So I Built a Fire Pit

After the wretchedly long winter, when we were housebound for days at a time, I woke up one day to discover spring had sprung. I had a serious case of spring fever--it was too cold to plant flowers, but warm enough to do something to the backyard. The question was, "What?" I threw Karen, Linda, and myself into the car one Saturday, and we went to all (yes, really) the hardware stores in town, trying to decide what would cure my fever. We looked at, and tried out, many sets of yard furniture. At Menard's, we almost talked a sales guy into getting us some drinks to have on their fake patio. We looked at statues (I am a big fan of yard art, but Karen is not, so we have to "negotiate" each new piece), fountains, ponds, but nothing really caught my eye (ok--one thing did--a small fountain, and it's now out by the back step):


You have to agree, it's not too over-the-top. But I still wasn't satisfied. I consulted with Peter, who suggested a hot tub. I thought about a giant sandbox, but Linda said that would just attract giant cats...and their poo. I thought about another flower bed, but wasn't too taken with that idea. We thought about a gazebo, but that was a bit pricey. So I went out and looked at what we already had, and thought about what could be added. A hammock would be nice, but I have a birthday coming up and didn't want to take away a gift idea. Then I noticed our little "fire oven"--it was nice, but not a lot of people could sit around it. If I removed the bowl, and built a fire pit to go with it....what a great idea! First I Googled "fire pit construction", and got thousands of step-by-step instructions--it was hard to figure out which instruction would be the best. Then I had the idea of going to YouTube, to see if there was an instruction film there (you have to understand that I'm a visual person--I need to see it done....multiple times). Yay! There was--more than one!!! But this one was the best--made it look easy, and the background music was oh so soothing. I watched it over and over, took notes, took a deep breath, and dragged Karen to Menard's. She wandered through the flowers, and I headed to the rock section. I bought 51 stones, 3 bags of grey slate (not enough), and 3 bags of sand, along with concrete mix, adhesive tubes, and tools (a woman and her tools....). Karen picked out plants. Lots of colorful flowers. It took me 3 trips to haul all the stones in the trunk of my Saturn--we don't live far from Menard's, so it wasn't a hardship. Plus the guys were all really nice, and helped me load the stones, although by the third trip, all but one of the guys was "at lunch".
Each stone weighed 26 lbs., and moving them all into the back yard was a job in itself. I thought that would probably be the hardest part of the building project--shleping stones.


Oh yeah, and bags of concrete, and sand, and stone.....it gave me a feeling of power...or something like that...to move those stones into the back yard. But we did it. And, unfortunately, it was NOT the hardest part of the job. The hardest part was digging the sod out of the inside of the ring, because underneath that sod were many, many tree roots. Now, I love trees as much as the next Democrat, but this was ridiculous! Why did those trees need all those roots? And why were they out in the middle of the yard? Much too late, a friend of mine said that tree roots go out as far as the canopy of the tree does. Had I known.....and now you know, so you will have no worries when you construct your fire pit!


Anyway, I felt sort of guilty when I fought nature and won, but I was too tired to do a celebratory dance. I was really pissed off too--10 years ago, I could have built that damn fire pit in one day, and now I just couldn't physically do it all. I hate growing old. It sucks. But I was determined (ie, there was no way on earth I was going to fail) to put at least the first layer of stone in the ground on Day 1.



I mixed the concrete, and let's just say I am better at mixing ingredients in the kitchen--there's just no real reason to say, "Add water, but not too much" on a bag--that's not an instruction, that's a way to frustrate the weekend builder! It finally looked good, got poured, and this is what the pit looked like after day 1:






Karen was busy too--she planted every single annual that is in our back yard this year:






But, we must confess, she had help.





Kiki.


And Charlie.











The three of them did a great job!







Day 2 was very easy, except for the adhesive--the YouTube guys said to use only a little. I did, and the final layer is loose. Oh well, it's still safe and usable. I only had one minor scrape--did you know it hurts like the dickens when you pinch your hand between two 26 lb. stones? I do now!


Layer Two.


Work injury.








Almost finished.








Inspector came to view my work.










Thanks to the help of my favorite firefighter, I finally got a good fire going, and the fire pit was officially "christened".


My spring fever has broken, and my summer itches haven't been too bad--the perennials have been beautiful this year.




For the first time, we have iris' by the mailbox:






Clematis by the clothesline.







And new yard art!