Laying That First Layer of Brick

The first brick goes in on top of the still soft footing and is leveled with a plumb bob.
The last brick in the row goes next with a piece of steel coming up through the hole.
After carefully plumbing it...
the centers holes are filled with cement.

When the footing is poured Abigale tamps it with a stick. The stick has nails in it that are spaced as far apart as the height of a brick plus mortar. The blue string in the picture above is the height of the top of the wall. One of these nails must come exactly to the height of the string. That way Abigale knows that when the bricks are stacked that they will come to the exact height that they need to be. It is not very scientific but it works! and they have operated that way for thousands of years. Change does not come easily here - no laser levels for these guys. who needs em, they would just go missing anyway. A stick with nails is nothing anybody would steal. When you have a system that works - why change?