(fire crackles) - People like the sound and the smell of a real fire.

The light, I don't know, people are just sort of drawn to fire I think, maybe biologically?

It's the whole camaraderie.

The having family and friends gathering around.

(upbeat music) This is a business that I started on accident.

I wanted to make an earth type fire pit for my sister for her birthday.

She needed a new fire pit.

So we decided to make three fire pits.

And as we were doing that, people just started pulling up in the driveway saying they wanted the next one.

After we made a few that way we started kind of going to a few trade shows.

And then people would say, "Yeah that's cool, but could you make something with horses?

Or could you make something with..?"

And it just grew.

- I think that it's something really cool that there's not a lot of in this area.

So having something around here that is unique, tells that story, is something that I think should be popular in this area.

I help with the initial deciding what should go where, and then the fine tuning of how big something should be.

(upbeat music) - She does have great ideas and she she'll help say you know, no do it this way, or do it that way.

We had a customer that wanted the most unusual things.

She wanted unicorns in a night sky, a skull, butterflies, and mermaids.

How do you combine those things, right?

The concept was totally Melissa's.

We made skull pillars with the butterflies feeding on them and then a night sky on one side and day sky on the other, it was amazing.

(upbeat music) Initially, we had a pretty limited supply of standard designs.

Now we maybe have 20 different designs that we have on our Etsy site and on our website.

Even still, like someone wanted our wildfire pit with deer and whatnot.

He said, you know, "I fish a lot.

So could you put a sailfish on it and a marlin on it?"

People, a lot of people want 'em more customized.

They have their own ideas.

So we'll, we'll do either.

And I really, I love customized work.

I love doing brand new designs.

Typically our fire pits are wood burning.

We make them to burn wood.

So you would put a bunch of wood in it and light it and burn it.

And the thing about the ball shape is it burns really hot and really clean.

So you would probably never have to clean it out.

And the ball itself holds a lot of radiant heat.

So it's just better for heat.

We also do insert gas burners into them.

We either have the design or will come up with design.

A lot of them, I just completely draw by hand.

People sort of want the same thing.

They, they want to know what they're getting.

So we have stencils for something like a deer or an eagle.

And so then we'll just draw it out on the ball, cut it, plasma cut it.

We'll weld the ball together, weld the base on.

And then we clean it all up, grind it.

We clean it and get rid of all the slag.

And then we'll, because a ball won't stay shiny looking.

It will rust eventually when you have a fire in it.

So we rust them ahead of time, ahead of shipping 'em.

Then we just wrap 'em up and ship 'em out.

We buy all American-made steel and we buy the product new now.

We used to do a lot more repurposing and recycling but now it's almost all new and we can buy balls in hemispheres.

Or we can buy them in segments, pieces as many as 14.

And we have to weld them together and form a ball that way.

Typically a three foot ball is about $2,000.

I think Japan will be our farthest shipment and we've shipped a few to Canada, Alaska.

We've had inquiries in Spain, Australia, London, France.

I think fate brings you full circle back to who you are.

I mean, creative people just have to do creative things.

A lot of days, I hate that we can't eat.

(laughing) But when every day when I drive away it from this place and I look at what I've done, I just say, man, I love this job.

It's just, it's so much fun, sort of making people's dreams become a reality for custom work like that.

- I really love seeing all the designs come together and how they kind of tell a story once they're finished.

If somebody comes with a specific design in mind you can kind of tell that it's something that they brought to the table themselves, not just a standard waves design.

It has a meaning to them in some way.

Tells that story that they wanted, and they can share that story without even having to speak about it.

When you're sitting around a fire, it's kind of a nice campfire story except the ball is telling it for them.

- Funded by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4th, 2008.

And by the members of Prairie Public.