Cobblestone Builders

12/06/2025

Insanity. This administration is cutting our throat. We will be a pariah as is Putin’s Russia. Everything that gave me pride in America is being eroded by Trump and his buddies. I don’t believe Americans want this unless they are in wealthy class and want an oligarchy with us and our neighbors as serfs and peons. America as a world aggressor is not a pretty thing.

Late last night, the Trump administration released the 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS) of the United States of America.

12/02/2025

DHS secretary equates foreign visitors and immigrants with "killers" "leeches" and "junkies."

01/09/2022

Since my injury, I have more or less abandoned this page as I can no longer offer much in the way of carpentry or handyman services. I have begun to offer services that are machine oriented. Machines that I can ride on. I haul and deliver or remove materials or junk/yard waste with my truck and dump trailer. I now offer mowing service, tracto/backhoe service, skid steer loader service and snow plowing. 802-458-7066

11/12/2021

Since my fall from a roof and presenting to the ER as paraplegic four years ago and the surgery and recovery afterwards that left me unable to perform many carpentry tasks efficiently, I have been reshaping Cobblestone Builders. Even though the name will remain the same I will be offering a different set of services as shown in the door hanger print outs shown in these photos. Cobblestone had already moved to a one man operation that offered handyman services that included snow plowing, mowing and light excavation. Now I offer those services as my main focus while excluding most handyman/carpentry services as being too hard on my rebuilt body at least for the near future.

06/27/2019

Waiting for steel railings, but done for now. This is a deck built by myself and the home owner to provide access to a bathroom for guests staying in the guest house a few yards away that we converted from the farm granary. The window in the brick wall will be replaced by a door into the bathroom. The bonus is that the deck provides a great private hang out space with a view. This is a perfect project for me at this time as it utilizes all of my skills, tools and knowledge with the owner as my helper doing the heavy lifting that I am not capable of while I still recover from falling off a roof a year and a half ago. I dug the hole for the pier and transplanted a few mature lilacs using my tractor/backhoe. I hauled the gravel for the walkway with my dump trailer and we used my hand tools to build the deck. The home owner is proud of his work and I enjoyed working with him to achieve his goals. The project is on hold for a while as family is visiting and I am off to work with another home owner helper install a brick walkway.

04/27/2019

Cobblestone Builders (me) just increased our ability to do small tractor work in the often tightly constricted spaces in our small city of Vergennes by adding a root grapple for easy brush pile clean up and a box blade for grading gravel driveways to our tractor implement arsenal. Both implements can also be used for numerous other purposes. This week I will deliver several loads of brush from five properties in town to the Addison drop off where they will be made into wood chips used as mulch and return with gravel for driveways, compost and mulch for gardens. By hauling a load in each direction I spread the cost of hauling among several customers at once and thereby save them money.

Since my fall off a roof, mowing and tractor work has kept me productive. A little less climbing and crawling under houses in exchange for more sitting on a cushy seat as I age isn’t hurting my feelings much either.

02/13/2015

The lack of icicles on the left speaks for itself especially when you can compare it to the original 1840 house on the right. No icicles means no heat loss. The addition on the left is one I built 5 years ago and is supper sealed and insulated. Needless to say the most comfortable area of the house. Notice how the carport roof below has no ice melt too because there is no heat under it?

The original home built in 1840 has four foot knee walls on the second floor at the eaves, sloped ceilings and no attic to speak of. The rafters are only four inches deep. To insulate it will require a full gut, four inches of spray foam and another 2-4 inches of foam board to be as well insulated as it can get without loosing too much head room below or without adding depth to the rafters above. Once that is done, the main house will be much more comfortable and cost less to heat. The basement was already well sealed and insulated when the addition was built because it was a low cost no brainer that reduced the air leakage in the house by almost half and made it possible to sit on the sofa without a pile of blankets.

12/14/2014

This little tractor does some amazing work in tight spaces where big machines can't go. It fits through a four foot garden gate and is easy on lawns. I have a snow plow for it and plow driveways within six blocks of my neighborhood. I guess I missed my first tractor that I purchased when I did a lot of house jacking, foundation replacement and rotten sill repair. The small tractor was not only able to excavate under buildings for me, but soon was busy doing all kinds of work in my area that was too small or in too tight a space for a larger machine. Sure beats digging, raking and wheelbarrowing by hand. Comes in real handy in the garden too. The six yards of composted manure I bought this fall will be easy to spread and new raised beds will be easier to fill. Since Vergennes is full of tight spaces to work in, I hope to stay busy with this machine close to home.

12/14/2014

It has been a year since Jonathan and I decided to go our own ways in Business. Not unfriendly. We just have different goals. We still work together when a project needs both of our skills. I have been concentrating on building a reputation in Vergennes and it has been working out. +/- 70% of my work this past year has been small projects within a few miles of home. Most of that 70% has been within 5 blocks of home. I am becoming a localvore go to guy for fixing things. My knowledge of older building practices and multiple trade skills is coming in handy in this old city. I have also been available for small excavation, snow plowing and gardening/landscape work with a new Kubota tractor/backhoe that will fit through a four foot garden gate. I enjoy that work, but I am still open for larger building projects of the type I used to handle if anyone needs me for that. Who knows, if I get busy enough, I may find some young person who is interested in learning this line of work to apprentice with me. In the mean time, this is the first of more posts to come.

11/02/2013

Jonathan and I recently built two additions on a barn in Panton Vermont for a family of artist/farmers. The animals on this farm are all rescue animals and are not going to be slaughtered. The first pig came to the farm in the family car and was totally freaked out until the owner got in the back and cuddled it to calm it down. By the time the pig got to his new home his new owner was a vegetarian. All of the other animals have filtered in over time and needed more space to get out of the heat in summer and cold in winter. The additions are a long shed that ends with the eaves only a few feet off of the ground with a dormer that gives head room for the cow to enter and the other is an extension of the gable to provide more storage for firewood and hay. The whole project took 2 days of the owner and Jonathan setting foundation blocks on a drained stone bed and five days of carpentry by Jonathan and I. It was a fun job done mostly in fine Vermont fall weather with the biggest challenge being the day that a billy goat passed a kidney stone and blatted for half a day in a pen right next to where we were working. We will be back later this fall to finish the soffits and facia on the artist's welding studio.

09/23/2013

When I first returned from Mexico several years ago, I was not ready to start a new business so I started looking for a job. I had applied to a company in western Massachusetts that was near where two of my sisters live. I guess they didn't realize that I was in northern Vermont when they asked me if I could come in for an interview with the boss the next a.m. at 7:30. They also asked me to bring a list of references which I did not have compiled. I happened to be within a mile of five happy customers at the time that I was sure would not mind me dropping in. I got some photos and I got my references on video. Turned out that I was over qualified for the job. They needed an assistant project manager, an entry level job, but I have still got the pictures and the customer testimonies. I am posting the photos tonight and will upload the testimonies as I have time.

09/23/2013

For friends of Cobblestone Builders that did not get a chance to check out our website before I managed to crash it while trying to add a couple of pages of photos, the site is back up. The photos I tried to add are still not there. It looks like I have confused iweb and it no longer wants to work for me. I am going to rebuild the site using other software if I can't figure out how to fix the problem. There is no longer any iweb support so I am on my own except for the great help and support that I have gotten from Godaddy where I host the site. In the mean while, I will continue to post project photos and updates on Facebook. You can find our website at http://cobblestonebuildersvt.com. Hope you like what we have up so far. Oh....and thanks for liking us, we appreciate it.