Flip flops in my yard, bicycles in my driveway…

No, I do not have children or grandchildren nearby.  My nieces and nephews one block over are too busy with sports, music lessons, and homework at this time of year to do a drop-by.  These items come from the kids next door.  I love those kids.

As I have written before, they have the largest yard in the neighborhood.  Theirs is the equivalent of two, maybe even three lots.  Yet, most days after school, they are playing in my yard, front and back.  They are climbing my dogwood tree.  And now, they are leaving their bikes parked in my driveway.  They spread out, those ones do.

When I was clearing out a flower bed yesterday, I found a golf ball, tennis ball, and an arrow.  Oh my, what that arrow must have missed to land where it did.  I am leaving it.  In back, there is a football by the side of the house.

I took the flip-flops over to their yard, moved the bikes so I could back my car out, and I thought how wonderful it is to have all this LIFE surging around me.

Another Project Ticked Off My List…

One of my favorite shows is American Pickers.  If you haven’t seen it, two guys travel all over the U.S. searching for barns that are full of people’s stuff.  They bargain for things they find, pay, and go on to the next great “pick.”  They are ethical, and if they find they have bought something that turns out to be valuable, they go back to offer more money.  I like that about them.

Among my folks and sisters, the best things we own are things we have found in thrift stores, re-sales, and auctions.  The very best things we own are things we have put together from our special finds.  Today, I put together another set of re-purposed items, and I made a shutter cupboard.

After we put up hay last summer, we went to one of the barns, and pulled down some old shutters.  My sister brought home six tall shutters, and she made a headboard out of them while I was there.  I brought back to North Carolina four short shutters to make a cupboard, but I am not a carpenter, or actually a woodworker of any kind.  I thought I would have to hire someone to help me make use of these old shutters.

Who knew that I could do it myself?  But I did that today with the advice of my sister, and several phone calls and texted pictures consult.  First, she suggested I buy an old kitchen cupboard to use as a base, making it easier for me.  Off to the Habitat for Humanity Restore I went a few weeks ago.  Then I made a  trip to my favorite, friendly, neighborhood Ace Hardware, coming home with some screws, hinges, and wheels.

I spent several weeks thinking about how to go about this project, using my limited experience.  Today, I finally gathered all the materials on my deck, and just jumped in.  I took off the door of the existing cabinet, using my electric drill and screwdriver.  (Ooden, ooden)  I had a few problems to figure out.  Three of the shutters were basically the same size, but I had to do some shimming to make it look like the cupboard wasn’t listing to starboard.   The phone calls and picture texts came into play when I tried to attach the hinges.  Finally, we figured out the hinges I bought would not work, so I just reused the original ones.  I didn’t need the wheels, so I will be returning those.

I’m just going to keep this cupboard on my deck.  I haven’t decided what to put inside on the shelves, but knowing me, it won’t be long before it is full.  All in all, I’m pretty happy with the way it turned out, and now I have another project ticked off my list.  Time to go picking, and maybe find something else to make involving a power tool.

Summer of Sand…

I finally got to the bottom of my pile of sand, measuring three yards. I am not sure what three yards of sand means, but it is a lot of sand. It has taken me two weeks, and thousands of shovels full, but I did it. And as a qualifier: NOT single-handedly, any more than my path was built by me single-handedly. It just feels like I did it all by myself, because I mostly did.

To backtrack…my sister brought me home from Wisconsin. She mostly, along with me somewhat, dug out 160 square feet of sod and clay. Two tons of flagstone and three yards of sand was delivered to my front yard and driveway. My sister went back to Wisconsin. A friend brought his yard man to help lay the flagstone. This yard man also built a 4’x4’ sandbox, and loaded it with sand, which I scraped down to level. That was my help. All the rest was me.

So how did I move the “Matterhorn” of sand that stood blocking most of my drive for two weeks?

I did it just like you’d eat an elephant…one bite at a time. One shovel full at a time, I loaded many a wheelbarrow, and spread it over my flagstone path and every single flower bed in my yard. I created a new flower-area, and I spread sand there. Over the last two weeks, I took a few days off to rest my muscles, but not that many. I scooped, shoveled, scraped, wheeled, dumped, raked, leveled, and did all of that all over again and again and again. It was good work. It is now done. It feels good, and looks good.

Best of all…that damn sand pile is gone, and this summer has a name. Hoo-boy.

Woman in 60’s Builds Flagstone Sidewalk, Single-handedly!

At least that is the newspaper headline I picture when I am lying aching in my bed at night.  Actually, it is not anywhere near single-handedly. I have had a lot of help, just not consistently.

My sister brought me home last week.  As I have reported in past posts, she is a dynamo, and can do anything.  For three years, I have been talking about building a walkway from my front door to my driveway.  I guess Anne was sick of hearing about it, because we had barely got the car unloaded and the cat picked up, when we had made our first of several trips to the Ace Hardware.  There, I purchased a flat shovel, a wheelbarrow, landscape fabric, and some gutter/drain/plumbing stuff for another of her projects for my house.

In one day, we shoveled and moved 160 square feet of sod and that good old Carolina red clay.  We lined it with fabric cloth, and then…then my sister left me, and went back to Wisconsin.  Oh.  She also left me with two tons of flagstone piled in my front yard.  It looked like this:

   Now what was I gonna do?  And three yards of sand came later that same afternoon.  See what faced me?  Scaaary.  But I persevered, and began shoveling and smoothing, as per my instructions by text message.  Hoo-boy.

Fortune shone down.  One of my friends looked at my dilemma, volunteered his yardman, and in three short (uh hem) hours, the flags were puzzled in, the pile of stone was depleted, and I had the nearly-completed walkway of my dreams.

The last few days, I have been moving sand from the mountain in my driveway.  It is like a plate of spaghetti, the more that goes out, the bigger that pile of sand seems.  Nevertheless,  things are progressing.  I have one more accomplishment to tick off, and the path really classes up the place.  I’m feeling pretty good about the whole experience (see headlines), and I am thinking, my sister isn’t the only dynamo in the family that can do anything.