SPRINGFIELD, Vt. – On Tuesday, April 7, Kevin Gardner spoke to a crowd of 140 people at the Nolin-Murray Center in Springfield. While simultaneously constructing a miniature stone wall, he covered how and why New England’s stone walls were built, how their styles emerged and changed over time, and their significance to the famous New England landscape. One interesting fact was that the length of stone walls combined could stretch to the moon and back or circle the globe at least 10 times.
Gardner is from Hopkinton, N.H. Like a lot of independent rural Yankees, he has been a jack of many trades – a builder, logger, writer, teacher, radio voice, and even an actor and director. For more than 40 years, he has been a stone-wall builder in a family business widely known for traditional New England stonework, particularly for historic restoration of antique structures. In 2001, Kevin published “The Granite Kiss: Traditions and Techniques of Building New England Stone Walls.” His second book, “Stone Building: How to Make New England Style Walls and Other Structures the Old Way,” was published in May of 2017. He has also published poetry, songs, and essays, including “Land of Stone,” an examination of several historic sites in the Monadnock Region, in the 2006 anthology “Where the Mountain Stands Alone.”
Gardner was introduced by Marita Johnson, Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) facilitator and Springfield Garden Club (SGC) member. OLLI has existed for 22 years, and every year the SGC has cosponsored a program, including this one, relating to gardening, landscaping, the environment, or conservation. Besides volunteering their time beautifying the town with plantings, another main mission of the garden club is to share educational information with the community. There is also an overlap in membership, and many are members of both OLLI and the SGC.
The program was recorded by SAPA TV and will be available at www.sapatv.org. Find more information about the SGC at www.springfieldgardenclub.org, or on their Facebook page, Springfield Garden Club of Vermont. More information on OLLI’s programs in Springfield can be found at www.learn.uvm.edu/olli/springfield.