Mud Oven Diary….my sand quarry

I had stuff to do until around 2 today and by the afternoon it  was too stinkin hot to lay bricks. Translation : I don’t want to fiddle with hot brick, re-tempering mud and all that jazz in the heat today. 91* in late September?….what the heck!!!!  Tomorrow and Monday are going to be cooler so I’ll start then.  I wouldn’t be able to lay a brick without sand anyway. So, now I have to go buy some right? Wrong!

Two of my primary goals on this build are to buy as little as possible and to use what I have. The soil here is very sandy, with pure sand only about a foot under that. I hear my Dad’s voice in my head, ” There is nothing but builders sand under there”.  So I had an idea….start digging.  I dug a small test hole which removed a thin layer of organic soil and Voila! Beautiful golden sand. I set to mining from my new quarry behind my shed and set up an area to screen out the small feeder roots and occasional  pebble or stick. After a few hours work, I have a nice pile of sand to use for mortar and later to mix with the clay earth for the oven. Here is my new mining site.

This was the test hole. I found a vein of sand just below the 6″ of organic soil and started digging.

I just dug a core into the sand layer and transferred it to the wheelbarrow.

Look at this nice sand..and it’s free!

The screening area. Mason jumped right in!

The final product…cost $0.00 and some effort….well worth it.