Sometime in the night, the center of the labyrinth was visited.

This individual is sitting on the eastern bricks. He clung tight as I removed the bricks, but sometime during the day he flew away to sit above us in the trees and scream for sex.

Here we are before I got started.

These are pieces of 1-inch thick corrugated cardboard that I snagged from the Carnegie Library renovation site. I figured they’d be good to set the pieces of granite on without scratching them.

Here’s the granite removed. I marked each piece on the bottom with its position, e.g., NE, SW, etc. The pieces were not cut in accurate 90° angles, so it’s important for future generations to know where they go.

Here’s the center with the granite and the inside bricks removed.

Essentially I was digging a post hole without a post hole digger. It would not have done me much good to have such an implement; the clay was full of construction detritus. I just chipped away at it with my spades. Eventually it got too deep to remove soil with the spade. I resorted to a former citronella candle pail to scoop it out.

My goal was to dig deep enough to hit the topsoil under all the clay which had been dumped there from the excavation of our addition in 1993. It was about two feet down.

Here’s the final hole with water that I poured in for a percolation/drainage test. It drains just fine.

The bowl seated atop the hole. I traced around it and began to carve out a bed for it.

The bowl in situ.

I measured the depth of the hole to the bottom of the bowl. Then I cut a piece of 6″ PVC pipe. Anyone need six feet of PVC pipe? Here’s the drainpipe in place. Then it was time to go find some large gravel, which I did at Mulch and More out on Hwy 34.

Here’s the “river rock mix” filling the hole. I thought about just filling the outside part with the dirt and leaving the drain empty, but then I thought that future generations might find it easier to remove the pipe if it wasn’t lodged in silt and clay. To that end, I drilled holes to attach rope to the top of the pipe. (You can see my written instructions to future generations inside the pipe.) Also, I figured mosquitos might find a pool of water too attractive, but they probably wouldn’t bother going down under the rocks.

So I got maudlin. Sue me.

And here we have the Problem: the north and west channels in the bowl do not line up with the bricks. Since the granite is not cut accurately, the channels are non-negotiable. I will have to find a way to cut into the bowl for those two areas.

And here’s where we left the thing on Saturday afternoon.

Here is my poor labyrinth yesterday as I watered it. Notice how absolutely brown it is. All the grass has died, save a few poor blades in small pockets. I shall have to reseed in a couple of weeks.

Here is the bottom of the omphalic bowl, patched. It’s going to be forever out of sight, so I don’t have to clean it up.

Here are the epoxied cracks, all gold leafed. It’s actually kind of nice. I may come back in on the little white spots and gold leaf them as well. Sort of a night sky there in the center of my labyrinth. Up close and personal, there are plenty of bare spots, but as long as you’re not really paying attention, it’s lovely enough, especially in the dark and under water.

And here is where it is going tomorrow, if I’m lucky. It turns out to be a good thing that the grass has died; now I don’t have to feel any qualms about turning the center into a construction zone. It’s not as if it’s going to destroy anything of permanent growth.

Busy, busy, busy.

Yesterday, I started building a new work table for the back yard, based on old farm kitchen tables that I’d seen at antique places. Simple, sturdy construction. I would have finished it yesterday but I ran out of screws halfway through putting the top on.

Not to worry: ran out to Home Depot this morning, picked up some super cool weather-proof screws and actually replaced those I put in yesterday, then finished the table. Here it is in situ, waiting to start its first project:

It’s rather clean looking, if I do say so myself.

First project: patching the omphalic bowl. You see the bowl on the table. You also see a small piece of plywood and a pane of glass.

The idea was that I would put alumnium foil on the bottom of the bowl to keep the epoxy from running all the way through and out the bottom. The problem is that the bottom of the bowl is not flat, but concave.

Solution? A pile of sand on the plywood:

That way, the foil will be pressed up against the bottom of the bowl. That too is why I had the piece of plywood there.

Here are my tools assembled:

The two cans of JC-11 marine epoxy component; plastic spoons for scooping equal portions of the epoxy; spreaders for mixing and spreading the goop; a pane of glass for the mixing. Just at the edge of the photo is a can of denatured alcohol for cleaning.

Here’s the bowl half patched, or rather, completely patched and half cleaned. I was a little concerned when the whole bottom of the bowl looked like the goopy mess on the right. But I began wiping with paper towels soaked in denatured alcohol, and eventually I ended up with:

This is only the first application of epoxy. It will cure overnight, and tomorrow afternoon I will apply a second coat.

I am thinking that I could gold leaf the epoxy: a gleaming hieroglyphic swirling around a dark pool, flowing like lava out through the center of the universe.