I was out walking the labyrinth one night last week, concentrating on the classical element Earth, hoping for some insight into making the percussion piece more true, and what I ended up with was a flash of clarity about the northpoint.  After all these years, I knew what it should look like.

Here’s a shot of what it kind of looked like:

Except for the addition of a large square stone at the top, by the path, that was it.  Not very interesting and not very inspiring.

So this morning I dropped the cat off at the vet and headed over to Mulch and More, where I picked up the following:

I overbought, but that’s OK.  I have another project in mind for which I can use them.  It’s fieldstone, by the way.  (Also by the way, I took today off because I had to meet with the lawyer to probate my mother’s will.)

This took a lot less time than I thought it would, so much so that I barely have any documentation of the process.  To wit, I stripped away the existing stones:

I dug a hole, leveled it, and laid out the base:

I built the little towery thing (and yes, you have another image in your mind, or will…):

Notice the stones lying in the bottom.  More about that later.  After that, it went so quickly that I didn’t get any more photos until it was done:

And from a more head-on angle:

It’s pretty interesting, I think.  It makes a very good impression from the path looking down, but it didn’t photograph well.  I will be anxious to see how the bank of dirt holds out against the rain this weekend.  And I’m ready for the peacock fern to cover it immediately.

So what do you think?  Should I leave the bottom of the structure just plain dirt?  It would make it easier to maintain in many ways—just scrape the leaves out or spray it with Round-Up.  The other option is to fill it with the stones I stripped from the old structure.  I may play with that to see how it works.

UPDATE: After a lovely evening out by the fire last night, I can report that it functions quite beautifully with a plain dirt floor.  It is now raining heavily; I do wonder what it will look like by Sunday morning.