In every home we have lived in, we have built an outdoor fire pit. And our homestead now is no different. We hope to remove some trees and landscape the yard surrounding the house next year. There was an overgrown unsightly clump of trees in the front yard that I hoped to take out and seed for lawn. When we started cutting into the mass of brambles and dead branches we discovered that the bed was edged with large flat stones. Well, we were very happy to discover these beauties since we had just discussed saving up for store-bought landscape stones to build a fire pit in our backyard. Here is the bed that we removed after taking the stone edge down.
After moving all the stones, we realized we had enough for two new projects. One was to build the fire pit. We like dry stacking but decided for safety we would mortar the top layer in place.
Our friends came for the celebratory first fire.
We thought we would start a new Social Media site, Feetbook!
With the remaining stones I built a perennial bed next to the carport.
This took me about four days since I was working on it alone. The fire pit took three hours with the help of a friend. But it was very rewarding to re-purpose the stones on the property and get two beautiful new rock features for the cost of just physical labor. I hope to fill the bed with Gardenia bushes, daylilies, perennials and herbs.
I used aged manure from some old raised beds that I am relocating in the gardens, then layered old coop cleanings and carrot tops that were removed from two bushels of harvested carrots. This was all layered and filled in the bed nicely.
The Girls, of course, thought that Mom made the new garden just for them to play in so they helped mix up the compost and stuff as I layered.
I love receiving plants from friends and making a Friend Garden where I can look at the lovely plants and think of the dear friend who gave it to me. I was thinking about bartering with folks who would like some of our organic asparagus crowns in exchange for a few perennial plants. If you are interested in trading, please contact us via our Facebook page.
My husband, Don, didn’t know of my plan to build a fire pit and so I surprised him when he came home. This was our first romantic fire the day I built it, just the two of us. He loves it!
What projects have you completed on your homestead by re-purposing? Share with us, we would love to see your inspirations!
Watch for our next re-purpose project when we turn an old shelter that was here when we moved in into a pig shelter for our new pigs that we will be adding to our homestead in the spring. Part of our Barnraiser Project to grow our farm.
Please consider gifting to our Barnraiser Project. In exchange for your generous gift, we are offering great rewards like asparagus crowns, seeds and 30-minute gardening consultations. Follow the link below.
