“Stoop-ed?” the old Yankee farmer is supposed to have said. “Yuh think I’m stoop-ed? Yuh should see my old lady—she’s re-e-ally bent ovah.”

After a summer of lifting and moving stones to build a dry-stack wall, I too sometimes feel distinctly “stoop-ed.” Fortunately, though, I’ve discovered a few simple, non-polluting devices that have taken the worst stress out of this process.

The most important among these is a block and tackle hoist I bought for $25 from Jabetc. This has the effect of multiplying my strength seven times when lifting stones, which means that a boulder that weighs 350 pounds feels to me like it weighs just 50.

To suspend that block and tackle over the stones so that it could lift them, I made a “shears.” This is a type of hoisting rig sailors used to make to lift masts in and out of position. At its most basic (the level at which I work), this is just a pair of poles lashed together at one end and then, with the help of a guy line, stood up like a pair of straddling legs. The block and tackle is slung from the point at the top of the shear where the two poles meet. I found the knots and lashings I needed to construct this device in The Ashley Book of Knots, a wonderful compendium of rope craft dating back to the last days of the windjammers.

This definitely is a case of showing being more effective than telling, so please see the accompanying photographs of my shears in use.