Take that...and that!

Thursday was torture...for our test bricks, that is.

We subjected our subjects to various unpleasant tests...

no Chinese Water Torture, though--that would have been just too much!

Just needed a little information is all --didn't actually want to kill 'em.

Lucky for us, the bricks cooperated.

First up was giving the bricks a thorough once-over--being careful to pay attention to any obvious cracks or weaknesses. The bricks didn't look too bad! There were a couple of questionable spots, but Brian seemed to think those were on the bricks I made! Sheesh! I didn't know it was a stinkin' beauty pageant (of course, this coming from the guy who can spend 5 minutes smoothing out a tub of margarine)!

Anyway, next up on the torture agenda was the scratch test...!

We took nails and scratched the bricks as hard as we could. I have to say, all of our bricks held up extremely well! Hardly any crumbling, and it was almost impossible to make a groove.Nice "blue steel"...are you a model?
After that was the Twist Test. We tried to break the bricks by twisting them. I'm happy to report they didn't even budge, and as you can see, we used every ounce of our muscle power.

I think we've decided that our best bricks were made with 3 parts sand to 1 part clay, although 2:1 worked out nicely, too. Supposedly, the more sand, the stronger the wall, so I think 3:1 is going to be our Little Darling! She's one tough cookie!

What's little and green and comes out in the spring time?....

Patty O'Furniture!

We also picked up these little beauties, so now Brian and I have a place to have tea and crumpets, and smoke pipes while reading the morning paper.