I finally got my drill press put together yesterday, and had a blast all afternoon drilling things.

My main goal was to get a little trio of lighting fixtures done. Here they are:

There’s a piece of rebar driven into the ground, and each of the paving stones has a hole drilled through its center. I have probably given myself lung cancer doing it. (I bought dust masks today.)

The white tubes are actually plastic tubes from my wide-format printer at school, i.e., the “poster printer.” It prints on 24″-wide rolls, and these are at the center. It dawned on me that a candle sitting inside one of these would light up the whole tube.

The tubes are sitting in pieces of wood, through which I have drilled enormous holes in the top half, and smaller holes in the bottoms to fit onto the rebar. The number of drill bits I have added to my collection is very impressive.

So now I have these three lights sitting in an attractive little grouping over in the ivy. I’ll test them tonight, and if they’re as lovely as I hope, I can make more.

Yesterday morning there was an enormous branch down off the pecan tree in the First Baptist parking lot. I retrieved it for firewood, but it was doing a nice zen number, so I dragged it out to the middle of the labyrinth for a while:

It is very marvelous at night, when light from the house hits it and it glows dimly white, its fractal probings of the darkness contrasting starkly with the geometry of the labyrinth paths. It reminds me of the White Tree of Minas Tirith, actually.

In the upper right of that photo, you can see what I did today for the most part: haul dirt down the driveway again and build up the northern sweep of the labyrinth. It’s a lot more level now, although you probably cannot tell from the photo. I have some dirt still left over; I may use it to shore up the northern end, or perhaps the western rim. Don’t know yet.

Also today, in the same vein as the light tubes, I built wooden holders for cans of Sterno. These will sit on the little plinths at the ends of the arms of the labyrinths and flame brightly. Until someone is scorched. I’d actually like to built the tower/columsn I’ve discussed previously, and put the flames on top of them. If I could be sure they wouldn’t be knocked against, spilling flaming Sterno on drunken and barefoot labyrintheers.