The 2021 Summer Vacation

 

Cement, with river rock to the right. Dirty cement, with caked dirt to the right of the door, where the slab was originally laid unevenly, where any amount of water pooled, holding dirt. 

River rock covered the soil by the chimney, wrapped around the corner, and stretched aaalll the way to the brick patio off our bedroom door. 

A tree to the left, out of sight at the moment, decided to take matters into its own -- branches and roots, and lifted the slab on that side this past winter, cracking it in two places. I had two choices: get rid of the tree and hope that the roots would rot and subside, or re-do the patio. Oh, on this patio, along with Eperis, Alex's dog, is that tree's shadow. 

Shadow. Tree. Tree wins.

I had a contractor come in and remove the Most Ogly Cement. We removed the river rock, pretty much stone by stone. (In a really astonishing coincidence, our next door neighbor on the other side of that fence, was xeriscaping their back yard to conserve water and to correct a drainage problem they had with the slope of their lawn. And they wanted -- river rock!) When we would take a break from picking rock, we used that outdoor carpet, and the patio chairs to keep us out of the dusty dirt. It was a mess, but Kermit loved the dirt, and the hours of following us around outside. That's his chewing stick on the carpet.

When I thought of what I wanted the patio to look like, I knew I wouldn't be happy unless it was brick, to tie into the brick patio outside our bedroom. I could see it in my mind, could imagine the feeling of it under my feet. So we went around to find brick we could integrate into the older patio. One place was charging two dollars a brick, and that was the low end of their products. Lowe's clay brick was the worst quality I've ever seen, scratchy and uneven. To my disgust, Home Depot had common clay brick of good quality, and in the store, after I put my hand on the brick, my hand tingled for an hour. It was The Brick.

With the arrival of three pallets of brick, we began, weaving the new brick into the same pattern of the dusty older brick. Naturally, the newer brick was not as thick or as wide as the older stuff, which had come from Orchard Supply Hardware (a now-defunct chain of stores.)

The little garden scooter was my platform, a drywall taping tool my earth mover. A bucket of sand followed me as I wet the soil with a mist of water, leveled, set a brick. The herringbone pattern anchors the bricks in place without any kind of mortar, but the nature of that pattern is such that you have to weave it one row at a time, back and forth. I set bricks, Bernie hauled them from the driveway in front of the house on a dolly, and when I would come to an edge, he custom-cut the bricks to shape with a masonry blade on his saw.

Slowly we came around the curve. A milestone, when there was enough patio built that Bernie could move his camp stove out of its temporary storage and back into service. 

Plum season arrived, and our little tree out-did itself again. We would work in the cooler mornings from 8am until taking a break at 9:30, drink a pint of cool water, then work again until 11, and after a shower and a rest, take plums around to the neighbors.

You know, the first day of brick-work, I thought I was gonna die. How the hell am I going to do this? But by the third day, I felt -- fine. Tired, but fine. And waking each morning eager to feel the richness, the organic harmony of the clay in my hands again. 

Like a wave of red, the pattern crept forward. Another milestone: now we could step out of the kitchen and get to the pool without putting our feet on dirt. The shadow of the big tree looked beautiful on the bricks, exactly as I had imagined it would.

Not long after this picture was taken, Alex insisted that I teach her how to work the bricks' pattern. You could say that she wanted to help out her old mother, but I think she was just jealous of the scope and beauty of the project. And of that endorphin rush you can feel when a brick slides into place with a shimmery clink and is level in all directions. Nothing like it.

 

Nearly there, and this was what I had in mind when I looked at that ugly concrete and knew we had to address the drainage issue.

And of course, it would make too much sense for a clay brick to be exactly half as wide as it is long. If that were the case, the herringbone pattern would be the standard for all ground brickwork, and the mortar industry would be out of luck. Instead, the bricks are about 3/8 of an inch longer than the width of two bricks side by side. That's where a top coat of sand comes in, to fill in those irregular gaps.

Today, it was done, except for the custom cuts Bernie can take his time about doing, in the cool mornings, after his morning coffee. I don't think I'll take on an art project of this magnitude again in my life, but I must admit that I loved it. Alex finished up the hard-to-reach corner this morning.

This afternoon, Bernie asked me if I am going to miss setting bricks. My answer, "More than is rational."  

And now you know why I've been slacking on emails since the end of May.