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Friday 19th October 2018

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It’s a tough time of year for the stone-clearer. Not only are the nights drawing in and making evening clearly difficult, leading to leaf confusion in the crepuscular light, as I’ve already mentioned. But the mornings can be just as hard. Ground spiders lay their webs across the soil and as these are caught by the light of the rising sun, they look like juicy white stones. But they are literally a web of lies.
Add to this that crops have been sown and the first shoots are peeking through the earth, declaring that now the Stocean is basically out of bounds. Why did I waste so many weeks clearly the stone shore, when I should have used the time to Hasselhoff big stones from the centre of the field?
We all have stone regrets. But until the crops are strong, I am basically restricted to the edges.
And still, when I look at the field it almost looks like my 1000s of stones shifted every week have made no difference. Sure, the sharp-eyed observer might spot mini cairns springing up in various places and be particularly impressed with the start of the wall that I have built on to the cairn that predated me. But the ground still seems packed with stones and every day I see new largish ones in the places that I have been relentless clearing. How?
But stone-clearing is by its nature a slow practise and I can only advise newbie stone-clearers to be patient. After the first decade you start seeing a difference.
Also watch out for dog shit. Especially that furry dog shit. There isn’t a stone clearer alive who hasn’t accidentally picked up some shit. Apart from me.
Those are my two bits of advice.

Also for your own morale I’d suggest putting any properly big stones you find in prominent positions so that you can start to build cairns around them . You will remember where you found spectacular stones and can then build upon them quickly.
Winter is coming. Hope you’ve got some gloves.


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