Fire in the hole

I’m sitting on the back porch, sipping coffee, surfing the Web and listening to the Hindu Love Gods album on my iPod (that’s Warren Zevon and everybody in REM except Michael Stipe).

The birds are swarming our bird feeder, including a blue jay and a bunch of red-headed woodpeckers, apparently secure in the knowledge that our dogs are no threat to them.

Austin made some serious progress yesterday digging our 6’ diameter fire pit.

The plan is to excavate a foot down overall and then another foot in the center. The center circle – about 2 feet in diameter – will be lined with gravel and sand to give rainwater a place to drain. This all adds up to a little under 30 cubic feet of dirt, or a bit more than a cubic yard, which is a fair amount of digging in this rooty clay-sand mix they call soil here on Crowley’s Ridge.

We’re using the dirt to fill holes in the yard caused by falling limbs and the large one next to the driveway where the tree service guys yanked out a big stump.

Whatever is left, we’ll dump into a trench the neighbors want filled in their yard.

It rained last night, so the pit is too sloppy for digging this morning. Maybe we can finish this afternoon.

We have several tree trunk segments about 18” to 2’ tall we can array around the circle for seating. Then we can incinerate marshmallows while the mosquitoes drain our blood on hot summer evenings.

I just noticed last night’s storm dislodged an oak tree branch that had been left dangling by January ice storm. Fortunately, it fell cleanly into the back yard and missed the chain link fence. More wood for the fire pit.