Sunday, April 25, 2010

Accomplishment

The field that runs alongside our gravel road is mainly used to intermittently house horses and, on weekends, people who come and ride them for the day.

Last week, someone came along and dumped a truckload of construction rubble at the end of it that the horses don't really use. We wondered if accepting construction debris might be another way for the owner to make money from the property, and then Bob noticed that the debris seemed to contain a fair number of bricks.

Our front, umm, area is tiled where the car goes, poured cement leading up to the door, and semi-cemented/semi-hard-packed-dirt in the remaining wedge-shaped space, backed by an untreated cinder block wall. Yeah, it's about as attractive as it sounds.

We'd like to fix it up a little, but there's no real danger of anything actually growing there, since the dirt is so packed and part of it is actually concrete anyway, and all our "it really belongs outside" stuff ends up leaning up against the wall.

I thought if we could loosen the soil just a bit along the bottom of the wall (and find another spot for all the junk), maybe we could get some sort of climbing vine to go up the wall at least. And when Bob saw the bricks, he suggested asking for some of them and stacking a couple of rows up to maybe hold in some additional dirt, in which perhaps something might one day grow.

I asked about the bricks yesterday, and the guy said he'd actually brought them to "load" the horses. Not sure if that means he's going to train them to carry loads, or build something up which they might walk when loaded into the trucks, or ... well, anything really.

But he also said we could take some, and when I got home from dropping Bob off this morning (he has to leave the country every 90 days to renew his tourist visa), the same guy waved me over and said he'd pulled some bricks aside, and that I should leave those and pick what I wanted from the rest.

So that's what I did, using a couple of the cat litter buckets and making ... well, I didn't count at the time, but about nine two-bucket trips based on the number of bricks. They're homemade adobe bricks, clearly from an old house that was demolished, and a decent number of them were relatively whole.

I found a little chunk of broken cinder block with which to knock bits of mortar off the bricks, and now we have a pretty little dry-stacked wall into which we may eventually place some dirt:




The whole thing probably took an hour and a half or two. Then when I was done the kitty got up from her nap, strolled over to the door and said, "Dayum. How long was I asleep?"


And then she said, "Okay. Nuffa dat."


The end.

8 comments:

Dad April 25, 2010 4:03 PM  

NICE!!

So. You carried all of those bricks by yourself in around two hours? Are you still walking? Backache set in yet? Anyway, I'M impressed!

I like your idea of a climbing vine. Or vines. Eventually you might be able to train several to sort of cover the wall. Or maybe you could paint the wall some neutral earth-tone color. Or both.

Of course there's the issue of where you'll hang the parrot's cage during her outdoor hours.

Jennifer April 25, 2010 4:09 PM  

I feel okay. I'll probably be kind of sore tomorrow.

And yes, I figure if the vine thing does seem like it's going to work, it'd make sense to put a bunch of them across the back there.

Earth tone sounds nice for the wall - we have to be careful with it because any color it is painted will have a major effect on the feel of the living room, since most of the light in here bounces off that wall.

As for the parrot, we can always hang a hook from the garage rafter or put a nail in someplace more accessible.

lisahgolden April 25, 2010 4:28 PM  

I'm really impressed, too! It looks great. Those bricks are really beautiful.

Gine April 25, 2010 4:45 PM  

Lovely bricks. Lovely work.
G

Dr. Monkey Von Monkerstein April 25, 2010 6:10 PM  

Well done.

splord April 25, 2010 6:40 PM  

Not vines.....


OKRA!!!!!!

Steve April 26, 2010 4:16 PM  

for some reason i thought they would be yellow bricks.....

The Cunning Runt April 26, 2010 8:42 PM  

If it gets enough sunlight to illuminate the LR, I'd be tempted to go with sunflowers and veggies.

But that's just me! ;)

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