Brick is Eternal

Years ago I lived in a Portuguese neighbourhood downtown and I noticed that most of the Portuguese families we knew didn't have front lawns. They all seemed to pave their front yards in brick, and maybe, if anything, they had a little tree or some potted plants for greenery. But brick was the design of choice. 

'Please keep off the brick.'

And I wondered why that was, and I questioned my cultural beliefs about greenery and gardens and grass, and compared it to other European traditions, and my own Cdn-South American background, and I really tried to figure out what was it about the Toronto Portuguese culture that would make them think that a paved front yard was so much better than a green garden or lawn. And really I was stumped.

So, one day I was having dinner in the local Portuguese bbq chicken place, and a construction worker guy came in and sat at the bar. And when he turned his back to me, I saw the back of his t-shirt which read: 

Love Comes and Goes,

But Brick is Eternal.

And there it was! To him, it was maybe just the witty slogan of the construction company he worked for. For me, it was the answer to my investigation into the cultural form of my neighbours.

So, anyway, our new mud oven now has a brick door. It took a while to carve out the door to make the bricks fit. (Would have been much easier to do this during the initial thermal layer build.)

Five bricks on either side and three across, supported by some angle iron. It's simple; I like to think of it as "mastaba-ish" - made out of mud and brick, not exactly flat on top or rectangular, but block-ish nonetheless. And like a pyramid, this baby has pyr (fire) inside, too.

After building up the door around the brick, we finished scooping out the sand dome inside...

 

... and then got ready for the final day of insulating.