Spring has sprung....

It's been a while....

Since my last post, winter did finally arrive at Camp Muncie. And when it did, it stayed. And stayed. And stayed. Come to think of it, between the beginning of January and the beginning of March, there wasn't a single warm spell. Not a one. Add to that a 12-inch snow, followed by another 4 or 5 inches, and another couple inches here and a couple inches there, and there was no way for me to do the walk-through of my what will eventually become the new bed that I've been plotting for the past several months.

And wouldn't you know it, now there's six inches of water standing in the back yard, courtesy of the flooding rain we had a week and a half ago. But hey...six inches is actually progress; this time last week, the water was three feet deep and I was kayaking through our eight-cottage enclave.

Hopefully, this time next week the water will be gone and the yard dry enough for me to get back there, take my measurements, and get ready to dig. In the meantime, I got the side garden weeded and mulched, and have made a date with myself to re-do parts of our cobblestone walkway once school's out. I had toyed with the idea of picking up some paving bricks at Lowes or Menards, but have (wisely) nixed that idea in favor of some good old fashioned scavenger hunting for the old stuff. Roughly 50 circa-1900 bricks, to be exact. Some of the bricks that we've found here and there along the river have the name of some foundry in Brazil -- Brazil, Indiana, that is.

I would love to know what kinds of "lives" those bricks have led in the years between their birth in Brazil and their current forlorn existence in scattered, abandoned piles throughout the woods next to the river. I know that there were once several other cottages in the immediate area that, one by one, have been torn down over the years -- and based on my own house's brick foundation, I can reasonably guess that at least some of these bricks came from those old cottages. But somehow, I don't think that explains all of these bricks.

For any of you reading this...is there any way to track down the history of a single brick, or a group of bricks? I'm dying to know....