It is time again to play catch up, so I need to finish out this year so I can ring in the new year.....I left off in August...
    In August, I developed a blood clot in my leg and I know it may seem petty in comparison to people who truly have life threatening diseases, but to myself, I saw it as an inconvienence.
    I ended up going into the hospital for observation with the help of my daughter Amy who is a nurse. I must admit there is no getting past her watchful eye and yet I am grateful for the care and concern she shows me. Well I had no idea that being in the hospital for observation was pretty much like being in solitary confinement. I'm not sure what they were observing but once I was settled in my room that was the last time I saw anyone so I'm not sure how they observe you from a distance but they did because I got all the bills to prove it..This is a new beautiful hospital built with the Green tree Healing aptmosphere. It is beautiful I will give them that but I think I could have been observed at home in the comfort of my recliner and had the same outcome.

    Anyway when I got home I was kind of mad first because I now needed to take blood thinners for an undetermined amount of time and second I could not do all the things that I still had on my summer list.

One of the items was the outdoor oven that I have wanted to build and have thought about for almost 20 years.

So in my anger I started digging.....and created the trench for the beginning of the base to the oven. Digging shouldn't hurt anything....When I finished the digging, the masonary blocks just so happened to show up and get stacked right next to where the oven would go. So I began and with my brother Greg and my son Bill, we created an outdoor oven, but because I could not be satisfied with just the oven, we created a Bar-B-Que space and a work space along with the fire pit that was already in place.
     It took the three of us just under 2 months to complete the outdoor oven and cooking space. It is amazing to have imagined this for so long and to watch it come together piece by piece until it stands before you...

 

 

 

 

 

After almost 10,000 pounds

 

of concrete, approximately 400 bricks for the dome we finally completed the structure. Now the next adventure was to start figuring out how to cook in it....We have done alot of practicing, but we are finally coming to master the process.  

     The outdoor oven is important to me because it bridges a gap between my Mom's childhood and the desire to never forget. When my Mother was a child and living in Chicago, her Mom and Dad had an outdoor oven and they used it every weekend to bake their weekly bread. Her Mom would use 25 pounds of flour and create many loaves to be used during the week. In this day and age, I do not need 7 to 10 loaves of bread during the week, but I wanted to have a small piece of our heritage remembered. It stands as a reminder of who our Grandparents were, where they came from and who we are as a generation they did not get to know. I will learn to use the oven better by the Spring when I look forward to cooking our Easter bread in it as her parents use to do. In just a small way I get to know who they were by what we have accomplished.