Building a sandpit
Published 1 year, 8 months ago in My life.It looked so easy on Better Homes and Gardens and the good-folk at Bunnings were full of encouraging “no-worries-mate’’ advice, but I recently discovered that building a sandpit is not for the faint-hearted.
It was ten days till my son’s fifth birthday. I had already spent $10 and 10-minutes buying a t-ball set but my wife convinced me that this was not enough.
“We should build him a sand-pit,’’ she said. (It would be difficult to use the term “we’’ more loosely.) “He would like it to be kidney shaped and dug into the ground.’’
I am not an avid gardener. We have lived in our home for about four years and I had never before taken a spade to the hallowed turf of my back yard. I did not know that a mere five centimeters below the surface, soil turns to clay. Clay, I discovered, is difficult to dig. On that first weekend my typist’s hands were torn and blistered, my scrawny frame was ?? and my none-too-even temper was frayed.
The relief of the working week passed too quickly. The second weekend was worse but at its end there was a hole. A rather large hole.
To the spatially challenged 1.6 cubic metres doesn’t sound like a lot, but when it is dumped in your driveway - a good 200m as the wheel-barrow barrows from its destination - 1.6 cubic metres of sand is a lot. My wife had ordered the sand in the morning of Monday, January 26 – my son’s birthday – then gone to work. I was to leave work early, pick up my son from kinder, put my daughter to bed, and transfer the sand to the sand pit.
Incidentally, a large pile of sand in the driveway is a magnet to neighbourhood children and after carting13 barrow loads, still with a pile the size of a small island to shovel and haul, the temptation to swat one of them with a lazily swung spade is almost overwhelming.
When at last the hole was full and both my children were playing merrily in the sand I had a moment of weary satisfaction. Then my son paused mid-dig and looked at me with narrowed eyes: “this isn’t all I get for my birthday is it dad?’’
I gave him the t-ball set.
When his grandmother arrived for his birthday dinner my son ran to greet her at the gate, grabbed her by the hand and hauled her into the backyard to look at his birthday present.
“Look Grandma,’’ he said. “T-ball.’’
8 Responses to “Building a sandpit”
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They may not express it as such but the neighbourhood cats will love you all the more.
Your warning comes too late, I’m afraid. I have an empty sandpit at the very back of our deep block while we wait for a delivery of sand to be dumped at the front of same long block. I can feel the blisters and aching back already. Son’s third birthday present.
Way ahead of ya drfell. Have a ready-made cover to keep said cats away. So far so good, but thanks for the best wishes.
Good luck sol.
Great, so not only do I have to worry about getting the sand in the pit, now I have to worry about keeping the neighbourhood moggies and their foul doings out of it. I’m beginning to think this was a poorly thought through addition to our backyard.
A few days ago I said to my partner ” You know the kids would love a sand pit!” …..
I’ve got some great advice for you all. Have some one riding shotgun to pop off the moggies as they encroach into your territory, after a few days they will get the hint.
As for building a sand pit… get a backhoe, kanga or baby digger they do the job in no time, are fun to drive and are great to terrorise the local moggies tooo…
COCO!
ps WOOF
I’ll have to stop the Missus reading Nook .. guess what I’ve got to do today!
Take heart! Sandpits are THE BEST thing! My kids still (at 11 and 9 and 9) play in any sandpit they can find. Tons of real life, open ended, learning opportunities in sand. Don’t tell the kids that, though. Best of all, Gran brought us the occasional shell from the beach.
Get plenty of fun sand toys (mostly buckets), a good cover, and keep that sandpit going until everyone is in high school!