In Provence, a borie is a shelter made of stones, up to a few meters tall. They look like this, only larger and made of gray stone instead of lava rock found in the back yard.
An eight foot tall stone hut would look strange in the front yard, and in any case the real goal was to do something interesting with all the stones we found while clearing a back section of the garden. So, why not a mini-borie?
From a design standpoint, we wanted some kind of focal point in the front yard. Something with a bit of mass, tall enough so that it would emerge from the plants as they grow to fill in around the thing.
It might even worth some conversation, of the type, “Why do you have a pile of rocks in your frount yard?”. Ah, but this is not just a pile of rocks! This is a real, French mini-borie, since a French woman helped build it. We’re the only ones on our block to have one. Imagine the exclusivity!
It’s too small to get inside for shelter during a thunderstorm, but we imagine that all kinds of arthropods and similar small creatures will soon make it their home.
Building a borie is pretty much like building an igloo. Just create stacked rings of rocks, diminishing the diameter of the circle as you add levels. The rocks’ weight will cause them to lock together and you’ll be able to eventually create a hollow structure that might last hundreds of years. You might need to practice a bit, and I’d hold off before building a full-sized one – that might be a bit more complicated.
This post disappeared twice, thanks to some idiot at Apple. They “improved” the mouse so much that if I but twitch my finger the wrong way, it erases everything I wrote! Bravo, geek!