Daily Archives: August 20, 2012

New sidewalk from very old brick

This old house is at least 130 years old that we know of and, we think, about 30 years older.  The front half is log, yeah, the REAL old logs, and we think it was part of an original land grant in these parts. 

Even though we’ve lived here for over 25 years, we are always uncovering surprises.  This summer, my son who was home from college, decided to replace the brick sidewalk we had in front.  (All without any prompting from mom.  Thank you, Ben!)  A few years back we had the old metal roofs replaced (subject for another post).  In the process, it was more expedient to take off the old chimneys which were no longer used.  That pile of bricks was behind my studio.  So…my son took it upon himself to clean off all the century-old grout from the bricks.  Upon examining them closely, we realized that they were all handmade.  And if we looked really closely, we could even see the fingerprints of the maker.  That person is long gone but his legacy lives on. 

This is why I often feel the history of the old place.  Many times we get caught up in our own little immediate problems but they don’t seem so big when put in the perspective of looking back over a 150 years of births, deaths, droughts, storms, wars, and all manner of other “immediate” problems.  Makes ya think, doesn’t it?