New fire pit - Part 1 of 2

Over the past few days, I've been working on digging out a new burn pit and filling in our old one. The old one was there when we moved in and was a 20' or so oval in the center of our back yard. It was huge and ugly and I would have filled it in a long time ago, but my husband and I couldn't agree on where the new burn area should be. I wanted it out of the way in a corner of the yard; he wanted it somewhere where there were no overhanging trees and it could be seen from the house - basically, exactly where it was. So, I'm filling in the western half of it and digging out a 10' circle in the eastern half. It will be slightly less in the way and the whole circle can be seen from the house. I'm happy with the exercise it has provided, but increasingly annoyed with the people that used to live here.

When we moved in, there was a pile of chicken wire in one corner of the yard, an engine block against the back fence, and random cinder blocks pretty much everywhere, along with other random trash and small car parts. I assumed once that was cleaned up, I'd be done with other people's trash. Then we decided to expand the garden a few years ago and I dug up another engine block, nails, broken dishes, carpet and fabric scraps, and MORE random car parts! The dirt was so littered with garbage that we decided maybe we shouldn't expand the garden. I spent days sifting through the dirt pulling out all the trash I could, but the pile seemed endless, and I wasn't about to grow vegetables in all that crap. So, now I'm digging out our burn pit, which is good 50 ft from the trash heap that was supposed to become a garden, and what do I find? Well, so far I've found LOTS of beer cans, bottles, car parts, metal pipes and rods, broken glass, pieces of a lawn chair, sandals, a badminton racket, cinder block pieces, toys, a mostly burned counter top, and a bicycle - yes, a bicycle.

So again, I am sorting through the dirt trying to get all of the junk out, and already knowing that's not going to happen. So instead we will be buying a truckload or two of dirt to dump on top of it all so at least I wont have to worry about my kids cutting themselves on broken glass and metal poking up through the grass.

I'd like to line the edges of the new burn pit with something to keep the surrounding dirt from falling in and to make it look more intentional than just a hole in the ground. Ideally, I'd like to do patio bricks (the tall slightly rounded ones), but for this size of project, that would get pretty expensive. I haven't decided exactly what I'm going to use, but I'm thinking of checking craigslist for free broken concrete. I've seen it posted quite a few times and I think it would serve my purpose. It would be a lot more time consuming to break into appropriate sized pieces and stack than patio bricks, but I like the idea of using recycled materials and free is a good number. I'll post pictures more pictures as I get further along.