Wood-Fired Oven ~ Cement Block Base

Last week, after modifying my plan a dozen time, I was finally fully satisfied and was ready to start, at last. But I realized that I really didn't know how to put the cement blocks together; I had plenty of witten material on the subject but felt I was missing something. So I placed an add on Kijiji in the Skilled Trade section, asking for someone to come by and graciously spend a couple hours with me to show me how. The first respondant asked me what I was doing and after a few missed calls and emails, came by Friday night. He arrived at the time scheduled and with all his tools! I was glad to impress him with how ready I was with my own set of tools! A very nice man, originally from Haiti, currently out of work from a call centre but obviously well versed in building with cement blocks. We did the first 4 blocks, as I intended, and he was then on his way.

On an unrelated funny note, we're both French speaking, but I couldn't understand a word of what he was saying because his French accent is so different than mine, so we spoke English to each other!