Ghosted on the Quote
Friday, March 24th, 2023 11:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snoozefestaudio43F out there this morning, and partly Sunny. I spoke to the contractor and he's gonna text me an estimate, in a while here.
--<>--
I was re-reading Cricket Season Review from September 30th, last night, and, oh my god, what a bad year it was for field recording!
Hopefully this year will go better.
I can't wait to get out there tomorrow and start dismantling the scop and cleaning things up.
I was looking at the fire pit this morning, and, with my foot, was able to dislodge a hunk of it from the ground. My grandfather used coal klinkers as bedding for the concrete!
I think it may be possible to dismantle some or most of it, so I'm gonna take a shovel to it tomorrow and see.
------------{=0=}------------
12:15AM
Well, the contractor never texted that quote!
I guess my little simple patio job was beneath him. Tomorrow I'll look up local landscapers and call the one closest to position five on the list who has a Mexican surname.
That's gonna be the guy who will take a quick one day patio job for a couple easy grand and a five star review.
But the guy who came today had a tape measure and... well, 12 foot diameter is not much!
He was suggesting 14 feet at least, with a fire pit built into the center.
I was like, "Well... I don't need a fire pit though."
Because I was picturing putting a table in the center.
But now that I've had all day to think about it, I think a built in fire pit at the center would probably be better. Cuz it's not like I'm ever gonna be cooking out or serving food!
It's gonna be sitting and bullshitting while drinking and smoking! Little side tables by the chairs would be fine!
Too bad I still have no idea what any of this will cost!
But yeah... maybe fourteen or sixteen foot diameter circle with a fire pit in the center.
------------{=0=}------------
As for the old fire pit... here's the story of that...
So, when my grandfather built it in the 1940s, it was not a pit, it was a brick and mortar box with a chimney, for some reason, and a dirt floor.
And as I said, for the base of it, he used coal klinkers as bedding. We had a gas furnace by then, but it had been predated by a coal furnace, and there were still tons of klinkers around.
Apparently that was a good call, because while the entire thing fell apart, the base remained in tact.
And then in the early 1990s, I dug out the dirt inside the square of the base and lined my new square hole with new bricks and mortar to make an actual fire pit.
But we only got to use it a few times, because Dad was always paranoid that it was gonna set the trees or the yard on fire.
So it just sat there and, over the years, filled up with leaves and debris.
But I must've built my pit pretty soundly because to the modern day, nothing has ever grown in that debris inside it! For the most part, it's not even broken down into humus.
I guess, because worms and other underground bugs cant get in there, and... nothing could establish any roots in there anyway? I dunno for sure.
But that base has always had these jagged peaks and spikes of old mortar and concrete sticking up, so... it's been impossible to mow over the edge of it.
And thus, it always grows tall grass and weeds around the edges and looks like total garbarge!
It's like... a crappy ruin filled with dead leaves on the inside and surrounded by weeds on the edges. A total eyesore!
So... because I don't want to excavate the brick lining of the pit, and it won't let anything grow in that spot... the goal is to break up the shitty base, and replace it with bricks that can be mowed over.
Then I just fill the inside with gravel, sand, and a bunch of decorative rocks.
°¦}
https://soundcloud.com/snoozefestaudio
I was re-reading Cricket Season Review from September 30th, last night, and, oh my god, what a bad year it was for field recording!
Hopefully this year will go better.
I can't wait to get out there tomorrow and start dismantling the scop and cleaning things up.
I was looking at the fire pit this morning, and, with my foot, was able to dislodge a hunk of it from the ground. My grandfather used coal klinkers as bedding for the concrete!
I think it may be possible to dismantle some or most of it, so I'm gonna take a shovel to it tomorrow and see.
Well, the contractor never texted that quote!
I guess my little simple patio job was beneath him. Tomorrow I'll look up local landscapers and call the one closest to position five on the list who has a Mexican surname.
That's gonna be the guy who will take a quick one day patio job for a couple easy grand and a five star review.
But the guy who came today had a tape measure and... well, 12 foot diameter is not much!
He was suggesting 14 feet at least, with a fire pit built into the center.
I was like, "Well... I don't need a fire pit though."
Because I was picturing putting a table in the center.
But now that I've had all day to think about it, I think a built in fire pit at the center would probably be better. Cuz it's not like I'm ever gonna be cooking out or serving food!
It's gonna be sitting and bullshitting while drinking and smoking! Little side tables by the chairs would be fine!
Too bad I still have no idea what any of this will cost!
But yeah... maybe fourteen or sixteen foot diameter circle with a fire pit in the center.
As for the old fire pit... here's the story of that...
So, when my grandfather built it in the 1940s, it was not a pit, it was a brick and mortar box with a chimney, for some reason, and a dirt floor.
And as I said, for the base of it, he used coal klinkers as bedding. We had a gas furnace by then, but it had been predated by a coal furnace, and there were still tons of klinkers around.
Apparently that was a good call, because while the entire thing fell apart, the base remained in tact.
And then in the early 1990s, I dug out the dirt inside the square of the base and lined my new square hole with new bricks and mortar to make an actual fire pit.
But we only got to use it a few times, because Dad was always paranoid that it was gonna set the trees or the yard on fire.
So it just sat there and, over the years, filled up with leaves and debris.
But I must've built my pit pretty soundly because to the modern day, nothing has ever grown in that debris inside it! For the most part, it's not even broken down into humus.
I guess, because worms and other underground bugs cant get in there, and... nothing could establish any roots in there anyway? I dunno for sure.
But that base has always had these jagged peaks and spikes of old mortar and concrete sticking up, so... it's been impossible to mow over the edge of it.
And thus, it always grows tall grass and weeds around the edges and looks like total garbarge!
It's like... a crappy ruin filled with dead leaves on the inside and surrounded by weeds on the edges. A total eyesore!
So... because I don't want to excavate the brick lining of the pit, and it won't let anything grow in that spot... the goal is to break up the shitty base, and replace it with bricks that can be mowed over.
Then I just fill the inside with gravel, sand, and a bunch of decorative rocks.
°¦}
