If you have ever been out to our little homestead, you know that after we tour about and visit the animals, often we stop and sit at the firepit!  It’s the best place on the homestead to just sit and watch all the animals, sit a spell, visit and talk.  We love it.  There is always a lovely breeze and it’s shady and nice.

Well, over the years, our blocks that made up the pit have just deteriorated.  Of course, we found all the blocks in the way back of the property in an old burn pit, so they were old and already in rough shape.  A lot were cracked in two, and crumbling.  We knew their days were numbered!  But they lasted a good 4 years so we can not complain.

We recently got 28 more blocks to redo the pit!  We had a plan…  basically a circle, but with a little outset area for grilling.  And area that we could drag some nice hot coals into and cook without burning the hair off our arms and eyebrows from the fire pit!  And with cousin Wesley and Uncle Mark visiting, we thought it was time to finish it up!

First we raked up the area all nice and tidy.  And then the great minds of the place got to work, moving and planning and placing and debating.  It was a little bit of a work of art, that is for sure.

Buttercup gave her Goatie Girl sign of approval after a good sniff over!

Dragging all the blocks from the van was tough work!  They are heavy!  Maggie and Wes moved nearly all of them in about 6 sled loads!

To finish the look, we got a few bags of river rocks to lay around the outside of the pit.  They look gray right now, but they are various shades of pretty!  They just need a good wash down.

This is our little grilling area!  We had an old grill and a couple of these heavy cast iron plates that we dug up somewhere on the farm.  Our hope is that they will heat up and help to keep a little extra hot in the area and protect the blocks a wee bit.  I suspect that we can remove the two little half broken pieces…  we thought at first we needed them but now we don’t.  We got a couple cap stones to just make it look nice and hold the grill in place.  It’s just about done!   (We need a couple more bags of rocks!  Will get those on Monday in town…)

Later on Tuesday night, we had friends over and we christened the new pit!  It was so nice!   We love having the top row of blocks with the holes facing out…  it makes for a nice top and then also it’s so creepy to have the light peek out and through into the yard.  Almost looks like the Roman Colosseum! 

All in all, we are so happy with it’s design and outcome!  We cooked some hot dogs over the grill area and it was so nice.  And some marshmallows as well for smores later that evening!  I think we will get many good years out of this new fire pit.  With brand new blocks, I would expect at least another good 5 years.  Maybe even more!