S. A. M. Bricks

We've been making bricks here near Grid Place for quite a while now. National Highway-8 is right outside our door, so it gets pretty noisy with the big trucks going past all day and night. We keep the kiln running and try to make sure we have enough stock ready when people show up with their tractors. It’s a lot of manual work, moving heavy clay and stacking the finished bricks under the hot sun. Sometimes the weather doesn't help us much, especially when it rains and everything gets muddy and slow. My hands are usually covered in red dust by the end of the shift. We aren't a big factory with fancy machines or anything, just a local spot where people come when they're building a wall or a small house nearby. We just try to get the firing right so the bricks don't crumble in your hands. It's what we do every single day. The pile grows and then it shrinks as people load up their trailers. We don't have fancy office chairs or air conditioning in a back room, just a small shed and the open ground. If you drive down the highway, you'll see the stacks of red bricks from quite a distance. We've seen a lot of changes on this road over the years, but the way we make our bricks hasn't changed much at all. It’s honest work and it keeps us busy from the morning until the sun finally goes down.