Mundane but necessary

I'm seriously big on recycle, reuse, and re-purpose. Just a bit, I confess, to the point where it would be safe to accuse me of a mild brand of insanity. My latest project involves bricks. Naturally I scrounge from any source that is free, which is surprisingly not that hard to find. But as we know, there is really nothing free, and brick is no exception. It's often covered in the mortar that needs to be removed before the brick can be used. This is a messy, dusty, hard job, but it has paid off. To give you an idea:

And here's all the dust from said bricks:

Now if you are curious why I need all this brick, it's to border the 3 mile long strip that runs along the street. OK - it's not really 3 miles - it just feels that way. This gives you an idea:

 

And of course you want to know WHY this needs to be done at all (other than it looks neat). It's all about water. We seriously cannot afford one drop of waste during this drought. To keep the water where it belongs and not spreading across the sidewalk, we needed a barrier. Hence the border of tree limbs and brick and whatever else I can recycle to not only make it look somewhat presentable, but eco-friendly as well. Depending on area and the number of bricks, logs or whatever, not to mention the amount of patience I have on any given day, I either go for fancy (on the right), or quick and plain. Saw-tooth borders are my favorite, but they take up so many bricks so quickly, I can only do small areas.

And to those of you who have sussed out that I'm using this never-ending project as an excuse to put off doing my mosaic wall -- well done.