Littlepond,
I made it to the point of being up to date with your thread on your pond and the Mother-in-law's and getting started on the friend of your MIL's pond. Very nice work my friend!
I read that other's referred to you as a stone mason and then you referred to yourself as a stonesman. Can you explain what your specialty is exactly? Do you work in a stone quarry extracting the materials or do you actually cut the stones and model them into these designs or do you work at both?
My conception of Ireland is that there is a lot of stone to be found, everywhere. Not sure if that is entirely accurate, but I am sure that you have much more stone and rock available than I do in my region of the state of Nebraska in USA. We have some glacial till that we can access and there are a few limestone quaries to the southeast of my location. But, mostly we have sand, gravel clay and a lot of good black dirt for productive farming of corn and soybeans. Not too much rock.
I live on a river here and we canoe and boat around on this river often. There is one cliff that rises about 100 feet above the river. When the spring floods come, it erodes the side of the bluff away and exposes the glacial till rock deposits which fall into the river. We always try to grab a few pieces when we can to take home and use for ornamental purposes. It's mostly granite (pink and purple and gray in color). But, there is a lot of other rock mixed into it besides the granite. It's kind of a mixed bag of everything resulting from the glacial action that deposited it all. Once, there was a boulder that became exposed and rolled into the river. It was as large as a small, one room cottage. Maybe 20 feet diameter. Amazingly, it didn't stay there, the river has so much power that it eventually washed down into the sand and migrated downstream until it disappeared under the surface. It didn't take more than two or three years for that to happen. Water has a lot of power!
Thanks for showing us your pond pix! In the beginning, it sounded like you were asking for advice. I think you should be giving advice, instead! You do very excellent work!
Your friend, from across the BIG POND (LOL!)
Gordy