09/02/2026
Looking back through photos I came across this sequence from December ‘25 through end of February of this year. This was a good size project. 900 sq ft of large slab thermal topped patio.
I remember towards the end of this project it was super cold a few days. 6 degrees in the morning. I had some of the worst tennis elbow I’ve ever had. It was awful. We were at the end of this project and I couldn’t rest it enough. The brace didn’t help, NSAID’s barely took the edge off to get through the day.
I was tackling the left hand side of the lower steps, where the wall cheeks 18” above the patio. There is an odd obtuse angle there where the wall off the house meets the cheek end. An 120 degree angle or something like that…
This stone is so dense and doesn’t always take the chisel like you want it to.
Mystic Mountain.
We used to call it Norumbega. I like that name better.
Anyways, my damn tennis elbow was excruciating. Towards the end of this project, with the winter barking at our heels, and a team member who’d been grumbling about the rigor of stone work had put in his 2 weeks.
Which was about to leave us short handed.
Taking time off of swinging the 4 # hammer wasn’t in the cards. I tried to guard against the pain and compensated by swinging my hammer more from my shoulder. Not sustainable or nearly as effective for rock facing stone.
The tennis elbow became worse as golfers elbow started to set in. The whole elbow was shot.
What can you do as the boss at the end of a job? Keep pushing, keep staying positive in the single digits at less than half strength. Don’t let the team down, and try not to complain to much, or worse- be dead weight.
The leader has to set the pace after all, so you have keep putting stones on the wall, damnit. Keep the chisels singing.
We finished this one in the nick of time. After the patio was done I thankfully had a few days of help with the remainder of the walling on the right side of the lower steps.
The guys certainly had it pretty rough themselves with the patio. In the cold mornings the stone dust they were setting the last few slabs into would freeze up with a 2” crust of solid ice. We covered it with insulated tarps and took what measures we could, but the last bit of this patio was a bear, and everyone knew it.
In the nick of time…
We took a bit of a Christmas break after this project was done. My arm finally felt a little better after that.
I have a photo of us in Sebasco on the Round Cove wall on 12/30, facing granite and stone that cooperates a bit better. Granite splits like butter after doing a massive wall out of Norumbega!
