the kirk some time in the future.
In the meantime, HAPPY WALLING 😊 💪💪💪

Well that's Day 1 completed in stifling heat, yup, plenty fluids being taken by all.
Everyone done fantastic ,maneuvering the large unforgiving whinstone into place in the wam conditions.
We added a few courses after lunch, sweetening off the wall to throughstone height, which is were we'll start tomorrow.
Yeah, we think that the attendees will not take much rocking tonight, hopefully we'll see them all back the morn's morn ready to put in another fantastic day's work 💪💪💪💪💪

Lunchtime at Auchenfoyle on Day 1 of our final Introduction to Drystone Walling Training Course of 2025, 17 attendees.
Approximately 18m of wall stripped out, foundations relayed and sweeting up before the next course 💪💪💪💪💪💪💪💪

........so after a long lunch, during which some of us tried out the Memorial Bench, which was pretty damn braw, we got on with the copes.
So, Memorial Bench, why so you may ask ?
'Built in memory of Alan Patrick ,on who's land it stands, and the many other members that we've lost, over the past few years ,who are all greatly missed, may they all continue to rest in peace 🙏

Lunchtime called at the Kilsyth Memorial Bench build......did someone mention 'only the copes to go ' 🤔😁👌💪💪

........and after lunch we completed and sweetened off the seating area aswell as adding a few courses to what will be the back of the bench.
Tomorrow ? Saying as how you asked 🙂
A couple more courses along the back then the copes, that's the plan, so let's see how we get on after a few libations and good night's sleep.