Fire-pits & Giggles

I have been messing with these old Butler bricks for quite some time…as you do.

I have salvaged them wherever I could…stacking them here, stacking them there,

ancient monuments to remind me of an uncompleted project.

The first crop circle I built with them had a few seats around it and was occasionally used as an unusually painful campground when my kids were smaller.

 

When I decided to expand on the area, and with the removal of my stock-tank fish pond, it became clear I would have to take the bricks back up and start from scratch with a new center point.

More bricks were salvaged during our recent remodel and the removal of this brick patio.

 

I did lose a few Butlers to concrete and broken corners.

I decided to go with an in-ground fire-pit this time round.

This works out great as we now use it as a fire-pit in the cold months and a table straddles the pit in the summer.

The crack in between the bricks is like crack for the weeds, apparently. They grow as fast as I pull them.

Only another two more rings of bricks to go…of course it isn’t finished.

I keep getting distracted by things like this:

Ugh, and this:

I mean, what manner of nonsense is really going on on this branch?

 

These two old rosemary bushes, although healthy in this picture, had developed a lot of dead and brown growth at their bases.

And here they are after I attacked them with the Fiskars.

Wizened rosemary bonsai trees!

With the long hot summer drawing to an end and with minimal precipitation this Fatsia Japonica…well,

lets just say it has looked better.

Some of this summer stars have been the Mexican Honeysuckle,

Lonicera japonica

 

knockout roses and ‘hardy red’ oleander.

Burgundy Canna remains cool in the heat and it has been a bumper year for the Pride of Barbados.

These plants can take the excruciating and prolonged summer temperatures,

myself on the other hand…

even Kumo looked a little peeky after spending an afternoon outside.

On that note I will leave you with a modern design I worked on for a new build near Mopac in Austin.

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