How deep should you dig your fire pit?

Colleagues,
 
Instead of traveling to England for a Grand Adventure hiking the Pennine Way, my wife and I “decided” to stay home and tackle a bunch of home projects. One of them was redoing our firepit. Our first one, dug hurriedly 15 years ago, was simply a clean out of the one that had been built by the previous owners. It was basically a depression in the ground with a ring of stones.
 
The old firepit had become a mountain of ash. We also needed to move it to make way for a greenhouse. Although we don’t have hotdog roasts with the kids anymore, we do live in a rural area and frequently burn fallen limbs and other garden debris.
 
So, we decided that we wanted to build this firepit the “right” way, which in our case meant digging a foot down through the clay and rocks, and then lining the bottom with flat stones. As I was chipping out the last few inches of rock and clay, I wondered why we were going to all of the trouble.
 
There is no doubt the old firepit wasn’t serviceable any longer, but we should have asked ourselves a couple of questions before we began:

1. What purpose do we need it to serve?
2. What is the value it will provide?
3. What else could we do with the time and resources it would take?

 
In our case, it worked out well and the time and energy were worth the results. However, we should have asked those questions first.
 
Are you planning to make any changes in your organization this year? Maybe you should ask yourself those same questions before you pick up the shovel.
 
Do good and be well,
 
Frederick