Margined Mallet

Eric Girouard  0:00  

This is bucket talk, a weekly podcast for people who work in the trades and construction that aren't just trying to survive, but have the ambition and desire to thrive. The opportunity in the trades and construction is absolutely ridiculous right now. So if you're hungry, it's time to eat. We discuss what it takes to rise from the bottom to the top with people who are well on their way and roll up their sleeves every single day.

Jeremy Perkins  0:28  

All right, on this episode of bucket talk, we got Matt Nunn. He goes by margin mallet on Instagram. Matt, welcome.

Matt Nunn  0:36  

Thanks. Jeremy, happy to be here.

Jeremy Perkins  0:39  

Hell yeah. So you work with stone on a daily basis, and you do it in a pretty old fashioned way. And just kind of wanted to get your background on a how'd you get to here and be what like piqued your interest into into starting a career and working with stone and and some of the cool things that you do

Matt Nunn  1:01  

Sure? Well, grew up in Connecticut, and as anyone who's been to New England or spent any time around here, we got a lot of old dry stone walls that just like, litter the countryside and line the roads. And so I always took an interest into like, Who the hell built these things? And like, how did, how did they go about it? Who would want to go outside and spend their entire day moving rocks around? Like, what? What is that all about? So, you know, that was always a very intriguing thing to me. So after, after high school, I went to school down in Kentucky for college, and I studied history. After, I think it was four semesters, like two years, I just had developed slowly over time, as I was studying old architecture and history and from, you know, old civilizations and I developed more and more of an itch of one to figure out what this trade was about, what this whole stonework thing was about, especially like cutting stone, like by hand, like hammers and chisels. And, you know, especially back then, and, you know, in the mid 2000s late 2000s it there really wasn't much infrastructure or in our education system to figuring out how to find your way into learning this craft. So I left, and I went off on my own, and I did landscaping and all sorts of things to try to get myself in on stone jobs. And from there it was right. When I first did it, I had done some carpentry, I had done some landscaping, and for me, first time I built a wall, I was, like, 20 years old, and right away I was like, this, this is this? Is it like? I I don't know what I'm doing, but I know I want to figure it out. So, you know, so I spent the next well. It's been 14 years since then, along this journey. And let me tell you, it's been a lot of it was uphill. Was not a quick one, not an easy one to get good at, but you know, it's going well in the last five or six years, I would say

Jeremy Perkins  3:15  

sweet, sweet. So you you hit on something that's pretty interesting and and for history buffs, or if you want to visit old New England, those rock walls usually lay out the boundary for a lot of old properties. We call them farmers walls. I would assume you call them the same, and they were placed there. Correct me if I'm wrong. They were placed there because, as you tilled the fields, or process the field, you would come across rock, and then they just started stacking it on the boundary. Now I would assume some were built specifically for that reason, but the the original intent was, I'm removing rocks from my property, and I'm just going to put them on the boundary of my property so they're they're pretty cool and and I have one around my my property, and nothing to keep, like, anything out, but definitely a, a a cool feature,

Matt Nunn  4:13  

absolutely, yeah. And then the, the crazy thing is, is, like the farmers would do that, they would take off, take out all the stone that they could, that they're, you know, that their mule pulled hose would would hit, they'd rip them out, they'd start piling them. And the next year, the frost heaves in New England will push more up to the surface. So this was a continuing thing, which is why, which is why some of the longest lasting farms, especially like there's a lot of them in northern Massachusetts. This in the center of Massachusetts, like, you know, we're talking way west of Boston and Worcester here. There's a lot of farms up there, which are still there six, seven generations into being run. And the walls are just there's so many of them now. Now they just put them everywhere. Where they have a windbreak for trees. So every like, you know, 50 acres, you're going to end up with a perimeter of walls. And they still come up in some of these places, and some of the newer farms, they still come up every year. It's just, it's crazy. There's just, you know, geologically speaking, we have, you know, anywhere from 500 to 2000 feet of of Glacial Till, which is a lot of mainly just soil and rock that, before you get down to like our actual bedrock in most of New England, and it was just the deposits from the glaciers that moved from the Hudson Bay on down, you know, 14,000 years ago. So we have the assortment of stone type is wild in our area and and the amount of it is is, you know, it's almost unfathomable. So that's why we have so many walls.

Jeremy Perkins  5:51  

I never put two and two together because I mean early, early history classes in high school and middle school, we found, if you're unfamiliar with Massachusetts, there's a cape that juts out from just below Boston out into the Atlantic Ocean. It's called Cape Cod. And I was told that that was essentially the end of the glacier that came down, and it was pushed, it was pushed there. And whether that's true or not, I I'm pretty sure it's true, but somebody will fact check me and say, Oh, well, you know, whatever. But I didn't realize that rock actually resurfaced over years from pushed up by by frost. That's a that's a cool, that's a cool.

Matt Nunn  6:33  

It's kind of wild too, because the rock's heavier than the ground, than the soil around it, but for whatever reason, the frost heave just continually pushes it up until it's too deep to where it won't be affected by the frost every every year. So until you get below the frost line, which in like Northern Massachusetts or New Hampshire and Vermont, that frost line can be as deep as 4048, inches in a given winter. So you know, it's, it's a, it's a crazy thing. But yeah, the whole I live on the at the mouth of the Connecticut River. Down here, the whole Connecticut River, the Long Island Sound, is all carved out by glaciers as well. So it's a it makes it so that we have an unlimited resource from, you know, from my line of work, which is great.

Jeremy Perkins  7:15  

Cool, cool. So you, you took an interest in, you know, obviously history, New England stonework. Was your entry into this, like, really, that landscaping, hardscaping, you kind of learn some stuff there. And, I mean, because I know a lot of it now is like techno block and and all of the the prefabricated retaining walls and pavers and what have you? Were you doing a lot of that stuff too, or were you specifically dealing with stonework?

Matt Nunn  7:46  

Yeah, I was. There was a lot of the paver work, cement work, which is its own type of art form and craft. It's very different than than working with natural stone. Excuse me, I have cats walk through here. You know? Yeah, it's very different from, it's from what I do now, which the last 678, years, I haven't dealt with any like concrete walls or paver work, which isn't even as much at this point. Like, that's just, you know, I people don't hire me for that anymore. They know, no, totally yeah for this, for the stone walls and things like that, but, but, yeah, it's, it's where I definitely, I would say three out of every four jobs I did in the hardscape stonework field for my 20s, where there was pavers involved, at least, if not a lot of times I'd go to a job and I'd have the customer be like, we'd like a block retaining wall here, and then maybe a paver walkway. And my first order of business was to be like, Okay, well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna try to, yeah, I'm gonna try to, I'm gonna try to sell you on. This is why we should try to, you know, use the natural resource that's literally right there, like I can see an abundance of stone. We could take that wall, we could rebuild it into this retaining wall, and it's going to save you a massive material cost, and, and, you know, and, and a lot less, like traffic through your through your backyard, or whatever it might be, like, it's just for me, I always saw that as, like, you know, this is a greener trade than than using concrete and and also, it's like using what, what's here on your property already, or at least is a local product that you might get from a quarry at the road or whatever it might be. But, yeah, a lot of my work came originally from either doing pavers or selling a customer on why to use bluestone or granite supposed to that's actually,

Jeremy Perkins  9:52  

that's actually a cool take. I didn't even, it didn't even dawn on me that like that. It's a, that's an awesome thing to do, to be able to incorporate, A, the history of the property, B, you know, an abundance of material that's already there, and then just repurpose it. And I, you know, to me, I'm thinking, you're importing, you know, KP and granted, or, you know, working with a whole bunch of different retailers, or Coreys, or, you know, what have you to Yeah, obviously get, like, a 10 Wheeler of rock dumped, and I'm sure that happens, but like, realize that that you actually, you know, repurpose Old, old property lines and what have you into that property that's crazy. I've built

Matt Nunn  10:36  

a lot of, a lot of my favorite walls I've ever built were with, like, old walls that I just moved 50 feet because they weren't even being seen in the woods anymore, or whatever, you know. And and then use it, and people are like, wow. They can't believe that they had this amazing resource right next to them, because people are just so used to seeing it. And when they're dilapidated, they don't look like anything, you know. So when you put it back together, though, it's all right, but, yeah, I think, I think that's it made it an easy sell a lot when you, when you come at it from this, like, you know, this is, let's use what's on your property. And, like, in fact, I can make something look like this with what you already have here. And the real issue, the reason more people don't do this is not, not because people want to work with concrete block. Like most guys in my trade and in the hardscape trade or the stonework trade, they love the idea, the the artistry that that comes with, like, you know, working with stone, it's like, every Rock's different. And like, you know, especially with fieldstone, there's, it's very hard to work with. It's not you can't shape it like granite, where you can kind of do what you want. Takes time. Field stone is kind of use it as it is, and it's very difficult, therefore, to quote it correctly and make good money. Whereas with like a block wall, you know exactly how much you can put out a day, it takes a long time to to, like, a lot of years of doing this work, to to get to that place with with dry stone work. I think so. So, I think that's what pushes people away.

Jeremy Perkins  12:10  

So without getting, like, I guess too deep into you know, how you charge your customer, but like, if you were to do some of this reclaim, reuse work, do you kind of go in with, like, an open mind and like, the customer's like, hey, like, you have this resource, obviously, it's going to be cheaper than than bringing in material. That being said, I don't know how much of this material we can use, or I don't know if we're actually going to have to bring more material. And like, how does, how does that play into your into your process. Well,

Matt Nunn  12:42  

each one's different. You know, situations different. How is the site access like, how easily can we access or or source material from the property? How much do we need to bring in from outside the property, from a quarry or from, you know, from old farm walls. You know, my guy, Scott, up at authentic fieldstone, who I'm sure you follow on Instagram, like he, he gets paid, or he, rather, he, he's in league with with a few farms up in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, where they there's farmers that he pays to take down some of the walls that they don't want anymore, because they have so many and like, so they'll be like, Yeah, you know, I don't want that wall. So instead of paying someone to take it out, they'll, they'll get Scott will pay them, you know, because he'll, he'll take it out and he'll sell the stone. So, like, I get some of my stone from him once in a while when I need to, like, add to it, because, you know, New England field stone blends with New England field stone regardless of how far away one comes from the other. So, like, that part's that part's the trickiest part of it all, though, is like, honestly, quoting these types of jobs when you're doing new construction with old material can be very difficult. I know the vast majority of guys in my line of work just go the safest route, which is like, look, we're going to do time and material and, you know, and that's, that's the best way to ensure that you're going to, you know, not destroy your profit margins. I try to go based off the square footage with things. So if I'm building walls, I like to do by the square footage. So I have rates for straight up rebuilds. If I'm going and tearing doing a tear down and rebuild of old walls or versus new construction. And my biggest variables are definitely like, how accessible is this, both for me as a craftsman, but also with machinery and like, and what's the material like? What's you know, because a lot of some material takes a lot longer to build with, or you need to shape it more. So those are the big variables I would say to i. Like, where, what number of per square foot that, like that, I end up falling into cool. So

Jeremy Perkins  15:06  

let's talk about tooling. So I watched the demonstration up in the Catskills by you. And, yeah, and you know, you were working with granite and stone and using feathers and splitting and stuff like that. But like, you know, as we're talking about volume and mass and weight of of some of these pieces you work with, you know, excavation equipment. Do you work with an, you know, a local contractor to move the stuff around, like, or are you actually moving it around yourself? Like, how does that all work.

Matt Nunn  15:41  

I mean, I've definitely done both. So there's been jobs where I where I tell the client, like, look, this is there's a lot that goes into the prep work here I need. I'm gonna, I'm gonna give these the site, the design work, the layout of the walls and where I need my materials, to a to an excavation company. You're gonna pay them separately. They're going to come in before me, they're going to get this site prepped to these specs, and then I'm going to come in and just do the construction. There's times I have my own mini excavator, so there's times when I can just take care of the whole thing together, and I can lift a lot of the rocks myself with with a mini I've rented equipment before, and, you know, I've unfortunately, more than I should have. I've definitely just straight up lifted things constantly that I probably shouldn't be lifting. And that's, you know, I'm 34 I wake up every morning, and if I don't stretch, like, I'm not pliable until noon, so like, that's, you know, that's a part of the job as well. Too many rocks have been lifted. And, you know, it comes with the the territory. I will say, like, I want to talk to you about the moon gate a little bit on this podcast that I built with green monster. I think you've probably seen it. It was, it was one of the coolest projects I've been a part of, because, no, none of the stones are liftable by a human hand. Like they're all over 400 pounds, yeah. And you know, including the Keystone, which is like 11 feet in the air, and it weighs like 1700 pounds. I spent an entire day cutting that Keystone out of a giant boulder of granite, right? And it was just started with feather and wedges, like drilling and splitting. I had to map out, figure out exactly how the angles are going to are going to be like the dimensions I want for this thing, front to back, on all the sides and and then there was like six hours of just straight chiseling constantly, until I got that thing done. And it was, it was, it was super satisfying when he finished, you know, a project like that, just one rock for one day, but lifting that thing and getting it into place. Mark up there at Green Monster, he has one of those, those encons, of the tilt rotators. Yeah, you've seen those. They're amazing. And without that tool, like in the grapple that picked those rocks up, like that, project probably would have taken us, I mean, I don't know, several dozen more hours just in, in the the trying and the fitting of stones and lifting them up in the air, because we would have been strapping them, and had to have a guy down below and spinning it and then pulling the straps out. It's, it's a whole thing, you know, and with what he has. It's changes the game quite a bit. So

Jeremy Perkins  18:23  

every time I see, see that those arches or or moon gates like created. I mean, obviously there's a science behind it, but it's, it's interesting to see that it's self supporting, right? It's, it is loose stone,

Matt Nunn  18:40  

but because no cement, no metal, yeah, and

Jeremy Perkins  18:43  

it's all self supporting, and that Keystone kind of just, like, locks it all in the place, but like, when you're under it, you have 1000s of pounds of stone that there's no rebar, there's no fasteners, there's no nothing, just friction

Matt Nunn  18:57  

in gravity, man and proper math. It's a little sketchy the first time I went out, because I did that whole top half of the arch, like, before, before we, like, secured it on to the bottom half of the moon gate, right? And I, like, I did that and, and Mark got on the last couple days, and he was like, Are you sure about what we're doing? I'm like, I think so. Like, like, I mean, it is just physics. Like, you can trust, you can trust numbers, right? So, like, the whole thing, I engineered with all sorts of math, and I was, I checked it every night. I would, like, I would go to bed, like, running numbers, like, because I'm, like, anxious. I'm like, you know, is this, am I going to kill someone? Because, like, you said, there that that top half of the arch that it's, it's like seven tons, like, literally weighs, like, as much as a tri axle truck empty. Does you know, it's a wild amount of granite that's up there, and there's no, no space between the joints. So it's like, it, it is secure. Like, I don't I it's. Going to outlive me by a long time, but, but like, when you first do it and you pull that form, it took me, like, an hour of hanging out next to it to feel like I could breathe and like, um, that's not going anywhere. You know what? I mean, it was, yeah, it was a, it's a weird, weird feeling, even as the especially as the guy that did it, because you don't just have the like, Is this safe as like someone else, you have like, the the responsibility like this damn well better be safe. I hope I did that right. I hope that so I like, I put the form back up. I like, check, because every joint has to radiate towards the center point of the circle. And that's the that's the concept. And if you, if you achieve that on both front to back, then you've achieved a proper weight distribution.

Jeremy Perkins  20:49  

So that was going to be my question, and maybe you've already answered it, but like, I still haven't figured it out, is, like, as you put something heavy on, on two points, right? There's a there's the possibility that those two bases will shift outward due to the the weight on top of it. So how do you is it? Is it prep work to the base? Is it just like the geometry of it and that? How does that all work?

Matt Nunn  21:18  

It's, it's a little bit of both, like so you need the thrust of the arch, needs to be able to push down and not be able to tilt the the two, we call them Springer stones. The they're called the Springer so the the two stones that will spring the actual arch are called, you know, you could, so it's kind of in the name, right? Those stones the weight needs to want to push them both as much in as out, like they want to tilt them as much this way as this way, so that you don't create an opposing thrust and cave the whole arch in. So that comes down to like, how thick, both in terms of height and in terms of width, your Springer stones are. Then there's the dimension. There's the other dimension, which is the depth dimension. So the whole thing has a has a batter. So if you're inside it, it goes up, you know, with a batter, with a noticeable batter, so that there is more, there's support outside of each face as well. So nailing all that is super important. And then obviously, like the base of any type of the foundation of any type of masonry construction is incredibly important. So the structure that supports because a moon gate, the truth of a moon gate is it's not a full circle that supports itself. It's a it's a esthetic half moon on the bottom that's part of a foundation that supports an arch up top like and therefore the the half moon on the bottom is is literally just a support. It's not like the the circle up top actually thrusts the whole thing together. It thrusts the bottom, have thrusts itself together, like the support is there within itself, but it's, it's not carrying the weight up top by itself, because if you did just build a circle by itself, it would just blow off like it would. That's just that doesn't work. Like gravity doesn't allow that to work. You need to have abutments, if you will. Like supporting wall structure that comes off that is absolutely mandatory, because that's where the thrust of the arch wants to go over time. So that part is like, you know that that's some masonry engineering that goes into that. So how you build those, those supporting abutment walls, is, is crucial, and then obviously, down way at the bottom, you have the foundation, which, which is, you know, I can tell you about how we do our foundations for those types of walls, if you'd like. I mean, it's getting into,

Jeremy Perkins  23:52  

I mean, just, just the fact that, like, there's a lot of site work, prep work that goes

Matt Nunn  23:56  

into it. So much, so much.

Jeremy Perkins  23:58  

I mean, this is, this is fascinating, the conversation I'm having with you. Because, like, you know, if you watch what you do, right? It goes from, like, I can do that, to now talking to you, and I'm like, how many fucking years of school did you go through to learn what you've learned? You know what I mean. Because, like, and I don't want to take away from the trade, and I think there's a lot of people with a lot of trades that, like, their toxic trade is like, oh, I can do that, right? And the reality is, is you could achieve something like that, maybe, but, but the reality is, there's a lot more that goes into it, and the knowledge that you've gained over the years is incredible, and it's and it's self taught. I mean, do you? Do you do a lot of like, wow, wow.

Matt Nunn  24:49  

For me, for me, it was, but I don't recommend my journey for anyone else that's trying to get into this. I recommend starting with working for another company, or especially the stone trust. And I. You've heard of the stone trust up there, and the headquarters are up in dimerston, Vermont, or Brattleboro, something in Southern Vermont, you know, in terms of getting into to drive stonework, and that's the best way. Like, if I had, I wish I knew that existed when I was, you know, younger, because it would have saved a lot of headache. But then again, like where I'm at in my journey, part of it happened because I tried and I failed and I tried and I failed and I tried and I failed and I did it so many times that I kept narrowing my focus to the point where, like, I was, you know, I became obsessed and and it became my life, and that in my late 20s, I I made a point of figuring out, not not figuring out. It was like more. I said to myself, for my 20s, I said to myself, your teacher is what the ancients did. Like I look back at things that happened in Rome 2000 years ago, and to this day, even knowing what I know now, I still look back at so much work from them, and I go, Holy shit, these guys were there were geniuses. And not only that they were there, was there this skill that was on display at it must have been an army worth of skill that I would still go into a site there and be a laborer. You know what I mean? I and that that's that's like to me. I think that it's important that we recognize that there's only a couple trades. This is true for and I think stonework on masonry and blacksmithing are the the two that come to mind that have always come to mind, like the the level of the quality of stonework we see from across the world, from ancient India to China to Peru to my the Mayan empire to Rome and Greece and and then Egypt, above all, probably, is it's humbling. And then, like, I will always see even that cool Moon gate I built, and probably, if I ever get the chance to build something cooler, it's still gonna just be, like, an average week in ancient Rome, yeah, and, and that's like, so psychologically, that's important to like, recognize like you never are you. I don't think there's such thing as a master at this like I definitely, I genuinely think like that, that if there was, they there, they died 400 years ago. But, you know, I think, I think that's the the standard we should be holding ourselves to is not just, not just our own nowadays, but like, what's what we see from there's forts and military forts all over New England. That are, we're building 1800s that are? They shame, almost all the work that we do nowadays, they really do. They do. And it's, it's like I was up in bucksport doing a great job for Dan Morales main stonescapes, and for Matthew Cunningham last year, and Fort Knox is up there, right, yup. And it's like we're doing awesome granite work up the road from this place, like with huge pieces of granite using all the machines using saws and chisels and with tungsten carbide in them, and like, thinking we're killing it. And then I'd like, after work, I'd like go to the sport which was built like pre carbide era, like when there wasn't any excavators or machines and they didn't have saws, or at least, like, gas powered saws, right? Pre combustion engine, and these dudes did something that's way better than what we're doing up there. And, I mean, you know, granted, they had like 75 people at all times for like, eight years. But like, I don't really care, because what it takes to do what they did, regardless of time, is just like, as someone who does it, I know what it would take. They would go to work one week and be like, I'm gonna work on half of that rock this week, and then maybe next week I'll finish that rock. And like to to get yourself to the point where you're like, okay with that. That's that's really cool to me. You know,

Jeremy Perkins  29:19  

actually, what came to mind? And if you haven't been there, in out in Western Mass, it's called the shaker village. And there's this big, I don't even know what's called, but in the middle of the shaker village is like this circular stone building, and it's just it's crafted out in the middle of nowhere. It looks like it wouldn't stand the the test of time, and that it's been there that more the it's been there longer than some of the buildings that have been built in the 70s, 80s, 90s. But one thing that stuck out is not only the precision of the job, but the fact that, like, to your point, 75 guys were working on I. Um, Fort Knox, yeah, and they had to work together because, like, I'm working over here, you're working over there, and, yeah, like, it's, it's wild to get

Matt Nunn  30:12  

everything my Stone's gotta fit next to yours perfectly. Like, it's like six feet deep, and the joint is, like this the whole way it's gonna put a little tiny bed of mortar between them, but it's, it's like, the stones, like three feet tall and like four feet thick, and our joints gonna line up. It's not even gonna twist. It's just, it's wild, man. It's wild what they were doing. And like you said, it's not like one dude got to do it the whole time. 75 dudes doing 75 stones, and then, bam, they're all perfect.

Jeremy Perkins  30:43  

Come on, right, right. So that's, that's actually I want to, I want to do something fun here. Um, okay, conspiracy, right, sure, knowing what you knowing what you know, yeah, was the the piece, the Pyramids of Giza. Do you think they were actually created by a man, and if they were take a stab at, like, how they did it. I mean, it's okay, not only, not only was it the masonry and the craftsmanship and, like, the sheer mass of it, but it's also the alignment with, like, astrology. Now I'm not saying, I know I have an answer, but, like, both sides can make compelling arguments. You use enough, oh god, yeah. With, with, with, you know, they didn't give a shit, like, but to such precision, and then the alignment to the stars, plus the mystery around it, like, you can't help but think, like we didn't create it, somebody else did. What are your thoughts? So

Matt Nunn  31:37  

I have a lot of thoughts with this, okay, and because this is exactly what I studied in college, which led me to wanting to maybe uncover some more understanding of the the toil that would be within the hand process, you know, yeah, of tooling. So I will start by saying, I believe we did it. Okay. I believe, I believe we did it, but that doesn't mean I believe entirely that we that in Darwinism. So like, and then I don't mean that in any religious way, God, no. I mean, like, I'm not 100% sure that our missing DNA links aren't because, like, ancient humans traveled from a different star system. So like, Was there more knowledge than than we understand? Probably. But who can say so, like, that's, that's a whole different level of the conspiracy. Yeah, let me get back to it for you. So, like, I think one of the I think, let me start with, I think the ancient Egyptians knew the world was round. I think they knew the world wasn't even a perfect sphere. I think they knew it was slightly elongated at the equator. I think they knew the exact shape of the of the earth because I think they had not only sailed it, but I think when by the time the Pyramid of Giza was built, their civilization had been around for, I think about 2000 years, if I remember correctly. It's something a long time like they had basically the the amount of time that the ancient Egyptians had a had a continuous civilization before the construction of the Great Pyramid was more time than from the construction of the Great Pyramid, the more time than from the fall of ancient Rome to now so like their civilization was so long, lasting and continuous, and they had it was, it was an empire. What we do know we have documents proven this, that they astronomy was one of their highest touted or respected professions. They They star gazed from the same places all around the country, and mapped out the stars every night and over the course of the 1500 to 2000 years before the pyramids were built, the great pyramids were built, they had enough evidence to recognize that, oh, that slowly but surely, them stars moved. The stars, the alignment in the sky moved. And this is called the this is in astronomically speaking, this is called the procession of the equinoxes. And it's a thing where every I think the 27 or 29,000 years, the true true north or the pole stars will shift. And it happens over time. It doesn't happen randomly. It just It happens very slowly. So the movement is not noticeable by any one astronomer in their lifetime. I think it's like, there's like a point one or point 2% movement every 90 years, or something like that. So it can only be, this can only be recognized by generations of generations upon generations, without our technology that we have now, you know, yeah, if you mapped and then you realize, Wow, this has moved since so and so recorded this 400 years ago. It's only a little, but it's moving. What's going on, and after an. Time with understanding of mathematics and which is just logic and common sense, I believe that they were able to recognize the true size, shape and location of the earth within the within our solar system, in the universe. Now that led them probably into a massive amount of other discoveries and things, and including the alignments of the pyramid and why the pyramid seems to align with true north the sides of the pyramid all add up to like, the like coordinates of where it is on the planet. So I don't remember the exact things, but it's like, it's fucking wild. Like it is, it is, it's fucking wild. And like and like, you know, I don't, I don't begin to understand just how much of that was, was was intentional or not. I definitely think logic would say it's beyond coincidence, right? Like all of those things. But that said, when I investigate my own, when I look at the marks left on the stone and the construction method itself from stone to stone throughout the pyramid, I see hand tooling. I see I see methods that aren't that aren't unknown to me, or even on like you can, you can replicate these methods, even most of them, without modern technology as well. As long as time becomes a little less of a factor, or your workforce is fucking massive, Yeah, fucking massive. Like so, I think you need both of those things. Like, you need to be, you know, aware that, like, it's going to take four days to cut through this four foot block, but like, or whatever it might be, and, but like, and we have, oh, yeah, like, throw 1000 dudes on that rock to, like, move it 100 feet. Like, sure. Like, you know, those things are hard for us to fathom in today's world. I'm even now, like, I'm doing a job. I like to be able to take my time, man. But like, like I'm stressed, like I'm always fucking stressed, like I gotta be done with this thing by then, because I told so and so that I'm gonna be on their job at this time. And just leads me to, like, always being strapped for time instead of and I need to make certain amount of money. And if I quote it this much, I like, All right, well, I need to fucking, you know, be able to eat. So I don't know, I think, like, we live in a very different world and, and, you know, and all that. But I'm to sum it up, I am of the belief that humans did it. I do believe that there was more understanding and knowledge than a lot of our historians give credit to ancient civilizations having. I think in that I say that like I that's an I'm undervaluing just how much I believe that to be the case. And, and, yeah, and I think, I think it's almost, it's just a travesty that we don't have more documentation from from that civilization that lasted for, I think in total, it lasted for 4500 years before it fell apart. And that's, that's more time than it's pretty much like the amount of time we have history like, so it's hard to understand what, what kind of connected knowledge they might have had that we don't know about

Jeremy Perkins  38:29  

well. And it's funny too, like it seems like and, and you can go down the history of the Masons, or the Freemasons and masons stuff like that. It's amazing how much conspiracy there is around masonry in general. It's where

Matt Nunn  38:47  

the most of the conspiracy lies. It really is, you know. So if

Jeremy Perkins  38:51  

you become a Mason, you get to unlock all of this, all of this knowledge.

Matt Nunn  38:56  

I've had people you're a fucking Freemason, aren't you? I'm like, No, I'm not a fucking Freemason. But, like, also, the origin of Freemasonry is just like, fucking dudes trying to get together and say they understand how the world works because they hit rocks. Like, yeah, there's nothing special about it, man. Like, I don't know if there. Maybe there is some cult following that you and I have no idea about, like, elite lizard people or something like, right? I don't know. It's above my pay grade. No. I

Jeremy Perkins  39:24  

mean, I look at, I mean, we're probably some, some Freemason be like, there's more to it than that. But, I mean, again, I think it's just a bunch of people getting together that have the same ideals and and trades, and they're probably getting having drinks after after work. It's like, we're the Freemasons now,

Matt Nunn  39:43  

yeah, we're the Freemasons. Yeah,

Jeremy Perkins  39:44  

fuck you painters. You can't come in. But yeah, no, it's, it's, it's wild, and like, stonework is just unbelievable. And do you feel like it's becoming a lost art? Do you think there's a resurgence, like, what, Where's, where's masonry going as a whole? Because it stood the test of time up until, like, the past couple 100 years?

Matt Nunn  40:13  

Yeah, yeah, even, even less, yeah, yeah. I think, I think it's definitely qualifies as the term of like a lost art. I do think it's a it's staying alive with some strength, but in a very niche area, and like a lot of us, are relegated to, what we've become is like in the natural stone world. What we've become is a luxury, more than a necessity, and it whereas our people that used to do what we do and share the same ideals and skills as I have in my friends and my fellow craftsmen in the stone natural stone world have like it used to be a necessity. We used to be part of the building blocks of a town or a civilization and one of the most respected professions throughout a lot of a lot of human history. It is now. It is now a niche. We are now considered artists, as opposed to craftsmen, like a lot of times. And I'm not, I'm not even saying that that's like the worst thing, I just, I just, I don't know if it's if that's going to change in my lifetime. Like, if, like, we don't, at least in our country, we don't live in a world where engineers and architects, because of insurance, a lot of times because of liability, they they're going to go with concrete and rebar because it's secure and it they don't have to trust in the artistry and the craftsmanship of people that are laying stone, because, like how you lay stone, each stone needs to be laid properly within, and it's all in collaboration with the stones around it. There's, so much more of a of, I don't know, I don't want to say a skill, because there's skills in all of these trades. I don't want to poo poo anyone here, but like, there's, there's just way, there's a reason that cement is what architects and engineers choose. And it's not just because, I mean, architects, if given the chance, they would choose natural stone. It's almost always better looking. Yeah, everyone would agree with that, but they choose cement because they want to keep their job and like, they don't want it's a big risk. And that's, that's

Jeremy Perkins  42:34  

a, that's a that's an interesting take, because if you follow, like, I just caught a piece. I forget what civilization, but essentially, oh, it was Egypt. The highlight of Egyptians was death, right? So, death was looked at differently, you know, two, 300 years ago to man's, you know, to the start of man and and now it's like, it's, it's, it's, people have always been dying, but it was like it happens then, and now, it's like, it can't happen now to anybody ever. And like, I don't, I don't disagree with it, but it's definitely a mind shift to where, like, you know, I'm sure seven people died while building Fort Knox. But you know what? The project must go on, like, Who gives a shit about the seven guys that died? This thing needs to be built. Yeah, and it's just, it's part of the process as a statistic. It's a built in variable, like, whatever

Matt Nunn  43:36  

used to be, honorable man, you died honorably. Fuck yeah, we're toast to you. Jeremy. Gave his blood for this, for this construction, like they did not valiantly. And we will, we will praise his memory. This isn't the way anymore, man, nowadays it's like, Who can we sue? Who's going to get sued? Like, you know, fuck you.

Jeremy Perkins  44:04  

No, I get it. And I think, I think to that point, I mean, it's, it's changed a lot of things in trades in general. I mean, not, not saying OSHA, OSHA did a lot of things for, for tradesman safety and everything like that. But, you know, it's funny, because I'll say

Matt Nunn  44:23  

it, I'll say it if you're not,

Jeremy Perkins  44:27  

but, but there's now we have safety standards for everything, and then we're probably going to get a point, get to a point where safety standards actually probably hinder us, to some point, like, it's like we can't do anything. Like, you know, Johnny got laceration and like, now he's not going to be back to work for two years. Like, I don't know, but yeah, no, it's an interesting shift in in mindset and culture, just how we've gone from from from. Push. I guess it was a more communal effort, right? Yeah, versus now, it's more of a individual standpoint. So I'm not going to die for this job. But like, you know, back then iron workers walking, I beams with no whatever, they're like, somebody's going to die. Might be me, you know, wild,

Matt Nunn  45:24  

it is wild. And that's definitely the truth is, a lot of these things, a lot of these are great things. The difference between why we don't see these amazing feats as much anymore, it's, it's because of that exact thing. It's because people used to band together and do it. And even in like, communities, they get together, like, oh, you know, it's like, the Amish man, like the Amish still do it. They're like, hey guy, we're all gonna get together and move Henry's a house, like, fucking a half mile on Saturday. And like, 80 of them will get together and, like, just, like, put some beams under it, and, like, walk and then have lunch and then walk again with this house. You imagine

Jeremy Perkins  46:03  

that nowadays,

Matt Nunn  46:07  

go knock on your neighbor's door, go knock on your neighbor's door and be like, hey, like, I'm getting I'm gonna try to get the community together to, like, move my shed. Like, they'll be like, they'll be like, I'm gonna call the cops if you don't leave. Like, that's literally their answer. And if they're nice, they'll be like, here's a here. Rent a rent some equipment. Yeah, get the fuck off my like, fucking porch. But, yeah, no, that's not the way it is anymore, man. And then that, I think that's the thing right there. Like, that's it. And which is, like, so I know you, we follow each other. I know you've seen, like, how, in my little niche of a craft, like what Instagram has done, what social media has done for us is it's brought so many of us little we are the definition of the solo, the solo dudes like, like, we all are, and it's bred over time. It had always bred this, like, that's the competition, and like, fuck what he's doing. Or, like, ah, there's like, insecurities and egos get created. And, like, there's so much that in my craft, because everyone is getting branded as the artist and the customers that have all your work so beautiful. Oh, my God, you're such an artist. Blah, blah, blah. And then obviously everyone's head gets fucking huge and and everyone's like, you know, worried about the competition or hating the competition, and it's just like it all of a sudden, we're now, not only are we just living in a world where we don't, we don't get together to do these cool things, we're now, we're now actually as artists, as crafts, and we're pushing back from that, even the chance of that and that that was something I always noticed in this, in my craft, until I got on Instagram and started putting pictures of my fucking rocks up on on there, and like, as it was, like, and then like, I started following dudes that were also throwing pictures of rocks up. And I'm like, holy shit. I love that. And like, and like, other people were like, holy shit, I love what you're doing. And then we're like, let's be friends. Let's work together. And next thing you know, like, I, as you started this podcast, like you traveling right now, like, when's you do? Because you know that I just travel, like, that's basically been my last five years. Is I'm, like, a mercenary. I go wherever I am attracted to go, like, to a job or wherever I'm asked to go. Like, when people get to sometimes I reach out. People be like, hey, I want to work with you. I like what you're doing. Like, can I come on with you for a few days or whatever? And other times it's people being like, Hey, I like what you're doing. Can you come help me out? Or can I get on yours or whatever? And like, what's happened is, over these last few years, and it really is like, like, it's the most beautiful thing that's happened was from social media that I know of, is like, it's brought so many of us together, and so many of my good friends that I have now in my life, I've are, you know, people I work with that I've met through Instagram, and that's why it's awesome. It is awesome, man. It's

Jeremy Perkins  49:04  

almost like a full circle moment. It's using today's technology to bring about a resurgence of an old way of living, right? Exactly? Yeah, you know, to that point, I've always said that, like the death of the mom and pop store or the the small business owner comes from not having the support of others that are like minded. And then, you know, obviously you see yourselves as competition, you can cannibalize each other until, obviously, big business comes in and just knocks over a small business, like, it's just easier to knock over all these individual small businesses than rather having, you know, a group of of people that that hold on to that market and band together and and really drive change and, and, I mean, it's, it's awesome. It's, it's really cool to make. Community has been one of them. I mean, everybody's an individual in their own right, but together, they make up this, like, massive wealth of knowledge, this massive, like, think tank that is just unbelievable. And they're trying new things, and they're and they're borrowing and they're selling and they're trading and they're, it's, it's crazy. And that was all brought together by Instagram, Facebook, Tiktok, like these platforms that like are just connecting people all over the place they are.

Matt Nunn  50:31  

It's, it's the the best thing that's come from it and, and you've touched on it. It's, it is kind of like coming for full circle. It's, I feel like there is a bit of, we might be at the beginning of a revolution, back towards how it always used to be, back towards doing these great things together. I've been a part of a few of them, like, I just still, in like, a week, I'm going out to out west on a big job, and it's, you know, it's a, this will be the third year in a row I've been out there on this job, and I've gotten to meet dudes from around the country that were, like, brought together for this job. And every time I go out there, we get to build pretty cool shit and and more than that, I'm getting to work with guys that are like, they come at the trade like I do, with the same passion I do, but they bring way different things to the table. So every time I get to work with these dudes, I get better. And I'm sure that's the way, with all of us. And, like, the job up in bucksport Maine, like, I got way better everyone did, and we all fed off each other's energy. So like, the days were, like, super long days, but they felt like there's nothing we'd all rather be doing in the world. And there's just this camaraderie and this collaborative energy that's just like, it's really, it's really, like, contagious and, and those are jobs where, like, there's been a max 10 of us on and I can't imagine what it would feel like to have, you know, 510, times that number on a job that like, or on any type of task, whether it was a day job or a single day or a project, like, you know, constructing a cathedral, or, which is obviously, like, a whole different world, but like, you know, or even just building a house, like, and we don't, you know, we just, I wonder if we're starting because, like, I've had my own jobs now, and I right when I signed up for this last job, I like, I could do some design that I'm very I'm very into. I think it's gonna be really beautiful. And I get to finish it, and I get to plant it and and make it, you know, green, you know, just rocks. But, you know, right away I'm like, Okay, well, I want to get some help on this. Like I want not just that, but I want to, like, I want to involve other people that I like on this. So it's like, Okay, where can I fit in, and who can I fit in into this project? And it's like, that mindset is pretty new for me as like, I've only been running my own jobs a few times the last few years. In my 20s, I ran all my own jobs, but these last few years have been a mercenary. So now that I'm running my own jobs a lot again, you know, this year and going forward, it's like all of a sudden, instead of being like, No, I'm the only one that can do it to the way I want to, and whatever it's like, not that like, that dude, that dude, that dude, all down the line. Like, what could they bring? Like, where would they fit in? How would that work together? And you're trying, it's almost like this chemistry experiment, where you're and it's amazing how each one can be different. And all of them can be good. Literally, every one of it can, all of it can be good. If you're just getting dudes that just want to be there, yeah, and I think that's, you know, and you know it, you've, you've got a bunch of employees. Like, the most important thing is, like, that they want to be there, that they're into it, that they're invested with you. Because, like, you know, then they're, if they if they are, then they're going to give it their best. And some, someone, some dude's best might be different than the others, but, like, it makes it no less valuable or more valuable. So I don't know that's something that I've enjoyed a lot. This

Jeremy Perkins  54:36  

was, this was fun, actually. This was a, this was a good podcast. I think, I think that, you know, touching on the trade, obviously key, but getting to play around with some thought and some free thinking, I think was great, but honestly, it's, I think as kids, you you play with dirt, you move rocks. I mean, I think. Most kids want to be an excavator when they grow up and stuff like that. But anybody that continues with that mindset, if they were to get in this kind of work, where could they find you? How could they reach out? What are some of the resources that they could they could tap into?

Matt Nunn  55:16  

Well, they can. They can reach out to me, on Instagram, on at margin mallet. I think the best resource, if they're in America, the best resource to reach out to is the stone trust, or the dry stone Conservancy. There. These are two organizations that are run by people a lot older and wiser than me, that will help people fast track to understanding and learning the trade without all the pitfalls that can come with it. And yeah, and I think, I think what I'd urge anyone that's that is interested, I'd urge them to to not hesitate and not and not be too nervous or worried, because there's a lot of us, anyone that they can find on Instagram, that I've talked to, every single one of us is open to to sharing what they know and to helping out anyone that's trying to get into it. So yeah, it's the stone trust is the is the first place I would start though,

Jeremy Perkins  56:19  

yeah, yeah, hell yeah. Well, Matt, thanks for being on the podcast. This was truly enlightening. Major Jeremy. I can't wait to have more conversation in the future, but definitely a great look into what you do in a day in the life and again. Thanks.