A Jungle...

This is our jungle:

I fully believe there are tigers, monkeys, and elephants out there. Or, at least, killer grass seeds and garter snakes.

Under all of that vegetation lies a couple tons of rock. Rock carefully stacked, ready for used. Rock directly in the way of a good mowing. Rock that now must be moved AGAIN, 40 lb stone by 40 lb stone, for the FOURTH time. I'm feeling a little like Sisyphus.

THIS time, though, we aren't moving it to build a fence, or to cut tree branches. THIS time we have a plan. We are moving all of the rocks into the partially constructed flowerbed on the west side, to await further instructions. It's hot, it's heavy... but someone has to do it!

This Weekend's Projects

This weekend, we worked on sundry and miscellaneous outdoor tasks.

First, we trimmed the bushes:


I'm going to extend the stone barrier (on the left) all the way down to our garage; I'm trying to decide what to do about the gaps between the bushes. (You can't see the additional 3 bushes to the right of the picture, but they continue the line down to the garage). I'm thinking of putting up some fencing of some sort (picket or wrought iron... whatever I can find for free) just between the bushes (to continue the line), and then planting flowers on our side.

Then, we attacked the wood pile; we made quite a dent, and have a lot of wood for fires this summer.

Before:


After (not quite done):


Our wood pile NOW:


Finally, we faced the garage, spurred on by Chile's challenge of garage decluttering.

As you may remember, this is the garage before (several months ago):


You can see previous efforts here and here...

Here's what we accomplished today:

Hiking and camping gear hung on nails, organized, and stored in storage tubs we already owned.


An open space cleared by freecycling a large quantity of items we didn't need, but hadn't gotten rid of yet. Here's to more usable space... just in time for summer!

The Garage- Part Two

I tackled the workbench area of the garage today. It was a gorgeous 50 degrees outside.

Remember our "before"?

This is the result of today's cleaning and organization spree:

Everything in it's place, and for every place, a thing.

And look... my miter saw finally has a home! Now I can use it to finish the door jambs.

The Garage- A Fairy Tale

Once upon a time there was a nice 1 car garage. It lived a happy existence until a young couple moved in with all of their junk. The young couple filled it to the top with old clothes, moving boxes, bikes, scrap wood, and old doors.

One day the young couple cleaned out the entire garage and had a garage sale and freecycle event. The garage sighed a big sigh of relief. There was even room to park a CAR in there now!

Unfortunately, the young couple did NOT think far enough in the future and did not take the time to build storage or organize the garage and it's remaining inhabitants. Slowly, slowly the junk returned...

... including 900 feet of flooring, 6 doors, 5 chairs, a swamp cooler, backpacking supplies, a sheet of DRYWALL, and MORE!

The garage was sad. Nobody came to visit anymore, since they couldn't even get in the door!

Then, one day the young woman decided to install a door jamb, door, and trim. She wanted to use the new miter saw that they had gotten for Christmas, but there was nowhere to set it up and nothing to bolt it to... except the workbench at the back of the garage.

She made a valiant effort to dislodge some of the clutter...

and succeeded in finding homes for all of the garden and yard tools! She screwed some shelves up with old brackets and boards, screwed an old kitchen cabinet into the wall, and nailed rows of nails into the studs to hold shovels and rakes.

The garage breathed a small sigh of relief. At least a person could walk into it now!

Will the garage live happily ever after, or will the clutter seek vengeance upon the empty and organized space and swallow it whole? Stay tuned...

(Cost: $0 Materials: Used brackets, wood, nails, etc)