From Greenhouse to Bean House

   With limited level gardening space, one must become creative when expanding the food plots.  The steep slope that radiates from the Little Bayou House in all directions leaves very little flat areas in which to make rows for plants.  Even putting up the little metal-framed greenhouse that my sweet sister-in-law sent me presented a problem.  Son decided to go with the slope making the tunnel head down the hillside to the Bay.  Since it was to be a temporary fix to keep the potted plants from freezing, I had no qualms about letting him do whatever he pleased as long as those night-blooming cereus plants stayed warm.  Surprisingly enough, they all survived our temps that plunged much further down than we ever expected.  The plants did ok and I was satisfied.

  A couple of weeks ago, that summer garden-planting bug hit and that is where things went amok. I had more plants and seeds than garden.  Even though people claim to want a garden, it is hard to give away plants once they are seeded. So, the problem of too little space had to be fixed with a bit of ingenuity.  As Son and Mark were taking down the greenhouse before an impending wind storm, it hit me that the large (now) empty space was usable for something!  Mark built some nice sized boxes to run along the sides of the (once) greenhouse and we filled them with soil and compost.  A bit of sisal twine was laced between the metal pipe framework and our greenhouse was now a bean house with two rows that are twenty feet in length! 

  The bean plants seem to be happy in their improvised home and this freed up a bit of space for another twenty or so tomato plants and about that many more pepper plants.  It is purely a case of make do with what you have by repurposing.  By the time the framework will need its top reattached for the winter, the beans will be long gone. Now that is thinking!  Double duty gardening!

Nothing Goes To Waste

  Back in the day, I was taught never to waste anything.  If something broke, you repaired it.  If something was not longer needed as its original purpose, you made it into something else.  You repaired, reused or repurposed everything.  Items were saved because money was tight back on the farm.  Nowadays, we live in a throwaway society. People cringe at the thought of reusing items or remaking items but that was not the norm years ago.  Now, as garbage dumps are overflowing, folks have a toss it attitude even when things can still be used.  I guess I still cannot break the train of thought that "Put it up. Some day, you made need that!" drilled into my head.  To this day, waste is a pet peeve of mine.  Use it until it is gone.  Make it over to be useful again.  Give it second life.  

  Critters on the Bayou are much the same.  They make do.  They use what they find.  They do not waste.  Just this afternoon, I noticed critters making use of something that others had tossed the wayside. The family of otters are great scavengers that will crack open and eat the mollusks that are embedded in the marsh.  It only takes a second for them to crack the shell, fish out the tasty treat and go on to the next one.  Once they drop the (almost) empty shell, others that cannot crack the shells, feast upon the remnants.  I observed as a small crab was pulling the shreds of mollusk from the now opened shell.  The little crab was a happy camper at his good fortune.  He would not go hungry tonight!  Once the crab had gotten his fill and buried down in the mud for a rest, a school of bull minnows raided the shell.  The shell was flipped, turned, uprighted and twisted.  Every tiny tidbit was being pulled from the mollusk shell. The minnows were in a feeding frenzy! Dozens of the wee fish fought over each and every scrap until the shell was pulled clean.  Nothing was wasted.  The shell sat empty.  That empty shell, itself, will not go to waste.  Algae will grow on the shell and Olive Nerites will harvest this as their food. Over time, the shell will slowly sink beneath the mud and give stability to the shoreline.  The marsh grass will become better rooted because of the presence of the shells making erosion from tides and storms less likely.  As the shell eventually deteriorates,  calcium is returned into the soil.  Nothing goes to waste.

  If only people could follow the example set forth by Mother Nature, this world would be a far better place.  There is no need to constantly replace what can be used again.  Waste is a terrible thing.  I think I will stick with the teaching of those long ago.  Reuse, repurpose, repair or recycle. My critter friends are onto something good here.

Repurposed for the best reason!

  I am all for making use of whatever is on hand instead of running out to buy new.  It just seems that we all turned into a "throwaway society" a while back.  It makes me happy to see the so-called "weekend crafters" turning unwanted items into useful things.  While this is all fine and dandy, what does make me sad, is to see folks cutting into, repainting, lopping in half all sorts of antique furniture.  Come on, folks!  If you dismantle and demolish something that is already useful as is, you are defeating the purpose.  Plus, those precious antique pieces that were made solely by hand, can never be replaced. I can say, though, that you are doing the antique dealers a fine service as once you deplete the source of antique furniture, the dealers can raise the price astronomically!  Not good for collector but good for the shop owners! However, if you take something that is beyond any sort of use and repurpose it into a new and useful thing, it is helpful.

  For the past thirty years or so, I have held onto a weird assortment of bed pieces.  By pieces, I am referring to the fact that I had three bed posts. five unmatched railings, one footboard spindle and five headboard decorative pieces.  All except for the railings, the items came from the same bed.  Just about the time that our first house burned to the ground (due to faulty wiring in a brand new radio!), some acquaintances' house caught on fire.  While we lost everything, their fire was contained to two rooms.  This is how the headboard and posts came into our possession.  Even though we were in dire straits ourselves, Mark went to help these folks clear up the mess.  He was sent home with the odd pieces.  Even though some were quite charred, I kept the pieces all of these years because I knew something fantastical could be created with them!  I was right!

  The need has suddenly arisen for the Little Bayou House to have a toddler bed.  My grandbabies are coming to visit!  The grand-princess is in need of a bed!  I posed the dilemma to Son and let him ponder the answer.  He is always good at solving things.  Sure enough, the next thing I knew, he was pulling the strange pieces of wood from the shed.  "Can I use these?" he asked.  I assured him that he was more than welcome to start creating....and he did.

  
  Son sawed, sanded, drilled and fitted the posts, railings and other pieces until he created a toddler sized bed.  He toted the parts inside and assembled his creation!  I was elated.  "Sorry it does not look like much." he said "I had to use a bunch of different types of wood.  Some are unfinished while others have different stains."  A thought went through my mind.  I can fix that!

   The whole thing was slathered with two coats of soft beige latex paint.  By slathering, I mean that I took no pains with getting a good coverage.  I just wanted a base for my next step.  Since nothing in the Little Bayou House looks "new", I did not want the little bed to look out of place. I took a hint from my gourd art.  My next step was to wax the bed with...of all things...shoe wax.  I used a dark brown wax over the entire bed and then buffed it with a shoe brush.  Yep, make do with what you have is a good mantra!  We added a crib mattress and the toddler bed was complete!  

  The great thing about the way Son made the bed is that when Grand-princess Mary Ruth is not using it as a bed, it can be used as a bench! Son built the thing sturdy enough to hold two adults and made the legs adjustable so it can be raised to bench height.  Now...tell me...is he smart or what?  

  His creation makes me glad that I am sort of a pack rat.  He looked at the other odd post and told me that he could make a great candlestick!  I do think I should show him the rest of the odds and ends of scrap furniture that I have saved over the years.  Perhaps now is the time that the weird assortment shall be repurposed into useful items!

When Boredom Strikes

  It has been a busy few days with the yard looking like a rain forest from the overgrowth of vines and bushes and the house beginning to resemble a flea market with boxes of stuff being packed to move to Darling Daughter's new home.  Even with all this busyness, I was beginning to feel a bit bored.  Little time has been allotted for crafts much less any sort of relaxation.  I knew this boredom was going to lead somewhere but I had no idea which direction.

  As my daughter is unpacking her belongings, she is also discarding things that do not match her decor.  Well, that is fine and dandy except that they get "discarded" to my house and I cannot leave well enough alone.  I wish I would have taken a "before" picture of the most awful looking hat rack that she so sweetly discarded my way.  It was one of those things that was popular back a few years when everything was coming up roses.  For some reason for a while, rose decor was all the rage.  I like roses...just not painted on everything from teapots to chairs...and surely not on hat racks. The hat rack was supposed to resemble a window frame that was repurposed into a useful item.  It had three "panes" (pains!) that were painted with some odd looking roses. That thing was, well for lack of a better word, ugly! That is when inspiration struck!  Halloween!

  Halloween is the time when you can take ugly, unwanted items and turn them into the most adorable decorations.  A little black paint does wonders on most anything!  It did on the hat rack.  What was once a weird creamy white "chippy" paint was smeared (literally smeared!) with a coat of flat black. I did not want this to look like some factory painted doodad.  The "panes" were then painted off white and Halloween inspired silhouettes were painted in each. I found the inspiration for these by doing a computer search for just that....Halloween silhouettes.  Since there is not a lot of detail in this type thing, I did not even draw the pictures...just painted.

Repurposing an old hat rack.  It once had pink roses painted on it but now..Halloween!!!

  I do think the hat rack is much improved.  So much so that I can now hardly wait until mid-September gets here!  Yep, I do decorate early for Halloween but it is just because of things like this hat rack...and boredom!  Moral of this tale...never throw away a good hat rack!  Turn it into a Halloween decoration!  You just cannot go wrong like that!  Ooooh!  Halloween!