Fire Works

A few weekends back, we celebrated yet another Victoria Day weekend. When we lived in the city, we would walk down to the local park and watch the annual firework display. This year we decided to forgo the fusees and replace them with the chance to host our own 'fire works' throughout the summer. We built a fire pit. We created the foyer on the edge of the patio, overlooking the pond. We found lots of reclaimed brick this spring that had been previously dumped at the back of our pond, and decided they could be put to much better use.

My daughter and I laid out all of the bricks like puzzle pieces; some were still stacked two or three high with the mortar attached from their previous life. Meanwhile, my husband removed the few bricks that outlined the concrete pad we had appointed as our fire pit location. The bricks were precariously stacked on top of each other, I daresay it was the previous owners makeshift attempt at building; thankfully it appears that their building endeavours stopped there.

As we sorted out the bricks, I stumbled across several that seemed quite older than the rest. We did some rubbings of the old bricks, and discovered some were stamped TPBC. We're assuming the BC stands for Brick Company. Another brick had the name Hamilton stamped on it. Since we live in some proximity to the Hamilton area, we weren't too surprised by this find. The mason who rebricked our kitchen fireplace, last fall, told us that the brick work was a good quality brick from the now defunct Hamilton Brick Company. I've tried to dig up some historical facts of the company on the web but have been unsuccessful thus far. My husband always has been the better Internet sleuth!

With only one extra trip required to the hardware store to purchase a second bag of mortar, we completed our masterpiece in less then a day. We're quite pleased with the end result. While it is fairly square, the bricks aren't level, but I think it just adds to the charm of the old farm. I daresay, it looks rustic. So much so that my husband is certain that he'll be able to convince the next unsuspecting visitor that it predates the old farm house. He is amazingly talented at the skill of pulling a fast one on anyone, no matter how wet behind the ears they may or may not be; I won't be putting my money against him.

This weekend our son celebrated his tenth birthday with his classmates and they christened the newest addition to the old farm. They kept themselves occupied playing hide and seek in the trees and having contests with toy airplanes and all did seem successful until my husband attempted to start the fire. A fairly simple task unless you have ten boys who want to help start the fire and are all basically standing IN the fire pit. With an hour remaining before their parents would be around to collect them, I was starting to breathe a sigh of relief. We were almost done for another year! Once the fire was underway and the bag of marshmallows disappeared in less than five minutes, I began looking at my watch more frequently, especially as they tried to throw just about any plant material they could find into the fire. Before long, panic began to sink in as they started removing the ends of long logs from the fire that were glowing like red hot pokers; I didn't think I could yell that loud. However, having a group of ten year old boys marching and chanting around the fire had my husband and I both looking at each other with more than a little trepidation as we both flash backed to scenes from 'Lord of the Flies'. There was ten of them and only two of us...I quickly hid my eyeglasses.